Monthly Archives: November 2019

How WhatsApp groups support Nigeria’s nurse graduates

How WhatsApp groups support Nigeria’s nurse graduates

Around 12,000 students are enrolled in Nigeria’s nursing schools each year. As it is in many health professions, these students often find it challenging after graduation when they search for and start their first job. They feel unprepared and have difficulties to put their knowledge from school into practice. In addition, many feel unwelcome in their teams, which […] … learn more→

Education is rehabilitation: How GED classes change improve prison reform

Education is rehabilitation: How GED classes change improve prison reform

More penal system decision-makers are experimenting with training programs that reduce recidivism and supply talent for woefully understaffed technology fields. Companies already have problems meeting the demand for skilled technical talent, and analysts forecast that the need for computer programmers will grow by 27% by the year 2024, according to an A&E expose. By teaching […] … learn more→

Free adult education is vital for a healthy economy – and UK politicians are finally starting to get this

Free adult education is vital for a healthy economy – and UK politicians are finally starting to get this

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has performed a miracle – she has managed to get journalists and politicians talking about the need for adult education. Her passionate speech in Blackpool, and interview on the BBC’s Today programme, asserted Labour’s plans for a radical expansion of lifelong learning. In doing so, she stimulated national interest in an educational policy […] … learn more→

Democratic candidates want to boost school funding – research shows that will help low-income students

Democratic candidates want to boost school funding – research shows that will help low-income students

With few exceptions, the various Democratic plans for public education share a common theme: more funding, less privatizing. Candidates Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders have promised to dramatically increase or triple current federal funding for low-income students and curtail charter school growth. Elizabeth Warren recently went even further, promising to quadruple federal funding for low-income students and end federal funding […] … learn more→

How higher ed can deal with ethical questions over its disgraced donors

How higher ed can deal with ethical questions over its disgraced donors

Private donors are giving colleges and universities record amounts of money – along with increasingly frequent bouts of public shame when they turn out to have embarrassing baggage. Revelations that Yale, Columbia, Cornell and other prestigious schools in the U.S. and elsewhere accepted millions over the past five years from members of the Sackler family have raised questions from students and alumni. The schools kept […] … learn more→

Another leftist College in a death spiral…and why

Another leftist College in a death spiral…and why

We clearly hit “peak education” a few years ago, and overall college student population has been dropping for years now. The for-profits have taken the brunt of this, though that’s more of a technicality—those schools are being regularly closed as frauds. Amongst the “legit” schools (and bear with me on that classification), the community colleges […] … learn more→

Teaching critical thinking is not universities’ raison d’être

Teaching critical thinking is not universities’ raison d’être

Critical thinking is one of the supposed pillars of higher education, lauded in commencement addresses and celebrated on institutional websites. The great crises of our day – climate change, political corruption, economic injustice and corporate surveillance – demand problem-solvers who can apply their critical minds to complex situations, we are told. Critical thinking skills are […] … learn more→

Setting yourself free of perfectionism?

Setting yourself free of perfectionism?

I realised the other day, in the midst of a brutal surge of anxiety about my PhD, that I never fully commit… to… A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G…. UNLESS I am assured it will be successful. Mistakes? Phooey. Perfection. YES! Pleasing and impressing. YES! Life’s Journey in a straight line. YES! I am a recovering perfectionist, as so beautifully […] … learn more→