Despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, a grand library opened in Turkey's capital has received over 340,000 visitors over the past year since its launch.
Inaugurated in Ankara by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in February 2020, the Nation's Library received approximately 6,000 visitors daily until March 15, 2020, having to shut its doors due to emergence of COVID-19.
The library, which was visited by more than 15,000 people on the weekends, continues to provide over 4 million printed and 216 million electronic publications in a 125,000-square-meter (1.3 million square feet) area.
The Nation's Library stopped accepting visitors between March 15 and May 31, 2020 due to the pandemic, then limited its capacity to 1,000-people at a time between 9.00 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. as of June 1, 2020.
Prior to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions, the library received an average of 2,000 visitors on weekdays and the number of visitors on the weekend was 3,200 people.
Turkey's grand library provides over 2 million books, more than 13,000 periodicals, and at least 18 private collections.
Inspired by Seljuk, Ottoman and contemporary architecture, the library has over 121,000 members.
Aside from its rich printed resources, the library also offers a variety of electronic resources, including 65 databases, 209 million accessible e-resources, over 665,000 e-books, 77,448 e-journals and more than 7 million e-theses./aa
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — The High Court in Kota Baru has allowed Ikatan Guru Guru Muslim Malaysia’s (IGuru) application to reinstate its lawsuit to declare vernacular schools as unconstitutional in Malaysia.
The application was filed by IGuru president Mohd Azizee Hasan who was represented by Datuk Shaharudin Ali while federal counsel Nik Nur Adila Mat Zaidan from the Attorney General Chambers (AGC) appeared for the government and the Education Ministry.
High Court judge Wan Ahmad Farid made his decision this morning after the originating summons was previously struck off on January 25 as no lawyer was present to appear for Azizee at the time.
The court then set February 28 for case management for an application by the AGC to transfer the case to the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
Shaharudin in a statement today said his client will challenge this application as they deemed the High Court in Kota Baru the appropriate venue for the matter.
“The intention of the application was to consolidate all vernacular cases to a specified Kuala Lumpur High Court.
“The Plaintiff will be opposing such application by the Attorney General’s Chambers because we take the position that the High Court of Kota Baru has the jurisdiction and is competent to determine the constitutional issues posed to the Court,’’ said Shahrudin.
Last year, two similar challenges were mounted by different groups to seek clarity on Article 152 of the Federal Constitution in relation to the use of the national language as the main medium of instructions in schools and to determine if Sections 17 and 28 of the Education Act violated the constitution.
In 2019, Putra vice-president Mohd Khairul Azam filed a similar lawsuit in his second attempt to have vernacular schools declared unconstitutional, after his first failed in November of that year.
In his lawsuit against the education minister and Malaysian government, Mohd Khairul Azam claimed Sections 28 and 17 of the Education Act are invalid due to alleged inconsistencies with Act 152 of the Federal Constitution.
In February of last year, the High Court had also allowed 14 organisations, including political parties such as MCA, MIC, Gerakan and education and language groups, to become part of Mohd Khairul Azam ‘s constitutional challenge.
Mohd Khairul was also represented by Shaharudin at the time.
Turkey is a good option for students wanting to pursue an education abroad, according to a key Ukrainian official.
The Turkiye Scholarship program is an exceptional project and a very good option for Ukrainian students, said Sinaver Seyithalil, Ukraine’s deputy minister for the reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories, and also a one-time student in Turkey.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, he said that back in 2000 he had studied international relations at Istanbul’s Bogazici University and graduated with honors.
Later, he also became chair of the Turkey Alumni Association.
“There are more than 1,000 people who graduated from universities in Turkey. Most of them are from Crimea, but interest in Turkish universities is rising among [other] Ukrainians too,” he added, referring to the Black Sea peninsula now illegally occupied by Russia.
After living in Turkey for four years, Seyithalil said that Turkey became like his adopted country.
“Every time we come to Turkey, we feel like we arrived in our second home,” he said.
“We have many friends here and we want to deepen our ties.”
Seyithalil also said that one day Ukrainians will also return to their territory of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014./aa
Hundreds of teachers in Mauritania demanded the removal of the education minister Wednesday for remarks they said were "insulting."
The teachers rallied in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Nouakchott, during a cabinet meeting and raised banners that demanded the dismissal of Mohamed Melainine Ould Eyih.
The government has not yet commented about either the rally or the demand of the teachers.
Local media reported that Ould Eyih said last Saturday that an international group evaluated the education process in Mauritania and found only 4% of teachers had expertise.
Ould Eyih did not deny or confirm that he made the comments.
