students

The situation is grave: 12 million children in Pakistan have never attended school (two-thirds of them girls), Pakistani teachers killed for educating young women, and the bombing of girls’ schools. Female students have been targeted for attacks including the well-known shooting of Malala Yousafzai and her peers. That’s why hundreds of youth from around the globe are taking over the United Nations on July 12 to advocate for their right to safe education. 

I am a teacher of teachers, living in Tanzania. I came six years ago to work with primary teachers, teaching them how to use a comprehensive literacy instruction approach and to integrate literacy strategies into content instruction.  Tanzania is an interesting country, balancing between a traditional subsistence farming culture, and a 21st century future.  It is rich in resources, and poor in economy.  Typical of most developing countries, it has huge potential and big problems.  Education is at the core of both the potential and barriers here.

As IREX launches its Promoting New Media and Media Convergence in Russia program, examples of how new media is changing the nature of communications and media continually appear. The new generation of Russians is completely entrenched in new media and is now learning how to influence public opinion (both in good and not so good ways) in the country. A recent scandal surrounding President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the Moscow University School of Journalism offers proof of this evolving environment.

On behalf of IREX, I am pleased to announce that 22 diligent Azerbaijani students and their mentors won netbooks and flipcameras in a recent national contest for the ‘Best Research Essays Using Internet.' One hundred and sixty nine candidates entered from all over the country, notably Sumgait, Guba, Shirvan, Imishli, Ganja, Gazakh, Sheki, Zagatala, Ismayilli and Mingachevir. Plagiarism was penalised, with positive results.

Language transcends borders. That’s why I began studying Arabic six years ago. But when I met with female activists in a café in Fez yesterday, we used three (plus) languages to discuss challenges facing youth in Morocco. I asked questions in classical Arabic or fus-ha, and they answered in French with interludes in the local Moroccan dialect — an amalgam of Berber, fus-ha, and French. I summarized in fus-ha what I had pieced together, and they confirmed my accuracy with nods and giggles.

Belarusian Muskie fellow Yahor Luhauskikh stands out as a student leader in the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service.  Luhauskikh, a 2010 fellow studying public health, was recently chosen to represent his program in the Graduate Student Government