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June 19, 2009
There is, however, a general negligence towards education in Brazil. Policies do not address the needs of students and professionals who work in the field, and school facilities are poor. To attest to government neglect towards education, on April 13, about 8000 teachers of the public school system advised the government on a case of general paralysis and declared a strike.
By Omar Chu, Jackeline Macksuelen, Megan Walsh
British Columbia, CANADA, Brasilia, BRAZIL and New Jersey, US - In the year 2009, teenagers worldwide look to their leaders in hopes that their actions will benefit their generation a better than the actions of previous politicians. These politicians, who are responsible for the education of the mosaic generation (people born between 1984 and 2002), have their own ways of going about it. In Canada, Brazil and the United States, young people hope for a future of responsible education policies from their leaders.
In British Columbia, Canada, where the provincial government controls education policy, a provincial election is beginning to heat up. Plenty of mudslinging has passed between the centre-right Liberals and the left wing New Democratic Party (NDP) over carbon taxes and the economy, but an important issue that has flown under the radar is education.
Aiming for their third term in office, the incumbent Liberals’ platform runs on increased funding by over $800 million by the year 2011 to 2012, including for ESL (English as a Second Language) programs, community literacy and securing the schools against possible earthquake damage.
The NDP platform promises to avoid closing schools as the Liberals had, as well as actually meeting previously set class size requirements and increasing special education teachers and teacher assistants. Neither party was available for interviews.
The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) is showing no restraint in throwing its weight behind the NDP. The teacher’s union has its own election website and runs several television ads against the Liberals. They claim that the Liberals’ previous increases in spending have not matched the rate of inflation and that school boards’ budgets are insufficient yet still being frozen.
“As teachers we know what this will mean,” said Irene Lanzinger, President of the Federation. “It will mean a further round of cuts, it will mean larger classes, and it will mean that we have a very difficult time meeting the needs of students with special needs.”
Among students there is a divide separate from the Liberal-NDP split; the divide is between those who are concerned, and those who just don’t care.
“It doesn't matter who wins the election,” said Grade 10 student Vince Ye who studies at a Coquitlam public school. “Neither one's going to change education. They're all the same.” “I’m unfortunately just not informed on those matters,” lamented 17-year-old Melissa Jennings.
However, students who are following the election are incredibly passionate. Public High School student Jannika Nyberg was full of criticism for the Liberal-run education system. “First of all, class sizes are way too big and there’s not enough support for ESL students,” she said. “Now, we have classes of over 30 kids when a couple years ago we had classes of 19-20 where kids could actually get specialized attention.”
Nyberg said solutions can be found in increased funding and quality teacher training programs. She supports Shannon Watkins, the NDP candidate in her riding because she is trustworthy and will work hard for her constituents.
Robert Vagramov, a Grade 11 student who has begun volunteering for Liberal candidate Iain Black, agreed that funding is important, but believed it will be the Liberals who are actually willing to deliver it.
“I think that the BC Liberals have a very good plan for the budget, primarily because they are increasing funding to education while enrollment rates are down," Vagramov said. "Enrollment rates have been down the past few years and they continue to go down. There are a couple new schools being built in the region, so I think [the Liberals] are the best. From the NDP, I definitely haven’t seen anything better than the Liberals, but I haven’t really seen anything at all in regards to education.”
Another Liberal student, Justin Murphy, provided a middle ground between Vagramov and Nyberg. He believed the NDP would be better for education, but thought the damage they would do to the economy is too great to justify.
In Brazil, students have participated in major decisions of the government, and literally fought for democracy and freedom of expression. When teachers walked out on April 13, 2009 asking for a wage increase, students united, and in the spirit of earlier student movements, requested an immediate solution from the government.
Brazilian students had painted their faces in 1992 to remove the president from power through impeachment, and they then became known historically as the “Painted Faces.” This gesture influenced the new generation of students to paint themselves in favor of certain objectives. As a result of these struggles, there is now the National Union of Students (UNE) , which represents Brazilian students nationwide.
Some administrative policies are favorable to student representation, and there are several projects to promote education. Some of these projects are active and ongoing in National Congress and House of Commons. These programs allow student access to free public university education.
"I was favoured and won a full scholarship to study fashion" said 18-year-old student Gecilene Basso.
There is, however, a general negligence towards education in Brazil. Policies do not address the needs of students and professionals who work in the field, and school facilities are poor. To attest to government neglect towards education, on April 13, about 8000 teachers of the public school system advised the government on a case of general paralysis and declared a strike.