There are 11,449 teachers in Mauritania. The Education Ministry recently began a program to upgrade teachers' efficiency and capacity./aa
Turkey's Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) is offering private scholarships to the children of Azerbaijanis martyred in clashes with Armenia, a Turkish official announced Sunday.
YTB chairman Abdullah Eren said on public broadcaster TRT Avaz that Turkey wanted to provide an education to the children of soldiers martyred in clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia for the region of Upper Karabakh and its surrounding areas last year.
Eren said the YTB would earmark a special capacity for such children in its Turkiye Scholarships program for undergraduate, graduate, research and language education opportunities in Turkey for international students and researchers.
As in every field, Turkey stands with its Azerbaijani brothers in the field of education as well, Eren added.
Liberation of Karabakh
Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as an Azerbaijani territory, and seven adjacent regions.
Following the recent clashes on Sept. 27, the Armenian army launched attacks on civilians and Azerbaijani forces and violated several humanitarian cease-fire agreements.
On Nov. 10, the two countries signed a Russian-brokered agreement to end fighting and work toward a comprehensive resolution.
Despite the deal ending the conflict, the Armenian army several times violated the agreement and martyred several Azerbaijani soldiers and a civilian, as well as wounded few people, according to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.
The truce is seen as a victory for Azerbaijan and a defeat for Armenia, whose armed forces have been withdrawing in line with the agreement./aa
• President Biden described school closures and women leaving the workforce as "a national emergency."
• "I think it's time for schools to reopen safely," he said during a CBS interview.
• Biden voiced concern about the mental health crisis that has been accelerated by the pandemic.
President Joe Biden said in an interview that aired on Sunday that long-term school closures and women leaving the workforce during the coronavirus pandemic are "a national emergency."
While speaking with "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell at the White House, Biden also voiced concern about the mental health crisis that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
O'Donnell noted that roughly 20 million schoolchildren have been out of the classroom since for almost a year, and a recent CBS News report showed that nearly 3 million women have dropped out of the labor force since last year.
"It is a national emergency," Biden said of all three issues. "It genuinely is a national emergency."
When asked if schools should reopen, Biden stressed that they should reopen cautiously.
"I think it's time for schools to reopen safely," he said. "Safely. You have to have fewer people in the classroom. You have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked."
"Our CDC commissioner [Rochelle Walensky] is going to be coming out with science-based judgment, within I think as early as Wednesday as to lay out what the minimum requirements are," the president added.
Last month, Biden signed an executive order for the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to devise guidelines to reopen schools safely within his first 100 days in office.
Biden said that he and his staff have had to get a handle on the work left by former President Donald Trump's administration when it came to the rollout of vaccines.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious-disease expert, said, in order to reach herd immunity, about 75% of Americans will need to be vaccinated.
O'Donnell said CBS News calculated that it would take until the end of 2021 to reach that level at the current vaccination rate of 1.3 million doses a day.
"We can't wait that long," Biden said. "One of the disappointments was when we came into office is the circumstance relating to how the administration was handling COVID was even more dire than we thought. We thought that indicated there was a lot more vaccine available, and that didn't turn out to be the case. That's why we've ramped up everywhere we can."
He added: "But the idea that this can be done and we can get to herd immunity much before the end of this summer is very difficult."
Since the pandemic began in the US, nearly 27 million people have been infected and over 463,000 people have died, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Business Insider
A Turkish foundation focusing on education declared that it aims to open its first school in Azerbaijan in its capital Baku by the end of 2021.
Noting that an agreement has been settled for the school's opening, the chairperson of the Turkish Maarif Foundation, Prof. Birol Akgun, told Anadolu Agency that Turkey's national education minister would sign the agreement in the coming weeks in Ankara.
"We would like to open several schools in Azerbaijan and convey the globally qualified educational knowledge that we have to Azerbaijan's public as well," Akgun said.
He added that Azerbaijan would be the 44th country where the foundation has schools.
Akgun said the school to be opened in Baku would consist of grades from pre-school to high school. The foundation will also provide training to teachers of the school on the use of IT technologies, teaching experiences, and curriculum development.
Stating that Azerbaijan won a glamorous victory in Karabakh, which was also appreciated and celebrated by the Turkish public, he said, "We are ready for any support if there is anything that we can do in the field of education, concerning the re-building of Karabakh and re-establishing the social and civilian life there."
He added that they are getting prepared to open schools in Karabakh as well once Azerbaijan's government provides security and concludes the strategic planning of the population that will settle in the provinces in the region.
"We are ready to utilize all our knowledge for the development of our brothers and sisters there," Akgun remarked.
