Saturday 24 October 2015

UK Schools Adopt Chinese Style Lessons

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A study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found out that school children in the UK had stagnated in recent years as compared to China and other east Asian countries.


Chinese Schooling System :


Chinese education system believes in evening classes, curtailing the lesson break to indulge more in the key subjects and also to encourage serious measures to stop children from bunking STEM subjects.

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Elizabeth Truss in a speech said, “Teachers need to learn from the Asian tigers to ensure pupils catch up with their peers in top-performing countries.”
International League urges that the UK kids are up to three years behind those in the Far East.

Addressing the Oxford Conference in Education, Mrs Truss said, “We need to be much more ambitious. Our ambition must be to out-educate the rest of the world. Until we agree that doing well is an unequivocally good thing and that it is attainable by all, we will continue to waste talent.”
In order to upgrade the quality of the global students and focus more into education, the government should adopt measures like staging an hour-long after-school classes in place of homework tasks and eliminating time-wasting during the day and converting that into an additional half-hour “enrichment” lesson.


Check out the opinion of various educationists and student counselors on the merit system of China.


The Change :


The UK Government organised a paid trip for a team of leading teachers of UK to China, last year to find out how schools in China have successfully improved the standards of maths and science and indulged the young minds into them.


Depending on the Chinese curriculum, a report had been prepared to reform the UK education system. These are few amendments suggested:


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1. The “slack time” on the day sessions should be cut down. The wasted minutes are cumulatively converted into a 30-minute “enrichment session”.


2. Teachers could utilise the “enrichment session” to squeeze in additional “fast learning activities” for pupils in maths.


3. To utilise the evening timings effectively, schools have to introduced a series of hour-long after-school maths classes – in place of homework.


4. The report also suggested additional changes such as including advanced maths topics for younger primary school pupils, focus on mental arithmetic and also providing in-service training for teachers.

Mrs Truss said, “Our ambition must not just be to catch up with Germany and Poland but to overtake them,” she said. “Not just to learn from the Asian tigers but add to it – do it better, smarter, more creatively.”
UK schools should engage more into running a longer day session and teaching into the evenings and weekends to raise standards. The new rules unveiled last year, get the privilege to purge out the traditional schooling system and offer extended learning modules to all primary and secondary students.


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A Department for Education spokesman said: “In 2010 only a handful of schools were allowed to offer a longer school day. The government is giving all schools the freedom to set the length of the school day and term to meet the needs of their parents and pupils.Teaching children in high-quality lessons after school mean pupils have access to the excellent facilities and teaching available at the school, with clear benefits to children’s attainment.”

The Bottom Line :


The growing IT skill gap among the younger generations in the UK, have raised the eyebrows of many. In order to tackle the further skill gap in the UK economy, the education system needs to re-restructured to bring in the interest of younger minds in science and maths.


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Wednesday 7 October 2015

Is Online The Best Way To Study Business?

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Want to get a business degree? Getting ready to boost your career by studying business? But are you ready to bear the heavy weight of student loans? If not, then you need to consider online business studies. Today you can find numerous quality business management courses online that help you acquire necessary skills and earn an accredited degree. In fact, with growing demand for online courses, opportunities for studying online are increasing exponentially. Take a look..

Why go online

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Many experts believe that eLearning can prove to be an effective tool for college and business education as over 39 per cent of learners in the UNC system pursued at least a single online course during the 2013-14 academic year. Although online learning primarily helps those learners who are unable to pursue traditional classroom based courses due to various reasons like financial and geographical obstacles, still female learners and African-American students are mostly overrepresented in eLearning.

Marty Kotis, chairperson of the Online Education Working Committee and member of the UNC-system Board of Governors, said “It serves people that are trying to balance their lives. They’re trying to balance work and family and going to school. It also serves people that are in rural areas as well.”
He believes that by studying online learners can avoid students debts and other costs like housing and travel expenses costs related with a traditional B-school or university experience.
Kotis added “In online ed, you don’t have all those extra fees sitting in. So if you look at it that way, it’s about half the cost — not to mention the opportunity cost.”

He spoke about a female learner at the Winston-Salem State University, who utilised online courses to earn a recognised degree as her existing job prevented her from studying a traditional course.

He added “I think the flexibility is critical — the asynchronous nature of the education — so they can choose when they’re learning is key.”
So if you are also planning to earn a business degree then accredited online diploma in management courses can be certainly beneficial for you.


Best way to study business

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By studying business online you will be able to understand the core business concepts as well as develop required management and leadership skills in the most flexible and convenient way.

Moreover, you will also develop a thorough understanding of how a business works and will be able to lead your company towards success. By pursuing an online business diploma you will be able to become an effective manager and business leader in a flexible and affordable way. This will allow you to work and study simultaneously and land the next big promotion.


But do online business courses offer you adequate interaction opportunities?
Jenna A. Robinson, president of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, said “You can set up online forums or opportunities for chatting online, but it’s not the same as having a Socratic discussion in a classroom together.”

An exciting way to learn

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However, Marty Kotis believes restricted interaction can actually be beneficial for online learners.
He said “Think about in a lecture class how much you actually communicate with other people. You don’t really.”
Moreover, with the utilisation of gamifcation, use of digital games for learning, online business education can reach the next level.

Kotis added “This is really an exciting time for students and the opportunities they’re going to have because of online ed. We are just at the starting point of this.”
What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions with us by commenting below.


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