Category: Education

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday, marking Maduro’s first visit to Brazil since 2015.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, arrived in Brasilia on Sunday ahead of a Latin American summit scheduled for Tuesday.

Diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the South American powerhouse have been significantly strained since Jair Bolsonaro assumed power in 2019. Bolsonaro issued a decree prohibiting Maduro from entering the country and expressed his support for self-proclaimed opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Following Lula’s triumph in the 2022 elections, there has been a dramatic shift in the diplomatic approach towards Venezuela. Lula extended an invitation to Maduro to attend his inauguration in January 2023, ending the ban imposed on Maduro.

President Lula took to Twitter to express his enthusiasm for Maduro’s visit, considering it a historic moment. He expressed his eagerness to re-establish diplomatic and commercial relations with the Venezuelan government.

“Our commercial relationship once had a flow of 6 billion dollars. Today it is 2 billion. This is bad for Venezuela and for Brazil. But the relationship between our countries can also be cultural, economic, in the exchange of science and technology, in the fight against drug trafficking on our borders,” wrote Lula.

For his part, Maduro also applauded the resumption of the bilateral relationship between the countries.

“My meeting with the President @LulaOficial constitutes a historic, transcendental fact and a victory for the dignity of our peoples. The rescue and reinvigoration of the union between Brazil and Venezuela is the correct path that will lead us towards the development and integration of the Great Homeland,” Maduro tweeted.

The South American Leaders Summit will be held Tuesday in Brasilia at the Itamaraty Palace. The presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela have confirmed their presence.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Minister of Education, Sports and Youth (MPAN) Athina Michaelidou said on Thursday that Cyprus’ results in the PIRLS 2021 survey are encouraging for the country. Michaelidou was speaking during a press conference organised by the Ministry to present the main results of the International Programme on Progress in Reading Literacy (PIRLS 2021) for Cyprus. The Minister noted that the PIRLS survey is organised by the International Agency for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), is conducted every five years, and provides internationally comparative data on the reading and comprehension skills of primary school students in grade 4. “The results of Cyprus in the PIRLS 2021 survey are exciting and very encouraging for our country”, she stressed, explaining that “the performance of our students has increased significantly compared to our previous participation in the survey and exceeds the median value of the scale.” The pilot survey took place in March and April 2020, with the participation of 366 students from 20 schools in Cyprus. The main survey was conducted in March-June 2021 with the participation of 4,589 students from 160 public and private schools. 272 teachers and 4,352 parents/guardians also took part in the survey. It was found that the average performance of Cyprus on the PIRLS scale was 511. Furthermore, this score represents a statistically significant improvement (17 points) compared to Cyprus’ previous participation in 2001 (494). In addition, girls’ performance (515) increased compared to boys’ (506). In statements to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), the President of the Pancyprian Organisation of Greek Teachers (POED) expressed her hope that the announcement of the PIRLS results would be the beginning of further support for teachers, our children, and the public school. Myria Vassiliou added that it was unfair to silence or ignore in public discourse the high performance and success of children in international surveys. “This could not have been achieved without our teachers’ dedication, commitment, and love, even with limited support. This is further confirmed by the fact that these results are for the period 2021, a period in which our schools had to cope with a challenging daily routine due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” she added.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The British government on Friday announced its commitment to investing a substantial amount of up to £1 billion ($1.2 billion) in the semiconductor sector over the next decade.

The 20-year national semiconductor strategy came as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was attending the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Japan.

The investment aims to double down on design, research and advanced chip leadership, according to the government.

It is expected to improve access to chip infrastructure, enable increased research and development activities, and facilitate international collaborations, with up to £200 million will be allocated over the years 2023 and 2025.

Prior to the summit, the UK and Japan made a commitment to collaborate in the semiconductor sector to enhance research and development efforts and supply chain capabilities.

“Semiconductors underpin the devices we use every day and will be crucial to advancing the technologies of tomorrow,” Sunak said in a statement.

“Our new strategy focuses our efforts on where our strengths lie, in areas like research and design, so we can build our competitive edge on the global stage,” he added.

The UK and Japan made a joint commitment to establish a robust semiconductor partnership, with an investment of up to £2 million in early-stage semiconductor research next year.

The British government has a target of becoming a “global science and technology superpower.”

Source: Anadolu Agency

King Felipe VI of Spain has visited Wales to see his daughter Princess Leonor graduate from a Welsh college.

He attended the ceremony at UWC Atlantic College in Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, with his wife Queen Letizia and daughter Princess Sofia.

Princess Leonor, heir to the Spanish throne, began her £67,000 two-year course at the boarding school in 2021.

Atlantic College has around 4,500 students and has a history of attracting overseas royals.

Princess Leonor de Borbon, 17, is the eldest of the royal couple’s two daughters.

The royal couple personally paid for the tuition fees and their daughter applied for a place through the United World Colleges’ (UWC) Spanish committee.

