Taiwan Proposes New Education Cooperation with RI

Taiwan proposes new education cooperation with RI.
 
Jakarta  (ANTARA News) - Taiwan proposes a new cooperation on the educational sector with the Indonesian government under a general Memorandum of Understanding. The educational theme is covered by the MoU along with other target sectors such as labor and the economy.

“The proposal is now in the hands of the Foreign Affairs Ministry for further study. We hope the proposal can be approved and signed soon,” Taiwan`s Minister of Education, Ching-Ji Wu, said here on Tuesday during his visit to ANTARA News Agency.

In educational sector, minister Wu said, Taiwan proposes a student and lecturers exchange with Indonesia scholarships for Indonesian students. He added that Taiwan was also proposing a double degree program for Indonesian students.

“We propose this cooperation to boost business to business and people to people contact between the two countries. I hope in the future the cooperation will improve,” he added. Indonesians are now the third largest group of foreigners studying in Taiwan after Vietnamese and Malaysians, a Taiwanese official said.
“Most of the Indonesian students are majoring in engineering, technology and business management at some of Taiwan`s finest universities,” the director of Elite Study In Taiwan (ESIT) program, Tsang-yao Chen, said here Tuesday.

Indonesian students studying in Taiwan in 2009 reached 2,275 consisting of 1,392 degree-seeking students, six exchange students and 877 Chinese language students, while some 55 university-level education cooperation agreements had been signed from 2000 to 2009 between Taiwan and Indonesia, which indicated the extent of the two countries` collaboration in the educational field.

The goal of Taiwan`s international education scholarship program was to increase exchanges of people for better cultural understanding between countries to build a solid ground in relationship, especially with Indonesia. Taiwan`s higher education and training ranked fifth and fourth in the world by WEF (World Economy Forum) in 2006 and 2007, in the Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009 by WEF, wile Taiwan is 13th among the 134 countries ranked.

In 2009, the number of research publications in Taiwan ranked 17th in SCI (Science Citations), 15th in SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) and 10th in EI (Elsevier Engineering Index).

Read more at http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/1279605147/taiwan-proposes-new-education-cooperation-with-ri
 
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China Universities Institutes Colleges List

China Universities, Institutes and Colleges.
List of Universities Directly Administrated by China Ministry of Education
Peking University (Beijing University)
Renmin University of China
Tsinghua University (Qinghua University)
University of Science and Technology Beijing
Beijing University of Chemistry Technology
Beijing Normal University
Beijing Language and Culture University
Beijing Foreign Studies University
Beijing Jiaotong University (Northern Jiaotong University)
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
China University of Petroleum (Beijing)
China University of Petroleum (East China)
China Agricultural University
Communication University of China
Beijing Forestry University
China University of Political Science and Law
Central University of Finance and Economics
Central Conservatory of Music
The Central Academy of Drama
China Central Academy of Fine Arts
Beijing University of Chinese Medicine
University of International Business and Economics
Nankai University
Tianjin University (Peiyang University)
North China Electric Power University
Northeastern University
Dalian University of Technology
Jilin University
Northeast Normal University
Northeast Forestry University
Fudan University
Tongji University
Shanghai Jiaotong University
East China University of Science and Technology
Donghua University
East China Normal University
Shanghai Foreign Language University
Nanjing University
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
Southeast University
China University of Mining and Technology
China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing Campus)
Hohai University
Jiangnan University
Nanjing Agricultural University
Hefei University of Technology
China Pharmaceutical University
Zhejiang University
Xiamen University
Shandong University
Ocean University of China
Wuhan University
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
China University of Geosciences (Beijing)
Wuhan University of Technology
Huazhong Normal University
Huazhong Agricultural University
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
Hunan University
Central South University
Sun Yat-Sen University
South China University of Technology
Sichuan University
South Western University of Finance and Economics
Southwest Jiaotong University
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Chongqing University
Southwest University
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University
Shaanxi Normal University
Xidian University
Chang’an University
Lanzhou University
Beijing University of Technology
University of Science and Technology Beijing
Beijing Institute of Technology
Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
List of China Universities, Institutes and Colleges (by province)
Anhui Province
Univ. of Science and Technology of China
Beijing
Beijing Agriculture University
Beijing Institute of Technology
Beijing Medical University
Beijing Normal University
Beijing (Peking) University
Beijing Polytechnic University
Beijing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Beijing Univ. of Chemical Technology
Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecommunications
Central University for Nationalities
Northern Jiaotong University
Qinghua (Tsinghua) University
Renmin (People’s) University
Chinese Academy of Medical Science
Chongqing
Southwest Jiaotong University
Fujian Province
Xiamen University
Gansu Province
Lanzhou Railway Institute
Lanzhou University
Guangdong Province
South China Univ. of Technology
Zhongshan Unviersity
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
Guizhou Province
Hainan Province
Hebei Province
Hebei University of Technology
Heilongjiang Province
Harbin Institute of Technology
Harbin Univ.of Science & Technology
Henan Province
Zhengzhou University
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)
University of Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong
Hubei Province
Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology
Wuhan Unviersity
Wuhan Technical Univ. of Surveying & Mapping
Whuan Univ. of Hydraulic Electric Engineering
Hunan Province
Central South University of Technology
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Inner Mongolia University
Jilin Province Jilin University Jilin University of Technology
Jiangsu Province
Hohai University
Nanjing University
Nanjing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Southeast University
Suzhou Medical College
Suzhou University (Soo Chow University)
Jiangxi Province
Liaoning Province
Dalian University of Technology
Northeastern University
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
Qinghai Province
Shaanxi Province
Northwest Polytechnic University
Northwest University
Xi’an Highway University
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Shandong Province
Ocean University of Qingdao
Shandong University
Shandong University of Technology
Shanghai
East China Normal University
East China University of Science & Technology
Fudan University
Shanghai Medical University
Shanghai Jiaotong University
Shanghai University
Tongji University
Shanxi Province
Sichuan Province
Sichuan University
Southwest Jiaotong University
Taiwan Province
Tianjin
Nankai University
Tianjin Medical University
Tianjin (Pei Yang) University
Tibet Autonomous Region
Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region
Yunnan Province
Yunnan Normal University
Yunnan University
Yunnan University for Nationalities
Zhejiang Province
Hangzhou University
Zhejiang Medical University
Zhejiang University
Others
National University of Defense Technology
Read more http://www.chinatoday.com/edu/a00.htm
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China School Teaches Once Banned Feng Shui