Turkish Maarif Foundation is an Ankara-based non-profit public educational foundation established in 2016 that aims to develop Turkey's international education arena, enhance cultural and civilizational interaction, and pave the way for achieving common well-being./aa
A second set of exams for people in Greece learning the Turkish language was held online by the Istanbul University's Language Center on Friday.
A collaboration of the Istanbul University’s Language Center and Perugia Language Center, the online exams were held for students in major Greek cities such as Athens, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Larissa, Patra, Volos, Xanthi and Komotini, as well as for those from Southern Cyprus, Lesbos, Rhodes, Crete, Chios, Corfu, and rural areas.
At least 132 students from different professions took the tests, which were held at a time when many institutes across Greece have had to postpone exams due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Greek citizens outside the country on professional duty were also afforded the chance to take the online Turkish exam.
The participants ranged in age from 16 to 67 and were from different walks of life, including university students, academics, diplomats, lawyers, businesspeople, tourism professionals, translators, health workers, members of the military and police, retirees, and housewives.
The first online session of Turkish exams was successfully held in July 2020./aa
The 2022 World Cup will be held in stadiums full of spectators, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said on Monday.
The coronavirus will be defeated or we will have learned to live with it, Infantino said in a virtual meeting in Geneva alongside WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I am very, very confident [it] will be incredible, will have the same magic, uniting the world. We will be back to where we have to be,” he added.
The 2022 World Cup is supposed to take place in Qatar between on Nov. 21-Dec. 18, 2022./aa
Primary schools and kindergartens in the Netherlands will open on Feb. 8, the country's education minister said on Sunday.
Arie Slob said at a news conference negations on opening high schools are ongoing and are expected to be out in a week.
He noted that teachers will be able to carry out COVID-19 tests that give immediate results to detect cases in schools.
In case a student’s test result comes out to be positive, all the students in that class will be quarantined for five days, he added.
Slob said that the most significant reason for opening primary schools is that the new strain of the virus which emerged in the UK and spreads faster is rarely contracted by children.
Schools in the Netherlands have been closed since new cases spiked on Dec. 17, 2020./aa
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Japan is working on possible scenarios to minimize the risk of coronavirus infections during the Olympic Games, Kyodo news agency reported Thursday.
“The government is considering three options -- not imposing a limit on spectators, placing a ceiling of 50% of the venues' capacity or holding events behind closed doors, according to the officials,“ it said.
Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said officials are working on various simulations for the Games.
“Basically, I don't think [the games without fans]is something that would happen or something that I would like to do, but it won't be a simulation unless we think about it,” he told reporters following a meeting with International Olympic Committee head Thomas Bach, according to the Japanese news agency.
The Olympics will be held in a "safe and secure" environment with measures to fight the outbreak, Mori and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga have insisted.
“Japan is scheduled to decide by the end of spring the number of fans allowed at each venue and whether to admit fans from overseas,” Kyodo added.
Initially scheduled for last July, the 2020 Games were among a host of sporting events postponed worldwide because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The event is now scheduled for Tokyo from July 23 - Aug. 8, followed by the Paralympics Aug. 24 - Sept. 5./aa
There is an “emerging crisis” over the award of qualifications to Scottish teenagers this year, a leading education expert has warned.
Professor Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at the University of Edinburgh, said that teachers had been left in the dark about how to grade pupils, with schools closed since the Christmas holidays and no guarantees over then they will return.
Traditional exams have been scrapped this year, with teachers instead told that pupils would be graded based on coursework and their own judgement.
However, Prof Paterson said the Scottish Qualifications Authority had offered “no serious advice to teachers” about how this could be achieved with schools shut.
“There is a real emerging crisis here,” he said. “Teachers are in the dark about what criteria to use and what kinds of assessments to use, to form the basis of their predictions of students' results.
“You can't get people at home to do assessment under the same conditions that would normally apply to an exam and that is why the SQA has to be giving practical, useful advice.”
He said teachers would be able to make an “informed estimate” about pupil grades, but that the “key problem” would be ensuring consistency across the country.
Nicola Sturgeon has said there are no plans to require older pupils to resit a year, although the Scottish Government has not denied that the option had been discussed as a last resort, due to the problems around flagship National 5 and Higher awards.
However, Prof Paterson said such a solution would cause major practical problems, as well as being likely to provoke deep resentment among pupils.
He also said he believed half of school pupils are being failed by online teaching arrangements.
The claim was based on a Sutton Trust report, which included a survey from parents across the UK.
It was found that fewer than one in five primary pupils, and 47 per cent of secondary age children, were being provided with at least three hours of live or recorded lessons each day.