Executive director of UWC International, Jens Waltermann, previously said the heir to the Spanish throne was joining “4,500 other students from 155 countries, and from a diverse range of backgrounds, who will be studying at one of our 18 schools”.

Atlantic College is a residential sixth form college for 15 to 19 year olds.

The college also teaches the International Baccalaureate combined with co-curricular community service activities to around 350 of its students.

Founded in 1962, the estate near Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan includes the 12th Century St Donat’s Castle and was once the former home of American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Queen Noor of Jordan is college president and one of her daughters graduated from the institution.

Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, also studied there.

The college has also welcomed famous visitors in the past, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, the former Prince of Wales and the Emperor of Japan.

In 2013, the college once again gained the world’s attention when two Pakistani teenagers shot by the Taliban while travelling with their friend Malala Yousafzai – now a Nobel Prize laureate – were given scholarships to study there.

Source: BBC

The Irish High Court has ruled that a decision by a school to suspend teacher Enoch Burke in August 2022 was correct.

Wilson’s Hospital School had asked the court to find that it been right to place Mr Burke on paid leave pending the outcome of a disciplinary process.

He had argued that was unlawful and a result of his opposition to the extension of transgender rights.

The school had also obtained a High Court injunction requiring him to stay away during his suspension.

Mr Justice Alexander Owens ruled that, due to Enoch Burke’s behaviour at a school board of management meeting, it was “rational and reasonable” for it to expect him to engage in further harmful or disruptive conduct.

The judge said the board was entitled to take into account that Mr Burke did not address the issue of how he would behave in the school.

He said there was no evidence that any relevant matter was not duly considered or that any irrelevant matter was taken into account by the board in arriving at its decision.

Judge Owens also ruled that Enoch Burke had no right to enter the school once he had been suspended and that his attendance afterwards amounted to trespass.

Mr Burke’s continued refusal to comply with court orders banning him from the premises resulted in him being found in contempt of court and jailed for 108 days.

Following his release from prison he has continued to breach the injunction and was being subjected to a daily fine of €700 (£606).

Mr Owens said the school was now entitled to a permanent injunction prohibiting Mr Burke from turning up at the site.

He awarded the school €15,000 (£12,945) in damages for trespass, in addition to the daily fines imposed for breach of court orders.

Enoch Burke is appealing the decision of the school to dismiss him following a disciplinary hearing.

In a counterclaim, he said the disciplinary process against him should be set aside and that it breaches his constitutional rights, including his right to freedom of expression of his religious beliefs.

The school had directed him to use the pronouns preferred by a student transitioning to a different gender.

Source: BBC

While the concept of homeschooling is not new, there has been an explosion of parents choosing to teach their children at home since coronavirus shut down schools during the pandemic. On this episode of 360 View, Scottie Nell Hughes speaks with a Catholic homeschooling practitioner and educator, Steven Rummelsburg, about the growing number of parents around the world who are choosing alternatives to the traditional classroom, and what it means for the future of education. Scottie and Steven discuss if a move to homeschooling is perceived as a threat by big government.

Source: Russia Today

Shock has descended upon Dubona, a Serbian village about an hour from the capital Belgrade, as residents mourn eight victims of a mass shooting.

Uros Blazic, a 21-year-old resident of the nearby town Mladenovac, randomly sprayed bullets from his car after having an argument in Dubona late on Thursday, injuring 14 people besides the eight he killed.

The drive-by shootings began some 42 kilometers (26 miles) south of Belgrade and continued in two neighboring villages, including Dubona, where he returned after picking up his automatic rifle from his home in Mladenovac.

Rushing to the scenes of the shootings, Anadolu witnessed the traces of shooting, which were visible at every step, including blood splattered on the ground.

The neighbors and relatives of those were killed were also there, mourning the loss of their loved ones.

Stefan Nikolic, a local in Dubona, told Anadolu that no one thought such an attack could occur in the town or other places in the country.

“Unfortunately, it happened. What has occured should never ever happen again. God forbid, this is not good for anything, not for Serbia, not for anything, not for Europe, not for anything, he’s killed a lot of children, it’s scary,” said Nikolic.

A police officer and his sister were among the victims of Blazic, who Nikolic said is the son of an army general.

“His father was in the general staff, a general, he probably took the weapon from his father … We’ve been in chaos since yesterday. It’s frightening. We demand the president step up and (bring) a stricter law, that everything is searched. Unfortunately, there are many illegal weapons in Serbia,” said Nikolic.

Expressing his sorrow for the deaths of the victims, Tikomir Pavlovic, whose home was on the route of the shooter, said he couldn’t even leave his yard when he heard the gunshots.

“I heard a burst fired one after the other every four or five seconds. I was terrified. I went to the gate, and people gathered. I didn’t go outside. I couldn’t because of the anguish,” said Pavlovic.

After a manhunt that lasted several hours, police arrested Blazic in Kragujevac early on Friday morning.