China school teaches once banned “Feng Shui”.
 
The Chinese art of feng shui, a form of geomancy once banned by the Chinese Communist Party as a superstition, has now found its way on to the school curriculum in China, a newspaper said on Tuesday.
A high school in Xiamen, in the rich southeastern province of Fujian, had started a course in feng shui, long practised by Chinese communities outside China, “for the first time”, the Beijing News said.

The basic premise of feng shui (wind water) is that one’s environment influences life, giving profound importance to the position of furniture in a room, for instance, or the direction a building faces.

Highly paid feng shui masters are routinely called in by architects in Hong Kong before a building is planned.
The practice was banned as a superstition after China’s Communists took power in 1949, but it has since seen a revival.

“Traditional feng shui culture has its good features as well as its bad ones,” Xiong Yongliang, a teacher in the school who wrote a textbook for the course, was quoted as saying. He did not elaborate.

The newspaper also said students taking this course found feng shui “interesting and practical”.

In May, newspapers reported that some Chinese Communist officials turned to feng shui masters for advice to ward off “evil spirits” from competitors and get a better chance of promotion amid a nationwide job reshuffle.
One senior official in eastern Zhejiang province moved his ancestors’ tombs thousands of miles to the foot of the famed Tian Shan mountain in the northwestern region of Xinjiang in an attempt to improve his career prospects.

Read more http://in.reuters.com/article/2008/01/08/idINIndia-31288820080108
 
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Vietnamese Kids Choose Education to End Poverty

Vietnamese kids choose education to end poverty.
 
Vietnamese children aged between 10 and 12 see education as an ideal solution for disrupting the cycle of poverty, according to the annual Small Voices, Big Dreams report recently released by US-based child sponsorship group ChildFund Alliance.

Fifty-three percent of those polled said they would upgrade the nation’s schools to improve children’s lives if they were Vietnam’s president, whereas 49.3 percent of all respondents in other developing countries had the same idea.

A comparable percentage (52 percent) said they would opt for a career as a doctor or a teacher, while a lower rate (42.7 percent) of the surveyed children in those countries selected the two jobs.

26 percent of the Vietnamese respondents prefer doing homework over other activities in their free time.
Only 1 percent said they would dedicate it to computer or video games. In other areas of the world, the percentage rockets to 33.9 percent.

Commenting on the survey results, which found that children are largely optimistic about their future, Jim Emerson, secretary general of the ChildFund Alliance said, “Children who grow up in poverty recognize more than anyone the power that education has to break the cycle of poverty.”

“[They] are placing their hopes and dreams on their ability to learn, and their aspirations to become teachers and doctors speak volumes about their desire to give back to their own communities.”

Almost 4,600 children between the ages of 10 and 12 from 44 countries throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas – as well as some selected developed nations – participated in the poll which was undertaken from July through September to provide insights into their thoughts and minds.

The respondents were asked six open-ended questions about many topics, including health, education, and child safety and security.