"I decided to join the strike because it is for a good cause: our salaries and our dignity, and because I couldn´t stay in the classroom while my colleagues were fighting for me," said Elizabeth Coutinho, a teacher. The strike is for an indefinite period to achieve a wage increase that had been agreed upon in 2008.
"The strike does not intend to harm the society, quite the contrary,” said Antonio Lisboa, leader of the Teachers Union of the Federal District (DF-Sinpro). “We need it to help to ensure that our duty is fulfilled."
With a decisive attitude, students facing this lack of administrative
policy and education decided to unite and were present at all Teachers Union assemblies.
policy and education decided to unite and were present at all Teachers Union assemblies.
Students requested a solution from the government so that teachers could return to classrooms and avoid a greater loss of education. Graduating students were especially involved. They will be greatly affected by the strike due to changes in the school calendar year, which affect their ability to meet deadlines for university applications, exams, and ceremonies.
But most students were in favor of the teachers’ requests. They supported the teachers because they recognized that teachers have the right to fight for their rights.
"We learn from them, we are not here for the strike, but we are here to help teachers reach the desired goal, helping those who help us grow as students and as people,” said 17-year-old student Dyhorrani da Silva Beira, in the assembly meeting on the 13th.
With this strike, Brazilian students have shown that even though young people sometimes go unnoticed in education politics, they are an important group to consider.
From roaring beaches on the coasts to towering mountains in between, the United States has an extremely diverse landscape--almost as diverse as the nation’s political views and opinions on how the country should be run. This includes the education of the nation’s upcoming citizens in high schools.
In 2008, the United States chose Barack Obama to become the 44th president. This gave him the power to make the final decisions in education policy. This power will decide the fate of millions of current high school students who, along with their educators, have strong opinions on the future of education in the country.
“What President Obama is doing for our education is certainly my concern as a student,” said sophomore Maung Aung of Mainland Regional High School in New Jersey. “Our parents will tell us that we are the future, but we need to remind them that they are the present and that they need to invest in us to help us have our future.”
Now, the leading goals of the president, as noted on the Obama campaign’s official website, is to make college more accessible, and to reform the No Child Left Behind Act enacted by former president George W. Bush.
“For students it all comes down to testing,” said Richard Lawrence, Vice Principal of Buena Regional High School. “In the core areas of English, Science and Mathematics, students are expected to meet minimum standards on state tests. If a school fails to meet the minimum requirements (which are a percentage of students passing the tests) they can face consequences from the federal government. So there is quite a bit of pressure during testing time."
But Lawrence has not found much change occurring for his school yet. “I am sure there have been minor adjustments and changes along the way. Nothing I could speak to at this point”.
John Capasso, a special education teacher at Mainland Regional High School, agreed that Obama was a bit too new to the presidency to really know the full effects of his policies on schools. But he does not like programs put in place by the previous administration.
“[With No Child Left Behind], you can’t lump everyone in and hide the numbers of the people who don’t do well, while at the same time, calling the proposal to get every student up to grade level by 2014 ‘unrealistic’,” Capasso said. He hopes that President Obama will follow through with what he has promised.
Some students, such as Junior Ogadinma Onwuka of Mainland Regional High School, Rebecca Hoffman of Holy Spirit and Matt Santoro of Atlantic Christian High School, could not think of any education policies of the Obama administration that could be considered good. In fact two of the three students agreed on his being “too busy” with other matters to attend to the education issues.
Other students like Josh Till, also a student at Mainland Regional had specific requests of Obama. "[He should] change a law for the HSPA and state testing so that the people who don’t do as well on the test get more money than the people who do better,” said Till. “Why should the people who [don’t do well] be stricken? It just means that they need more help and more support,” Till said, referring to a policy in effect which states that schools with low test scores are penalized with less funding.
Despite some differences in opinion, the general consensus among concerned citizens was that the quality of education should be the highest possible. High school sophomore Maung Aung agreed.
“Those local, lower divisions should have the same sense of responsibility that I hope President Obama and the federal and state governments have in assuring that what we receive is not only the best funding possible (money does not make the man, so it certainly does not make the student), but simply the best education possible,” said Aung.
Students such as Aung in the United States, Gecilene Basso and Dyhorrani da Silva Beira in Brazil, and Robert Vagramov in Canada have expectations of their leaders. With the next decade around the corner, the politicians of today have a chance to prove themselves to the children of tomorrow through their education policies.
PEARL World Youth News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://pearl.iearn.org.
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