I remember how it was -- JR
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
University of Chichester students launch discrimination claim after 'decolonising' black history degree is axed
University students have launched a discrimination claim after a 'decolonising' black history course was scrapped. They say the University of Chichester breached the Equality Act as the course was created to encourage more black students into academia.
The History of Africa and the African Diaspora Master's by Research (MRes) was set up in 2017 to 'decolonise the curriculum'. It was led by Professor Hakim Adi, who was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize.
Labelled the first African-British history professor in the UK, Professor Adi said the axing was an 'attack' on black history.
He added yesterday: 'As a result of the MRes, we encouraged many black students to embark on PhD research. We established one of the largest cohorts of black postgraduate history students in the country. 'These students have been left without appropriate supervision and their studies have been completely disrupted.'
Figures in the curriculum included Haitian independence leader Toussaint Louverture, South African human rights activist Alice Kinloch, and Amy Ashwood Garvey, co-founder of Jamaica's Universal Negro Improvement Association and wife of Marcus Garvey.
Last summer, the university announced the course would be suspended because too few students signed up, which led to Professor Adi losing his job. It said the course was financially unviable to take on new applicants but existing students could continue.
However, the 14 students taking action say they are not taught by a specialist and have launched a 'letter before action', alleging discrimination and breach of contract.
Jacqueline McKenzie, of lawyers Leigh Day, which is representing the students, said the axing of the course 'stopped our clients' academic careers in their tracks', branding the decision 'clear discrimination'.
Jabari Osaze, an MRes student said: 'Chichester should have focused its efforts on recruiting more students like me but instead it seems they undervalued the programme.
'They have treated their students and the world-renowned expert historian who ran the programme extremely poorly.'
An online petition has gained 14,000 signatures and an open letter has been signed by more than 300 academics and staff.
In a linked case, the Black Equity Organisation is also bringing legal action and has issued a judicial review.
A university spokesman said: 'The MRes programme has not been terminated for existing students but is suspended to new applicants pending a review.
'PhD students study individual programmes of research and should not be conflated with the MRes programme.
'The university is committed to ensuring that all existing students are able to complete their studies successfully and that alternative teaching and supervisory arrangements are in place for these students.'
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California substitute teacher left elementary school students in tears after watching ‘inappropriate images’ in class
A California substitute teacher was removed from his classroom after viewing “inappropriate images” in front of his elementary students — a traumatic event that left several students in tears, officials said.
West Covina Unified School District Superintendent Emy Flores said that the disturbing incident occurred sometime before noon Friday, shortly before a concerned parent called Cameron Elementary School demanding to know why her son had called her sobbing.
When the school’s principal Slyvia Fullerton checked on the boy, she instead found “several students crying,” Flores said in a statement Sunday.
The substitute teacher — who has not been named — was ordered to leave the classroom while Fullerton tried to reassure the traumatized children before ultimately bringing them to the on-site Mental Wellness Room.
According to the kids, the man was watching “naked people” on his phone, which was blatantly displayed within the young students’ line of vision, exasperated parents told NBC 4.
Parent Stacy Mathews claimed many of the students huddled together in a corner because they felt uncomfortable. “He wouldn’t let them go to the bathroom,” Mathews told the station.
After learning what had happened, Flores immediately alerted district administrators, Child Protective Services and local law enforcement to investigate the perverted claims.
As of Wednesday, there have been no arrests in the case, but the West Covina Police Department said a probe into the incident is ongoing. “We want to reassure the community that the police department is treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness. An investigation is currently underway to thoroughly examine the situation and gather all the necessary information,” Chief Richard Bell said in a statement.
Flores said the substitute teacher had passed a rigorous background check without alerting district officials to any red flags.
Dozens of parents protested outside the elementary school Tuesday, demanding that law enforcement arrest the substitute teacher.
“When we found out on Saturday that he wasn’t arrested, [my daughter] was scared thinking that he was going to come back and come back to get them for tattling, is how she worded it,” Mathews said.
West Covina is a suburban city located roughly 19 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles.
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‘We made the wrong decisions’: COVID-era mass school closures condemned
Mass school closures that stretched for months during the pandemic were unnecessary and led to a cascade of social and educational problems that threaten a generation of Australian children, top education experts say.
Governments have failed to examine the fallout from one of the most far-reaching decisions prompted by COVID-19, which disrupted the schooling of millions of students and resulted in an attendance crisis and persistent behavioural issues.
