Fight for equal education opportunity
'In China, and in many other countries,
America included, when the family can only afford to send one child to school
or university, and they must choose between the son or daughter, it's the son
that goes. From a systems point of view, where the effects are often separated
from causes by months and sometimes years and decades in time, sending the boy
to school instead of the girl makes no sense. An uneducated and unsophisticated
mother can't help but to pass on the same to her children. ' [1]( Jonathan Higgins
2012, ¶ 6)
This quote emphasize aspects of
patriarchal traditions are still exists and it became a obstacle that prevent
female to gain a equity educational opportunity. This kind of thoughts
highlights the idea of the continues of culture and the implications of culture
restriction to education due to gender inequality. People have a tendency to believe male has
the greater ability than female, therefore the existence of patriarchal culture
is emerged for a long period of time through the accumulation of this concept. under the influence of the social inequities women's attendance rate slightly lower than the male the school attendance rate due to attributed to the social inequities. This social
phenomenon is normal in many countries such as China, Japan and Vietnam as
these countries are still holding the patriarchal traditions.
This implication embodied the
powerful impact of culture since parents in some backward areas still believes
education are not essential for female, whereas this false concept still
deprive many woman's chance to be educated.
However, female seem to have more chances in Australia compared to other
countries. As we can see through the statics from Australian Bureau of
Statistics, female has a greater tendency in completing the year 12 school with
its greater rate. This statistic shows
“An increasing proportion of students are continuing beyond compulsory
schooling and completing Year 12, which in turn enhances their employment and
earning opportunities in later life.” Both of male and female could have the
ability to learn well if they could have the educational opportunity in an
equal manner. It is necessary to kept
equal educational opportunity happen within our society as it could increase
the chance of employment and secure people life quality for both male and
female.
Refugee and education
The issues of refugees moving
their home to Australia has received a large amount of
attention by the general public in recent years, federal government has
committed to resettle extra 6000 refugees in Australia
every year. This is seen as the biggest step in the humanitarian program in 30 years.
Many of the refugees families
are constantly suffered from the terrible situation such as war, violence, destitute,
these unfavorable experiences forced them to leave their homeland and escape to
another country where is safe and willing to offer assistance. This action by the federal
government assists more people who are in need of help to resettle their new
home in Australia. Moving to another country is a big challenge to refugee
because they never know if they would be lucky enough to get the permission to
stay in here. Staying in a new country is another big challenge to them as many
of them are lack of education, this would made their life more difficult as if
they don’t have the basic or enough education it will be very hard to seek
employment to afford the daily living in the later life. There are many formal
support group providing assistance to refugee children or adult who is interest
in gaining education to rewritten their life.
Scholarships for university
is available for those qualified refugee children to assist with their study in
the DAFI programmed. Once these children got the higher education, it is more
likely for them to adapt the new country by the knowledge they received in
school and it is beneficial the recreation of identity. Frehiwet Haftu proved the power of refugee
children by achieving an impressive HSC result as a 18 years old refugee girl.
With the assistance of free refugee tutoring program, Frehiwet Haftu taken the
top place in her ESL class and received an international studies degree through
her great effort. This is a great example of the children who came from the
poorest country could make an excellent achievement just like other normal
children with the proper support by the community. Education helps refugees to
recreate their identity with the power of knowledge. Therefore it is
significant to provide the adequate assistance to these refugee families to
assist them to adapt to the new country and recreate their identity with
education.
Reference:
Migration and education
Education is portraying as a
significant role in Canada, this concept is emphasis on Canada’s new release
Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP). The language ability, education, age and
work experience requirements for skilled migrants is increased significantly. 67 marks out of 100 is a
pass mark for foreign nationals who wants to apply for immigration to Canada,
this is a tough challenge to every of the skilled migrant. To migrants,
language is not only a piece of the culture elements but a key to unlock the intricacies in everyday living. Allowing
skilled migrants with higher education and language abilities into Canada or
any other countries could benefits the society with better human resources. A
large number of talented persons will be able to
make positive contributions and development for the
society, therefore becomes increasingly important for
migration in Canada.