Schools in Scotland will remain closed until at least mid-February, although they are unlikely to reopen in full next month.
The youngest primary pupils and oldest secondary pupils are likely to be able to return first, under plans to reopen schools on a “phased” basis.
John Swinney, the education secretary, said he was “encouraged” to hear Mr Paterson’s view that the delivery of remote learning had improved compared to last year’s lockdown, when schools were shut between March and August.
“I think it’s a fair reflection of the superb efforts being made by our teaching profession,” he said. “Our educators are doing everything they possibly can do to make sure the needs of children are being adequately met.”
More than half of children in war-torn Syria are missing out on education, the UN children's agency UNICEF said Sunday, with a third of schools in ruins or commandeered by fighters.
The figures are a sharp rise from previous estimates when UNICEF said a third of Syrian children were out of school.
"After almost ten years of war in Syria, more than half of children continue to be deprived of education," UNICEF said in a statement, estimating there are over 2.4 million children out of school inside the country.
"This number has likely increased in 2020 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which exacerbated the disruption to education in Syria," said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's chief for the Middle East and North Africa, alongside Syria crisis boss Muhannad Hadi, in a joint statement.
"The education system in Syria is overstretched, underfunded, fragmented and unable to provide safe, equitable and sustained services to millions of children," they added.
Syria's civil war erupted in 2011 after the violent repression of protests, quickly spiralling into a complex conflict that pulled in numerous actors, including jihadist groups and foreign powers.
Over 387,000 people have been killed, and more than half of Syria's pre-war population of 20 million have been forced to flee their homes.
"One in three schools inside Syria can no longer be used because they were destroyed, damaged or are being used for military purposes," the statement added.
The schools that remain operative, UNICEF said, are often overcrowded and located in "buildings with insufficient water and sanitation facilities, electricity, heating or ventilation".
UNICEF said it confirmed 52 attacks against education facilities last year, bringing to nearly 700 the number of UN-confirmed violations against schools and teaching staff.
Broward County public school teachers and non-instructional staff were told by the district in December that anyone still working remotely had to report to their in-person assignments this week.
Instead, since that Dec. 17 memo went out, almost 100 employees chose to retire and more than 100 took leave or called in sick Monday, the day they had to return to their schoolhouses, according to the head of the Broward Teachers Union.
Most of the staff who retired or called in sick are teachers, said Anna Fusco, BTU president.
This comes just days after BTU sued the school district in Broward Circuit Court aimed at stopping the return-to-work mandate.
Union: District forcing teachers to risk their lives amid COVID
The union argues that hundreds of school district employees have serious medical conditions that put their lives at risk should they become exposed to COVID-19. The complaint, filed Thursday, states the mandate is forcing them to choose “between their lives and their livelihoods.”
District officials could not be immediately reached for comment Monday, but Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said last week that getting more teachers and students back into the physical classroom is imperative. He said students’ grades have been suffering since the novel coronavirus pandemic began.
Runcie: Students are suffering due to remote learning
“We must bring these students back into our classrooms for more traditional classroom instruction, as well as to provide intervention and support to get them back on track to success,” Runcie said.
When the district allowed in-person learning to resume Oct. 9, it granted about 1,700 staff members COVID-related accommodations allowing them to work remotely. Runcie said last week that those employees were told then that they’d have to report back to their schools on Jan. 11.
“This date has not changed,” he said in a videoed address to the district last Wednesday.
Most have since reported back to their schools, but hundreds have not because they have medical conditions that put them at risk if they catch COVID-19.
The union counters in its lawsuit that it entered into a memorandum of understanding in August with the administration that gives preference for full-time remote work assignments to employees most vulnerable if they catch the virus, and that agreement does not expire until June 30.
And, those assignments are only subject to change based on the operational needs of a particular school, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit seeks to maintain the stay-at-home policy for medically compromised employees until an independent arbitrator can decide the matter.
The Broward school district employs 33,022 people, including 14,329 who are teachers.
The union feels it’s unnecessary to mandate that all teachers return to the classroom when only between 25% and 30% of the district’s approximately 261,000 students have come back to in-person learning since the fall. And, Fusco said, not many more are expected to return between now and the end of the school year.
“We’re expecting 40% back on campus, if that much,” she said.
The mandated return also comes as COVID cases in Broward schools continue to rise.
As of Monday night, 730 students and 793 employees were confirmed to have tested positive for the coronavirus since October, according to the district’s website. This compares to 664 pupils and 724 staffers, respectively, as of last Thursday.
“Lots of positives came through last week and this week,” Fusco said.