A panel of pre-eminent Australian education experts has flagged the profound impacts that school closures during COVID-19 have had on students’ education and wellbeing.
They called for a plan for future closures that puts the long and short-term needs of children at the centre of policy decision-making.
The Sydney Morning Herald convened experts on education and child social development to assess the impact of COVID on students after the federal government failed to include the decision to close schools in its independent inquiry into how the nation managed the pandemic.
They included the chair of the NSW education regulator, Peter Shergold, and the National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds.
Schools in NSW switched to remote learning in 2020 and 2021. Strict infection controls continued to interrupt learning and social interaction for months on end.
The COVID fallout: Education
This month marks four years since China’s COVID-19 outbreak was deemed a public health emergency of international concern, heralding the start of a traumatic period many of us would prefer to forget. While a federal government inquiry is examining some national responses to the crisis, key decisions made by states will not be properly scrutinised.
The Herald is concerned our political leaders have not adequately studied the lessons – good and bad – of our most recent experience, and we plan to ask tough questions over the coming months about the pandemic’s impact on education, health, border closures and lockdowns and policing. This is the first of our three-part series looking at the impact of COVID on education. The forum discussions with nine expert panellists were broken up into two sessions: one examining the wellbeing and behaviour of students, the second on academic and learning disruption.
The panellists warned the aftershocks of the decision to close schools are still being felt in classrooms, playgrounds and homes. Some of the worst aspects were the skyrocketing truancy rate, school refusal and significant issues with student discipline and distraction in the classroom, and self-regulation in the playground.
Shergold, a former top public servant who led an independent review into the pandemic in 2022, said the lingering effects of school shutdowns on students, teachers and parents underscored the importance of scrutinising unilateral decisions by state governments to mandate remote learning.
In September, the federal government announced a long-awaited inquiry into the pandemic response, but school closures are not included in the terms of reference. Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has previously joined health experts in urging the inquiry to examine the social damage and repercussions of long periods of remote learning.
“The danger of school closures, which we always knew, was that it was going to accentuate disadvantage,” said Shergold. “After the closures in early 2020, we made the wrong policy decisions about closing school systems.”
In NSW, more than 1.2 million students either learned remotely or had minimal supervision in schools for more than five months. Schools were shut down between March and May in 2020, and then again in 2021 from July to the end of October. Hundreds of schools and childcare centres were closed again in the following months.
Unlike in Victoria, there was minimal supervision at schools for students, but attendance was discouraged. Shergold said the unity of national cabinet fractured as state governments forged ahead with decisions to shut schools, despite the federal government urging parents to send their children to classes.
State decisions were often politically driven, some panellists said, ignoring the risk of long-lasting impacts on young children and teenagers, especially the most disadvantaged students who were most affected by the closures.
“It was clearly the Commonwealth position to keep school systems open,” Shergold said. “It was states that were unpersuaded, and that’s why this present inquiry seems so bizarre that we’re not going to address their policy responses. It’s a crucial part of the story and ensuring that we’re better prepared for the next pandemic.”
He said early in 2020 there “was a fog of war, and there was ill preparation – in Australia between federal and state governments – for a pandemic”, noting it was understandable schools closed in the first months.
But after evidence emerged that children were less likely to spread the virus, and schools were not transmission hotspots, the system-wide closures were unwarranted, he said.
“We had Treasury pleading with us not to shut school systems. Part of the issue was that parents started to voluntarily withdraw their children from schools, and they were voting with their feet ... I think NSW reacted to that,” he said.
The state government also faced persistent pressure from the NSW Teachers Federation to shut down in-person classes, leaving minimal staffing to support essential frontline services workers. Some of Sydney’s private schools began to defy official advice and close, putting pressure on other systems to follow suit.
The advice provided by chief health officers was that attending school represented a low health risk to students, and studies in 2021 reaffirmed transmission between children in schools was minimal.
Hollonds agreed the first closure early in the pandemic, which lasted seven weeks, was unavoidable, but the longer closure of 2021 was unnecessary.
“Maybe they should have only been short term, where there was a ‘hot-spot’, not the 15 weeks we saw across all of NSW,” she said.
She said the public debate over school closures not only ignored the needs of children, but demonised them as “germy super-spreaders”. “It felt Dickensian, some of that discourse,” she said.
Shergold noted that the shift to online learning was implemented well across systems and schools, and effort was made to address the digital divide. But he emphasised that after the first mass closures a more targeted approach should have been taken to only close individual schools when needed.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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