Language abilities and education is
significant to every of the migrants as it is a key element of how others
identity you and how we identify ourselves as English is portray as our second
language in a new environment. Many migrants with lower education is having
difficulties to interact with others due to language barrier. This barrier not
only prevents them from having the normal social interactions with the wider
world, it also prevents them for employment, personal development and creates
obstacles in their daily living. Once this barrier is occurred, it is not
beneficial to migrants who strive to establish
a personal identity as they will be no longer able to express themselves once
they enter the country. Culture clashes have a higher possibility to happen in
this case due to the inadequate education to migrants especially for the middle
and old age group as they had missed the greatest learning period.
Stevenson.A (2012) Sydney morning herald Perfect in speaking English, learnt
entirely in China
NAN.M(2010) Return Migration and Identity, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
University Press (December 7, 2010)
School choice in certain
areas in Sydney
The majority of the students from
the high-fee independent schools are
from English background in city area; more than 80 per cent of enrollment in
half the private schools in Sydney experiencing the same circumstances as
above. Juxtaposed with the increasing enrollment in other public selective high school and elite
private schools, the children from migrant families took the dominate part of
enrollment as migrant parents has a tendency to believe the outstanding
academic achievements of public selective high school and elite
private schools rather than those high-fee independent schools. These
circumstances embodied the segregation
of multiculturalism within schools; this could lead to the unbalance culture trends within the schools
due to the culture allocation of unspoken rules. These practices exist
for a long period of time within certain area in Sydney particularly in schools
within city and the southern of Sydney. This trend may due to the
majority of the migrant families are lived in the southern sides or suburbs
where is far away from city as the rent for housing is more affordable. Cultural segregation and isolation is
happening within school environment, both of the public schools and private
schools are categorized by students’ cultural backgrounds. This social phenomenon implies parents has a high
trend to believe in the concept of enrolling their children in a school where
highly valued their own culture is beneficial for the children’s education. If this trend continues, the unspoken rules
of the choice of schools by parents and student will damage the benefits from a
multicultural study environment rather than reflecting the cultural diversity
within the society. The culture segregation
and isolation is considered as unhealthy as it would lead to culture clashes to
the public by the false interpretations of culture.
Culture diversity is more likely to happened
in public schools, selective public high schools and elite private schools as
this is where the majority migrant children comes from. However, I believe the
celebration of multiculturalism by any of the schools within Australian society
would bring more benefits to the students’ results from the interactions
between multi cultures.
References
Harry
Brighouse (2003) School Choice and Social Justice, USA, Oxford University
Press, USA
The struggling public school vs. co
modifying education culture
The aims and culture of public schools are used to be to fulfilled the education needs for students with the accessible resources within the community. The enrollment of public school rate is increased in the recent years, this social phenomenon implies the co modifying education could be fading as parents and students are putting more trust on the public education. The competition between public schools and Private schools seems to be endless.
However, the public schools within NSW are constantly suffered from financial difficulties, therefore funding by the NSW government is necessary to the "struggling" public schools as many of the public schools were having difficulties with the basic school maintenance and infrastructure without proper funding. This unfavorable situation could impact to the increased number of new students as they could be suffered from the inadequate resources due to the lack of support by the NSW government. Juxtaposed with the co modifying culture in private schools, all the greatest support by their schools are due to the large amount of money for school fees, uniforms, textbooks, miscellaneous fees. Some parents has a tendency to believe private school could provide greater educational resources and a greater personal identity to their children by the great reputation of a well-know private school. If the government is giving funding to the schools, a part of the funding would give it to the private school, it would consider as wasteful as the public schools will not received enough support by the NSW government. "A greater identity" will deprive the chance of getting enough assistance of many students and schools who are in need of help in public education. "Our long suffering teachers and students should not have to put with crumbling buildings, threadbare carpets and leaky roofs." states in the article Public school enrollments rising in NSW.
