While we are only just approaching October, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas for the charter school movement. Since the documentary Waiting for Superman opened in select theaters last week, a cast of notables have announced a cascade of donations and investment pledges for charters, and it looks it's just the beginning of this holiday season.</img> </img> </img> </img> </img>


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Pretoria - The European Union (EU) has pledged $165 million to improve primary education in South Africa.

The pledge was made during President Jacob Zuma's visit to Belgium - a country that will be working more closely with South Africa.

Zuma said on Tuesday he was pleased to see agreements being signed in various sectors, including education, saying the implementation of these would be for the mutual benefit of both countries.

"South Africa is committed to work closely with Belgium in the identification and implementation of various projects, which have the potential to assist SA in achieving its development objectives in a win-win situation with all stakeholders concerned," said Zuma.

The President said they planned to conclude a wide-ranging economic partnership agreement between the southern African regional economic body and the EU.

Zuma said the outcome of these discussions was a clear demonstration of the progress the two countries had made.

"We ... can continue to build on our excellent bilateral relations, which is indicative of the friendship that exists between our peoples," said Zuma.

The meetings between the two counties are also expected to discuss climate change and joint cooperation on regional and international issues.

It is the third such summit between the leaders of the EU and South Africa. – BuaNews

Mississippi Law Enforcement Leaders Say Quality Early Learning Programs Reduce Violent Crime, Save Millions in Special Education Costs

JACKSON, Miss - Three Mississippi law enforcement leaders will hold a news conference on Tuesday, September 28 at 11 a.m. to release a new report showing that investing more in voluntary high-quality early learning programs not only reduces crime over the long run but also saves millions of dollars in the state's education budget in the short term. The report will document that investments in early education programs can reduce the need for special education placements and other K-12 education expenses when pre-k children advance to later grades.

Attorney Sherri. M. Flowers-Billups - all members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in Mississippi - will call on state policymakers to invest in high-quality early care and education. They will also call on Mississippi's Congressional delegation -- particularly Senator Thad Cochran, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee -- to support increased investments in federal early care and education programs as the FY 2011 appropriations process moves forward. These programs, which will benefit Mississippi's kids, include Head Start, Early Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant and the Early Learning Challenge Fund.

Announces $100,000 application developer competition to bring revolutionary new education applications to classrooms around the world

NEW YORK, Sept - In its ongoing commitment to improving America's education system through the adoption of new technology, Marvell, one of the world's largest chipmakers, announced today that it's launching a competition to recognize and fund the most clever new education apps for classroom tablets. The challenge invites ambitious, intelligent software developers around the world to create apps that transform the way students learn. Three winners will share prize money totaling $100,000, along with access to Marvell's considerable engineering resources for support and testing.

The $100K Challenge, unveiled at the NBC News' Education Nation summit, is a part of Marvell's Mobylize campaign, the company's long-range commitment to mobilizing technology innovation, speeding education innovation and bringing to students everywhere the inexpensive yet powerful tools they need to learn, connect and collaborate in new ways.

The campaign and the $100K Challenge were inspired by Marvell's new Moby tablet reference design. The classroom-friendly Moby tablet reference design is a high-performance, low-power device based on Marvell's ARMADA™ application processor and Google's Android™ operating system. It's the platform for which developers who enter the $100K Challenge will design their applications — and it's perfect for the part. It's equipped with 1080p HD, advanced 3D capabilities and full Flash internet. For developers, the Moby tablet reference design provides far-reaching possibilities. For students, it opens vast horizons, at a price school districts can afford.

"Our aim is to revolutionize the delivery of education in America," said Tom Hayes, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "We believe this contest will help focus the immense talents of software developers on e-learning initiatives, resulting in new ways for students, parents, teachers and administrators to communicate, collaborate and advance education."

Judges in the $100K Challenge are looking specifically for applications that can be used in teaching math, science, vocabulary, spelling and other courses common from kindergarten to 12th grade. Application should feature an online component, connecting to the web for the best user experience. It should enable opportunities for social learning, so students can easily collaborate with other students. It should offer support for many languages, reflecting the diversity in schools around the world. It should leverage the Moby tablet reference design's multitouch interface. And the application's size should be less than 512MB.

Developers interested in entering the contest should log on to mobylize.org for initial entry guidelines. Submissions will be accepted October 10, 2010 through November 10, 2010, after which each application will be evaluated by an independent panel of judges, who are selected based on their accomplishments in the fields of technology and education.

Winners will be announced at a reception sponsored by Marvell at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, January 6 through 9, 2011 in Las Vegas. The grand-prize winner will receive $50,000, with $30,000 going to second place and $20,000 to third. All winners will enjoy the support of Marvell's extensive engineering infrastructure on the way to finalizing their apps.

Marvell offers compelling solution of effective new learning tools for students and teachers, including tablet computers, Wi-Fi smartboards and low-power mobile classroom servers; Company co-founder Weili Dai speaks on use of cutting-edge technology to ad

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When Janet Stark finally gets around to building her own website, the admissions consultant will run it with the headline, "I've been accepted to Harvard Business School over 50 times!" Her students are a bit less open.</img> </img> </img> </img> </img>


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This book provides a convincing explanation of IQ and human intelligence.

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Pretoria - Despite the recent public sector strike, the Gauteng Education Department said their preliminary matric exams were a success.Most...

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Pretoria - The Gauteng Department of Education has been granted an urgent interdict by the Labour Court in an attempt to protect provincial...

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Pretoria - Three proposed higher education and training Amendment Bills will see the department taking on functions previously vested with the Basic Education and Labour Departments.

The Higher Education Laws, Skills Development Levies and Higher Education and Training Laws Amendment Bills were introduced by Minister Blade Nzimande on Thursday. Nzimande said they would remove some of the difficulties with regard to policy development.

He believes the department needed to make far-reaching changes in the coming months to improve the provision of post-school opportunities, especially for the youth and adults.

"We also intend accelerating our efforts in dealing with some of the fundamental challenges in the system, including skills bottlenecks, especially in priority and scarce skills, low participation rates, distortions in the shape, size and distribution of access to post-school education and training, and quality and inefficiency challenges," Nzimande said, during a debate on the Amendment Bills.

To address these and other impediments to the country's economic and social goals, Nzimande said the department required significant policy and legislative changes.

He noted the transformation and expansion of the higher education and training landscape will have a direct bearing on government's overall mission for economic growth and development.

"My performance agreement with the President, based on outcome five of government's programme of action: "A skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path", sets the agenda for the work of my department. This outcome requires a major rethink of how government and its partners have been operating in the area of human resource development," he said.

The Human Resource Development Strategy, which is in its final draft and soon to be launched by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, will guide the work of the department.

Speaking about the department's work, Nzimande said the process towards drafting a Green Paper on Higher Education and Training, which will require a broader and long term-view of the post-schooling system they wished to create, had begun. - BuaNews