ChildFund Alliance is a network of 12 child development organizations whose work encompasses more than 15 million children, and their families, in 58 countries.

It spends more than US$503 million a year helping deprived, excluded and vulnerable children, with a focus on child-centered development programs that are undertaken in partnership with more than 1,400 local communities.

Read more at http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/education/education-news/vietnamese-kids-choose-education-to-end-poverty-1.54409
 
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Thailand Getting Creative in Education

Thailand getting creative in education. 
 
Vicky Skipp, Adobe Systems’ regional director for Southeast Asia, is spearheading the transformation of teaching and learning through digital experiences.

Digital media and digital marketing are the two major forces shaping the future. Trends in digital media include the rapid proliferation of devices such as smart-phones and tablet computers.

This has been highlighted by the explosive growth of apps, with mobile phone downloads topping five billion in 2011, up 189 per cent from the previous year.

According to Skipp, video content has also been increasing rapidly, with video comprising 50 per cent of all Internet traffic in 2010. By 2015, it’s forecast to be 81 per cent. Now, an average of 48 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

All these indicators underline the fast-growing importance of digital media in education, marketing and other fields.

In education, the 3Rs - reading writing and arithmetic - are still important, but they are not enough in this new era. Besides the 3Rs, other skills and contents have become equally important in the 21st century workplace. These include skills in critical thinking, information technology, health and wellness, collaboration, innovation, and personal financial responsibility.

In other words, it’s now the era of the 3Cs - creativity, communication and collaboration.

In terms of knowledge retention, teaching methods are crucial. Recent research shows that students retain just 5 per cent of knowledge via the “see/hear/lecture” method, compared to 10 per cent for reading; 20 per cent for audio/visual/video; 30 per cent for demonstration; and 50 per cent for discussion groups; while practicing by doing allows students to retain 75 per cent of knowledge imparted.

As for creativity, this applies to every domain of knowledge, so Abode is promoting this skill around the world via its annual Abode Design Achievement Award.

Thai student Napatsawan Chirayukool won this top award in 2010.

To make its software tools more affordable to Thai students, the US firm recently announced hefty discounts of up to 90 per cent for its student and teacher editions. This campaign includes Creative Suite 5.5 and Acrobat X Pro, among others.

Skipp says the proliferation of mobile devices such as smart-phones and tablet computers is leading to extensive changes in lifestyles.

Education systems and curriculae are also changing around the world. In Thailand, the government’s “one tablet computer per child” programme will soon have profound effects on the country’s education system.
This policy will likely bring massive changes as Thailand responds to the need to develop a more competitive workforce in the technology-driven global economy.

In the initial stage, the government will provide a free tablet computer to every Grade One student, with some of the textbook content available online.

Skipp says: “Our experience is that when students have access to digital media software at affordable prices, there is a rapid increase in their digital skills and confidence. “Students can display their talents, express creativity and learn to collaborate more effectively.

“Our software allows students and teachers to produce Web pages, videos and mobile content, applications and e-publishing content, and help them understand how to merge the creative process into their daily assignments and work tasks.”

In her opinion, Thailand has a firm commitment to develop digital literacy in the next generation workforce, as exemplified by government and private-sector initiatives such as the annual Thailand Games Show, the Bangkok International Games Festival and the Thailand Animation Contest.

Read more at http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Getting-creative-in-education-30175132.html
 
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Educating Young Women Rebuilding Cambodia

Educating young women, rebuilding Cambodia.
 
Alan Lightman discusses his social entrepreneurial work in building the first college dormitories for women in Cambodia.

Sharing a muddy crawl space with four roommates isn’t part of the traditional path to a law degree. But that’s exactly how Veasna Chea, a Cambodian woman, lived during law school in the mid-1990s — still managing to graduate first in her class.

Speaking on Thursday night, Alan Lightman, adjunct professor of the humanities at MIT, described his serendipitous meeting with Chea during a 2003 visit to Cambodia as his inspiration to establish a foundation that helped build the first college dormitories for young women there. Unsettled by the fact that Chea was only the fourth woman in Cambodia to attain a law degree, Lightman vowed to help Cambodia’s women exercise greater power in the country.

The barriers to women’s education in Cambodia have their roots in the nation’s tragic and bloody history. More than 30 years after the Khmer Rouge decimated the educated class as part of its campaign of genocide, this country of 14 million — one of the poorest in the world — still faces challenges in rebuilding its educational system. Most of the rural population lives in one-room shacks with no running water or electricity. Millions of young women have no way of attending college, mainly due to financial constraints (the annual cost of tuition, room and board is roughly three times the average Cambodian family’s income) and the lack of housing for women in Phnom Penh.

