photo credit: Anyone can claim to be an expert these days. Flickr/Alan Cleaver, CC BY
Disregard for experts who have spent years studying critical issues is a dangerous default position. The ability of our society to make decisions in the public interest is handicapped when evidence and thoughtfully presented arguments are ignored.
Read the full article here: Why We Need To Listen To The Real Experts In Science | IFLScience
A study from the Institute of Education has examined why these children of Chinese migrants are so high-achieving. It examined Australian schools, where 15-year olds from Chinese families are the equivalent of two years ahead of their Australian classmates. The study pointed to factors such as hard work and parental engagement.
via BBC News: Why do Chinese pupils do so well in school tests?
What these sorts of analyses show is that those countries do well on PISA tests, but their schools have a big advantage in that they operate in a different learning culture; the usual explanation for East Asian academic success is parental attitudes to learning.
There is a shortage of some 300,000 primary school teachers. At the other end of the education journey there is space for less than 20% of all students in Brazil’s highly regarded public universities – the rest pay fees for qualifications of variable quality. In the protests that have swept through Brazilian cities, education is a recurrent theme on placards and in social media.
Rankings have become an inescapable part of the reputation and brand image of universities, helping them to attract students, staff and research investment. No university website is complete without the claim to be in the top 100 for something or other.
Conferences are an inescapable part of academic life. They have many positive virtues – such as air miles and a chance to polish your reputation in public. But let’s be honest, they can be irritating. Put on your misspelt name badge and consider a few of the downsides – and then you can suggest your own least favourite items on the agenda.
Read more: BBC News: What makes a conference really irritating?
