Ainley explains how English education is now driven by the economy and politics, having failed to deliver upward social mobility and a brighter future. Concludes with suggestions for positive change.
Teachers can shape their students' educational careers. Research shows that children taught by different teachers often experience very different educational outcomes. This begs the questions: how ...are teachers assigned to schools in different countries?.
Mathematical modelling has played a pivotal role in understanding the epidemiology of and guiding public health responses to the ongoing coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Here, we ...review the role of epidemiological models in understanding evolving epidemic characteristics, including the effects of vaccination and Variants of Concern (VoC). We highlight ways in which models continue to provide important insights, including (1) calculating the herd immunity threshold and evaluating its limitations; (2) verifying that nascent vaccines can prevent severe disease, infection, and transmission but may be less efficacious against VoC; (3) determining optimal vaccine allocation strategies under efficacy and supply constraints; and (4) determining that VoC are more transmissible and lethal than previously circulating strains, and that immune escape may jeopardize vaccine-induced herd immunity. Finally, we explore how models can help us anticipate and prepare for future stages of COVID-19 epidemiology (and that of other diseases) through forecasts and scenario projections, given current uncertainties and data limitations.
There is a discernible and growing gap between the qualifications that a university degree certifies and the actual generic, 21st-century skills with which students graduate from higher education. By ...generic skills, it is meant literacy and critical thinking skills encompassing problem solving, analytic reasoning and communications competency.
In his belated reply to my 2006 article 'Against autonomy as an educational aim', Christian Wendelborn advances two objections to my argument and proposes two new candidates for an educational aim ...deserving of the name autonomy. I show here that his objections miss their mark and that neither of his new candidates is appointable.
When parents are asked what they want for their children, they usually answer that they want their children to be happy. Why, then, is happiness rarely mentioned as an aim of education? This book ...explores what we might teach if we were to take happiness seriously as an aim of education. It asks, first, what it means to be happy and, second, how we can help children to understand what happiness is. It notes that, to be truly happy, we have to develop a capacity for unhappiness and a willingness to alleviate the suffering of others. Criticizing the present almost exclusive emphasis on economic well-being and pleasure, it discusses the contributions of making a home, parenting, cherishing a place, development of character, interpersonal growth, finding work that one loves, and participating in a democratic way of life. Finally, it explores ways in which to make schools and classrooms happy places.
Higher education institutions have traditionally nurtured artistic and scientific development and served as catalysts for innovative ideas and products. However, contemporary discourse too often ...relegates the concept of innovation to the private sector, where the rhetoric of "disruption" frequently reduces innovation to economic terms. As a result, innovations that could benefit society instead exacerbate existing inequities, and the environmental factors that stimulate long-term innovative progress are neglected. "Creating a Culture of Mindful Innovation in Higher Education" offers a different vision by identifying the conditions that enable college and university administrators, faculty, and staff to promote an innovative institutional culture. Mindful innovation is defined through six central tenets: societal impact; the necessity of failure; creativity through diversity; respect for autonomy and expertise; thoughtful consideration for the dimensions of time, efficiency, and trust; and the incentivization of intrinsic motivation and progress over scare tactics and disruption. Michael Lanford and William G. Tierney offer a clearheaded analysis of the challenges and opportunities in creating a culture of mindful innovation and argue that the institutions that do so will be poised to lead entrepreneurial endeavors, scientific progress, and greater social equity in the twenty-first century.
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