Global Citizenship

March 25th, 2009

Europe and the Charlemagne Youth Prize

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories europe

A team at Millburn Academy in Inverness has won the UK level of the ‘Charlemagne Youth Prize’, a Europe-wide prize competition for young people aged between 16 and 30 who have been involved with projects helping to promote understanding between different European countries. The pupil team were successful for their well-established partnership with a region of Romania, which sees groups of Scottish senior pupils visit Romania to work to support holidays for children living in poverty. The Highland Council students will now go into the EU finals with the overall European winner to be announced in May.

A European Parliament news story offers more details and background information.

March 9th, 2009

Malawi progress

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories CPD, africa, commonwealth

A Scottish Government news story comments on the positive outcomes of projects in Malawi supported by grants from the Government’s International Development Fund. These projects contribute to the achievement of the ‘Millennium Development Goals’

Mary’s Meals, a charity which provides meals for pupils in Malawi to enable them to stay in education and improve their learning, is one of the positive examples highlighted in the review report.

In July 2009 a group of Scottish teachers will visit Malawi to support development in primary schools, supported through partnership working between Learning and Teaching Scotland’s SCIPD programme and Link Community Development’s ‘Global Teachers’ programme.

March 9th, 2009

Development in Africa

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories africa, europe

“Human development” in Africa is the theme for the ‘Development Youth Prize’ competition, promoted by the European Commission, which is now online and open for submissions.

In the European year of Creativity and Innovation, the Development Youth Prize plays a role in fostering creativity among young people. The competition invites students aged 16 to 18 to present their creative views on Africa. Until 31 May 2009, participants can make their own poster or video artwork related to the year’s theme. National winners and runners-up will be rewarded with a two-day stay in Stockholm, and the overall winners will also visit an African country, getting a first hand experience of European aid programmes.

This year, the DYP website library section has a new teachers pedagogical kit which offers supporting material on development issues, problem-solving methodologies and back-up information, focusing on a real case study on Rwanda.

March 9th, 2009

Confucius Classrooms in Scotland

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories ICT, china, international

Schools Minister Keith Brown MSP has opened a new Confucius Classroom hub for the North East of Scotland. Covering Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Angus and Moray, this is Scotland’s eighth such local hub, fulfilling an agreement that Learning and Teaching Scotland signed with the Chinese authorities in April 2008 to open a network of Confucius Classroom hubs around Scotland.

The latest hub is based at Hazlehead Academy in Aberdeen, and will offer support to primary and secondary schools across the North East for Chinese culture and language. A Scottish Government news story provides more detail.

The school-based hubs are complemented by an online hub, utilising the LTS Online Services and Glow, the broadband intranet for Scottish schools. This online provision is a key means to extend access across the whole country, sharing resources and enabling inter-school communication.

A group of Scottish school and local authority staff drawn from all the Confucius Classrooms will visit Beijing at the end of March.