In today’s talking points: Parents lose money over closure of training centres, Primary students live up to high expectations to code experiments for astronauts to complete in space, Universities adopt social media click-rate rule to assess academic achievements, Australian education minister supports new proposal to test grade one students
Parents lose money over closure of training centres
Parents who have invested money into their children’s education have no safeguard provided by the law if a training centre closes down. Training centres may close down unexpectedly due to a number of reasons including lack of resources and liquidity, unqualified teachers, and lack of understanding of how to run a training centre. Many centres can begin with sufficient funding but through a lack of public reputation, can consequently lose customers. The closure of training centres, while small in comparison to the amount of centres in China, has led to the loss of up to 1 billion RMB of parents and investors’ money.
Read more at: China Daily
Primary students live up to high expectations to code experiments for astronauts to complete in space
For the first time in Australia, a group of talented primary students have spent the past three months coding science experiments that will be launched on a rocket to the International Space Station. Experiments include comparing the temperature at the Space Station with earth to see if a farm could be set up in space and coding a mini-computer that can take photographs to send back to earth. Coding and robotics are becoming more and more popular in primary schools. The experience allowed students to see what university students do and they were able to pick it up really quickly.
Read more at: Sydney Morning Herald
Universities adopt social media click-rate rule to assess academic achievements
A university in eastern China has adopted a new rule to assess academic achievements of students and teachers if they receive a high click rate on social media. This has sparked controversy over the feasibility and extent to which it may devalue academic work. According to the rule, works published by major media outlets, including the People’s Daily may be recognised as equal to commercial portals, major publications and social media accounts such as WeChat if they result in significant influence. Zhu states, “With the trend of media convergence, academic value and influence of some online works far exceeds those of core journals”.
Read more at: Xinhua
Australian education minister supports new proposal to test grade one students
If implemented, in early 2019 Australian students as young as five could be tested on literacy and numeracy skills under a one-on-one informal interview with a teacher. These skills are the basic building blocks to school success therefore, the idea is to identify where students are in their early development so if needed, educators can give extra support. Jennifer Buckingham believes extending the tests from Grade 3 would identify students lagging behind as it becomes difficult, expensive and inefficient to remediate gaps.
Read more at: Xinhua