July 26th, 2011
Quality education is indeed free and possible today for anyone wishing & willing and who has the necessary tools to obtain it. With one computer and one internet connexion, any teacher or student has free access to books, documentaries, journal articles, audio-video courses and to online communities to exchage ideas. All that is required to expand knowledge or satisfy curiosity.
Far from being complete, we want to share a list of our discoveries, free educational resources for teachers and students.
In Romania:
- Didactic.ro is probably the largest and most dedicated website with resources for teachers.
- British Council offers a platform and resources for anyone wishing to study English.
- Fundatia Potaissa offers some manuals, guides and other non-formal publications concerning the environment and its preservation.
- Stiinta si Tehnica magazine offers everything needed in the science field
From around the world and in English:
- Questia is a free online library with over 77 000 book titles and 4 million articles just waiting to be read.
- Open University, as the name reveals, is a free online university from the UK, open to students everywhere, with a diverse range of courses and resources.
- The world’s best universities now offer free acces to their professors’ knowledge, through audio/video lectures on a wide range of topics! Such courses, debates, discussions, presentations are offered directly by Harvard, Yale, MIT or Berkeley.
- Open Culture centralizes the free online courses mentioned above, listing about 385 free online courses from top universities, all in one place.
- Open Culture also centralizes hundreds of courses for the study of a foreign language.
- SciCentral is another source of information and resources in the science field.
As already said, the list is not finished. Suggestions for adding to it are more than welcome!
Resources
July 23rd, 2011
Few months ago, Unicef Romania released the research report “A school for all? – the access of Roma children to quality education“. The study is based on qualitative and quantitative data from 100 education institutions in Romania, with various percentages of Roma students. The study aims to cover a gap of data and specific numbers in this field.
Some of the key findings of the study reveal that:
- as the percentage of Roma students in a school increases, the quality of material resources of the school decreases, material resources such as labs or a sports field
- as the percentage of Roma students in a school increases, the probability that the school owns computers or a library decreases
- the schools with a high percentage of Roma students have less qualified teachers, educators or certified educational counselors
- the number of hours of continuous professional development of teachers and educators is also smaller: on average it is 7 hours, compared to 50 required
- the rate of school abandonment is 9% among Roma students, the most significant factors being first of all poverty (44%) and repeated poor results leading to failing classes (16%)
- the stereotype according to which Roma parents do not send their children to school was invalidated: only 9% of Roma parents did not show an interest in their children’s education, while 90% of parents showed positive attitudes towards education, maintain contact with teachers and encourage their children to obtain good results.
The document represents a useful information resource and we encourage you to read it.
It can be downloaded here.
Resources, Various on education
December 13th, 2010
Bucharest,we have a challenge for you! We want to break the ice around the word DONATION. On December 17 and 18 we will start collecting 10.000 books! This month we won’t be talking about money, but about books. And you, caring people, are the ones that can help us.
Education is not the way it’s supposed to be. There are children and students that don’t have the proper education because they don’t have…books. BOOKS?! Isn’t that how education starts in the first place? Aren’t books the support for learning?
We can debate on this topic the entire month of December or we can raise in these 2 days the books that 3000 children need for an entire year! We are talking about 34 teachers in 10 counties that asked for our help, that have faith that together we can make education happen.
We are waiting for you on December 17 and 18 (Friday and Saturday) at the following collection points:
- British Council, Romania, Calea Dorobantilor nr. 14, (Piata Romana area) Friday between 12.00 and 18.30 hours and Saturday between 9.00 and 13.15
- Centrul National al Dansului, TNB building, north side (acces through Laptaria Enache), third floor (Piata Universitate area), Friday and Saturday between 9.00 and 18.00 hours
The books that are needed are those from core and supplementary school reading materials, for primary, secondary and high school, story books, with puzzles, encyclopedias, exercise books, specific topics books, foreign languages dictionaries, DEX or DOOM. The full lists as proposed by teachers are available at: http://www.sustineducatia.ro/category/tip-de-resurse/carti/
We’re inviting you to join us in supporting education.
More information about the Program, ways to help and donate at www.sustineducatia.ro.
Children want to learn. Let’s help them!
This campaign is taking place as part of “Sustin Educatia” Program, together with Invictus Association, with the support of British Council and Centrul National al Dansului. Download the full press release here.
ARET, Press Releases, Sustin Educatia
October 17th, 2010
On Wednesday we launched with great joy a project we have been working on for months – the Program I Support Education, a national program of micro-grants for educational projects.
I Support Education is a program aimed entirely at educators, teachers and professors in public schools in Romania, who wish to offer children a better teaching environment, by obtaining private funding. At the same time, the program is addressing all people, organisations and institutions in Romania that can help and want to support the educational projects proposed by teachers, through donations by bank transfers, ePayment, postal office or directing 2% of taxes.
Quality education is possible and depends on each of us!
Eligible projects for I Support Education Program can be from any field (math, literature, physics, ecology, music, sports, etc.), from anywhere in the country, can address a wide variety of resources (books, lab equipment, boards, models, educational software, etc.), can address children with special needs and can comprise both formal and non formal educational activities.
The program is initiated by A.R.E.T. in partnership with Invictus Association and it brings together people and organisations from many fields that want to make education happen. We all want to make the future through youth education.
There’s lots to say about the program, but the most important thing is that it comes as a response to children that want to learn and to teachers that want to help them! All we have to do is go through their proposals, choose a project we want to support and donate as much as we can.
Together we can make education happen!
ARET, Projects, Sustin Educatia
July 21st, 2010
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
(Loris Malaguzzi)
Various on education
June 24th, 2010
The children from Ciocanesti, Dambovita, impressed us with their story. They showed us they care about the environment and their community. And not only do they care, each day they try really hard to make it better.
With their teachers, with the support of ApEAL, local authorities and companies that believed in them, the children participated in various ecological activities in their village: they cleaned many areas and the local park, they set up gardens in their schools’ yards, they planted over 1600 trees and started a big recycling project.
Their newest wish? A cultural centre! Together with the city hall, ApEAL ‘adopted’ the Cultural Centre and is trying to transform it into a resource centre for the community. What do they see when they look into the future? Movie screenings, cultural evenings, a library and reading room. All this is one step away from becoming a reality, with the help of each of us.
We decided to help them. Because they are fighting for a better world, we are fighting for them. Together with ApEAL, we want this cultural centre to become a cultural-educational centre to which children and young people to have access to, after school hours.
As such, for this cultural centre we still need:
- 1 video projector to organize movie screenings
- 2 tables and chairs
- books for the reading room
- 2 computers
And, because many of them come from socially aided families, we are helping ApEAL to organize clothes collection days for children, as well as for their families.
We support