The negative impacts of the co modifying culture will lead to tremendous impact on students and schools in public education as they can not get the proper help by the NSW government and the society. The equal education will be difficult to achieve by the competition between public schools and Private schools.
http://news.smh.com.au/national/public-school-enrolments-rising-in-nsw-20090107-7bte.html
This is beneficial to
children or another kind of assimilation?
The Hong kong government decided to operate a new mandatory subject of National
Education within primary school which lead to a huge debates within the masses. This course
introduces only "few parts"of the history of china to instill
national pride as many of the significant history such as The May Fourth
movement and the recent issues of wangyang li are neglected within the textbook
of the course. The Hong Kong critics describes this course as an attempt
of brainwashing the children of Hong Kong by the Chinese government in
Beijing. The Hong Kong government planning to start the course within public elementary schools
this year and high school next year, becoming an new mandatory subject of Moral
National Education by 2015, this act by the government has leads to a huge echo
within the masses.
There are few dozen of parents, children and students gathered at the
government office on 7th,
September 2012 to protects their right of knowing the truth and the full
picture of the China history, this act against both Hong Kong and Chinese
government in a strong manner by the masses. Even the government insist to say
this subject is one meaningful subject that designed for children to make them know
their countries better, but the masses still refuse to accept this kind of
"official statement". This issue reflects the conflict between the
Hong Kong people and Chinese government due to the understanding of culture,
education and identity. The “one-country, two-systems” framework protects
the right of freedom of speech and individual rights for the hong kong people,
but this rights seems fading from the introduction of the National Education.
“If they start brainwashing kids
at school, that’s a way to restrict the freedom of speech and expression of
future generations,” says by the founder of Scholarism Mr wong who wants to
flight the new new syllabus.
“We are seeing the awakening of
civil society in the face of threats to core values that they hold dear. They
feel that such a blatant imposition of mainland ideology would be the death of
‘one-country, two-systems’.”
The emotional statement by the
public shows their fear, helplessness towards the both the personal and society
future of Hong Kong as their basic human rights and freedom of expressions may
be restricted in the future.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19407425
http://world.time.com/2012/09/08/hong-kong-protests-plans-for-patriotic-education/#hk_national_protests_09
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b6a0739e-f8ce-11e1-b4ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz26V2l3adK
Personal experience
Australian is a country where
highly promote the social engagement between multicultural and culture
diversity. I am an Australian with Chinese background since my family migrated
to Australia six years ago. When people looked at me they can quickly
identified me as a Asian girl by my appearance even though I considered as an
official Australian due to the ownership of Australian citizenship. This personal
example illustrate people had their own perceptions of different culture and
identity. People has a tendency to believe it is more comfortable to stay with
people who came from the same or similar culture, therefore the existence of
sub groups due to culture differences has exist for a long period of time
within schools and society. This is the reason why people like to be “who like
us” within schools. I used to be with my Asian friends and not dare to speck
with others due to language barrier in my high school. My culture backgrounds
assist me to approach with people who shared the same culture with me very
easily, but it does prevent me from connecting with others at the same time as
well. This create barrier for my study as the main language we used in this
country is English but I refuse to do so. This kind of situation has exists
from years and it stops when I break down the language barrier as a year 11
student in my high school. These changes assist me in my study with a larger
amount of assistance by my classmates and teachers, it made me understood the
helpfulness of culture diversity.
The rejection of multiculturalism
prevent the interflow between different culture, this stops the personal
progress in a education view and produce prejudice of some sector of culture.
If people are only willing to interact with people with similar background, it
is not beneficial to both individual and the Australian as it will due to
culture conflicts and the connections between multicultural will not be
existing anymore. This can be seen as the ramifications of the rejection to
other culture by only having the connections with people whom came from the
similar culture background. Therefore, it is really important to accept
culture differences as individual and to be willing to participate in the
social engagement between multicultural especially in a education environment.
The concept of sharing and helping others in study regardless of culture
background is going to assist individual with an impressive improvement.
References
Janine M. J (2009) The Psychology of Multiculturalism in the School, US, National
Association of School Psychologists