In a search of the house where the suspect was hiding, police found four hand grenades, several boxes of pistol bullets, several pieces of rifle ammunition, a frame for a handgun, two frames likely for an automatic rifle, an optics carrier, and an automatic rifle without no serial number.

Women and children are among the dead and injured.

Health Minister Danica Grujicic said 13 of the injured were in critical condition despite the intense efforts of the doctors.

“Because, with those gunshot injuries, you can never be sure what exactly was damaged,” said Grujicic.

Ministry has requested blood donations for the injured.

President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday announced amendments to the law on arms and ammunition control and beefed up police patrols around schools in the wake of two mass shootings this week.

Less than 48 hours before Blazic’s attack, Serbia was shaken by another mass shooting, this time in a school in the capital Belgrade.

Eight students and a security guard were killed by a teenage boy who opened fire.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The Univesrity of Cyprus’ Laboratory-Isle of Excellence in Environmental Fluid Mechanics, is participating in a new research project to improve desert dust storm monitoring and early warning to citizens.

CiROCCO, according to a press release, is ‘the new ambitious research project’ of the European Union and is funded by the Horizon-Europe programme, running from March 1, 2023 to February 28, 2026, with a budget of pound 3.5 million.

It was launched last month and the aim is to create a sustainable network of electronic detection nodes in desert ecosystems such as in Egypt, Serbia and Spain, develop data processing services based on technological infrastructures and provide data to the research community in order to improve the performance of climate change models for early and reliable warning of citizens.

The project is coordinated by the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) in Greece and involves 12 organisations from seven countries: Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Egypt and Serbia.

The Laboratory-Isle of Excellence in Environmental Fluid Mechanics of the University of Cyprus, under the guidance of Professor Marina Neophytou, will lead as the head of the pilot study for the monitoring of Desert Dust Episodes in Cyprus.

In particular, it is noted, the Cypriot pilot study aims to investigate the interaction between an already congested environment due to human activity, as is the case of the Municipality of Dali, and the additional impact due to Desert Dust Episodes.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

A cooperation agreement aimed at developing joint actions in the fields of education, research and innovation was signed on the 30th of May 2023 by the Open University of Cyprus (OUC) and the CYENS Center of Excellence. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Rector of OUC, Professor Petros Pashiardis, and the President of the Council of CYENS and Mayor of Nicosia, Mr. Constantinos Yiorkadjis. The OUC is a founding member of CYENS, which operates in Cyprus with funding from the Horizon 2020 programme, as a joint venture between the Municipality of Nicosia (coordinator), the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Germany), University College London (United Kingdom), the University of Cyprus, the Cyprus University of Technology and OUC. The OUC research teams at CYENS are led by Associate Professor Loizos Michael and Associate Professor Jahna Otterbacher. The objective of the Agreement is to facilitate and promote further the cooperation between the two organizations for joint ventures and research proposals that concern sciences, technology and innovation, the development and funding of research activities between OUC and CYENS research groups, the strengthening of the offer of distance learning programs and courses, the exchange of researchers, the co-organization of scientific and other events, as well as the utilization of the CYENS laboratories by the OUC community and vice versa. The cooperation agreement was signed in the presence of OUC Vice Rector, Professor Vayos Liapis, the Director of Administration and Finance of the University Mr. Christophoros Christodoulides, and the General Director of CYENS Professor Chrysanthou Yiorgos.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

China revised its conscription policy this week, announcing that people with military experience along with college students will be on top of military draft lists if the country enters a war.

The changes, prepared by the State Council and the Central Military Commission, aim “to provide institutional guarantees for consolidating national defense and building strong armed forces,” the government said in a statement on Wednesday.

The new rules, which take effect on May 1, will help the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with “recruiting more high-caliber soldiers” and improving the efficiency of the conscription system, the statement said.

The Chinese military’s newspaper, PLA Daily, noted that prioritizing the recruitment of skilled veterans would allow the army to rapidly develop its combat capability in the event of conflict.

The conscription of educated college students would improve the overall quality of the PLA and facilitate its transition into a “professionalized force,” Chinese military expert Song Zhongping told the Global Times newspaper.

The PLA Daily also stressed that such an approach falls in line with the goal of “acceleration of the mechanization, informatization and intelligentization” of the Chinese Armed Forces. A commander, who spoke with the paper, said the military was interested in both male and female students or graduates, particularly those with a background in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

China, which has the world’s largest military – comprising 2 million personnel – is planning to complete the modernization of its forces by 2035.

The changes to the draft rules come amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington, following the downing of what the US claimed was a Chinese “spy balloon” in February, and talks between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California earlier this month.

China responded to Tsai’s tour of the US by launching major drills around Taiwan, simulating a blockade of the island.

President Joe Biden has pledged on several occasions that the US will defend Taiwan militarily if China decides to use force to take control over the self-governed island. Earlier this year, media outlets obtained a memo from the head of US Air Mobility Command, General Mike Minihan, who speculated that Washington and Beijing could enter a war as soon as 2025.

Source: Russia Today