A physicist and best-selling author, Lightman has added social entrepreneurship to his life’s work, volunteering 50 percent of his time to lead the Harpswell Foundation, an organization he founded in 2003 to address these issues.

“Our goal is that our graduates will become leaders of Cambodia,” Lightman told a packed hall in the Stata Center. “In 20 years we’d like our … graduates to be heads of hospitals, government ministers, and directors of NGOs. We’d like to see 200 Hillary Clintons, Sandra Day O’Connors and Oprah Winfreys.”

Lightman is personally involved in the selection process for Harpswell’s two dormitories, helping to choose each year’s new class of 20 residents out of a pool of 160 students. (The top four female students are interviewed at each of Cambodia’s top 40 high schools.) The strategy, he explained, is to select not only the brightest students for admittance to the dormitories, but also those with leadership potential.

Those chosen live — free of charge — in one of Harpswell’s two dormitories and leadership centers in Phnom Penh. With 90 percent of young Cambodian women hailing from rural areas, housing is essential for them to attend one of the 15 universities in the capital. While Cambodia’s male college students are typically housed in Buddhist temples, women are prohibited in the pagodas and often have no alternative but to skip college altogether — leading many to early marriage, work in the rice fields or prostitution.

The first Harpswell dormitory, built in 2006, is a three-story building that houses 35 women. The second, completed in 2010, houses 45 women. Both also function as leadership centers where the residents receive food and medical care, along with free classes in English, computer skills, leadership seminars and discussion of national events to develop critical thinking skills. The foundation gives each student a $30 monthly stipend for food and expenses.

When an audience member asked how the public can help, Lightman shared that in addition to donations, he is always looking for women from outside of Cambodia to act as leadership residents in the dorms. Last November, 50 Harpswell students and staff had the opportunity to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting organized by Carol Rodley, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia.

Of the 30 female students in Harpswell’s first two graduating classes, seven now work in Cambodia’s top law firm, and approximately 10 have come to the United States for postgraduate study. While Harpswell may construct additional dormitories in the future, Lightman said he’s determined to maintain his personal relationships with the students.

“I have individual meetings with each of the 80 students — this personal contact is a very important part of the culture of our dorm,” he said. “They feel like somebody really cares about them.”

Read more at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/lightman-lecture-1107.html
 
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Me Miss! Why Blurting Out the Answers Can Be Good for Pupils

Me, Miss! Why blurting out the answers can be good for pupils. 

Louder children can outperform quieter classmates and lift overall performance by encouraging others to become engaged.

While it may be frustrating for a teacher attempting to control a class, researchers say blurting out the answers can be good for pupils.

Children who shout out the answer can be nearly nine months ahead in reading and maths when compared with quieter classmates, according to a study by academics at Durham University.

Research which looked at more than 12,000 children aged between four and five finds that, on the whole, pupils who act impulsively in school do less well than those who can control their behaviour.

But when the academics compared children with similar levels of inattentiveness, they found the louder ones did better.

Boys are much more likely to blurt out the answers than girls. But the researchers find that speaking out of turn can be equally beneficial for both sexes.

Prof Peter Tymms, head of the School of Education at Durham University and lead author of the report, said: "It's quite useful for a classroom teacher to know that blurting out helps the individual.

"It might be a bit of a nuisance to the class, but what's a disadvantage to some might be an advantage to others.

"These are little children who haven't got the control others have, and can't help it sometimes. If they talk something through out loud, they can understand it better."

These children may also benefit from the extra attention and feedback they get from their teacher.
The study looked at children in more than 500 schools in England who were tested in English and maths at the end of their first year using a computer program.

Teachers were asked to rate pupils' behaviour and impulsiveness based on three different factors: blurting out the answer before hearing the end of a question; having difficulty waiting their turn; and actions which interrupted other children, such as pushing in on games.

The researchers found there was a nine-month advantage in reading and maths for those who continuously blurted out answers compared with those pupils who never did so but had similar levels of inattention.

The research paper suggests there might have been an "evolutionary advantage" to having a small proportion of individuals who blurted out answers.

"The excitement of one individual may encourage others to become engaged. Or perhaps the one who cannot help himself saying something can force the group to face a reality which none dared declare openly.

"In evolutionary terms it may have been advantageous to have a small proportion of individuals who blurted out."

The researchers suggest that harnessing the virtues of blurting could help teachers educate children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms.

Tymms said: "Managing and responding to pupils' different needs and abilities within a class is a challenge for teachers.

"We're not suggesting that classrooms become free-for-all shouting matches but if this can be harnessed, it could help teachers and learners."

The findings are published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences.

By Jeevan Vasagar

Read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/feb/02/blurting-out-answers-good-for-pupils

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