How the ‘Taming’ of Private Education in China is Impacting AI

Following the theme of this issue of On Education, this paper suggests that one of the most significant and recent examples of ‘taming’ educational technologies occurred in China this year, involving national policy directives aimed at regulating both technology companies and the private education sector. This ‘taming’, it will be argued below, has particular and significant implications for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) for education in China, principally due to the way in which this burgeoning field has developed in relation to private educational provision. The following sections will outline key government policies, and assess the extent to which state regulation is impacting the ways such technologies are designed and deployed in the Chinese education system.

‘So, Is It True?’ Time to Embrace the Hermeneutical Turn in Catholic Religious Education in the Republic of Ireland

A key challenge for educational provision in the Republic of Ireland has been the need to develop appropriate approaches to religious education that are effective in terms of meeting the needs and rights of students in a democratic pluralistic society. At the centre of such discussions, although rarely explicitly recognised, is an attempt to grapple with the question of truth in the context of religious education. This paper argues that religious education, in attempting to engage with this evolving context, is challenged in two trajectories: (a) by approaches that operate from the presumption that objective truth exists and (b) by approaches that are sceptical of any claim to objective truth. It will be argued that proposals, such as those offered by active pluralists, to deal with religious truth claims in religious education are limited in terms of their capacity to adequately treat such claims and the demands that these carry for adherents. This paper argues for a hermeneutical treatment of the context for Catholic religious education in the Republic of Ireland, which is considered under the following headings: (1) irruptions from the periphery, (2) the theological matrix, (3) the status of religion, and (4) the position of students and teachers in religious education classes. From this it will be suggested that promoting religious education as a hermeneutic activity allows for a respectful engagement with competing truth claims.

Pemberdayaan Masyarakat dalam Pemanfaatan Kalakai (Stenochlaena palustris (Burm. F) Bedd.) sebagai Antioksidan Alami pada Kelompok Ibu-Ibu PKK di Kelurahan Palam, Kecamatan Cempaka, Banjarbaru

Prevention of the spread of Covid-19 is an essential effort when there are still highly favorable rates & deaths. The provision of education to prevent the spread of Covid-19 is always carried out with community awareness-based programs to maintain immunity. Community service by utilizing kalakai as a natural antioxidant becomes one of the alternatives to support the government. Kalakai (Stenochlaena palustris (Burm. F) Bedd.)) is a nail plant that is one of the plants with antioxidants typical of Kalimantan whose history is used as traditional medicine. This potential can be utilized and applied through the empowerment of the community of Palam Village, Cempaka Subdistrict, where many Kalakai plants grow wild. The problems found include lack of information and lack of skills of citizens in food processing based on Kalakai plants, especially in terms of food processing with high antioxidants in the form of counseling to the PKK mothers group Palam Cempaka-Banjarbaru Village. The activity method is the extension of educational provision, namely the theory of antioxidants and the potential of Kalakai, and the direct demonstration/practice of making syrups, teas, and kalakai candy. Residents expect to develop processed food products into UMKM, especially of Palam village, as a business opportunity to improve people's living standards.

Reclaiming a future that has not yet been: The Faure report, UNESCO’s humanism and the need for the emancipation of education

Fifty years after UNESCO’s publication of Learning to be: The world of education today and tomorrow, the author of this article provides an assessment of this seminal report, commonly known as “the Faure report”. He characterises the educational vision of the report as humanistic and democratic and highlights its emphasis on the need for educational provision throughout the life-course. He demonstrates how the right to education has, over time, been transformed into a duty to learn, Moreover, this duty has been strongly tied to economic purposes, particularly the individual’s duty to remain employable in a fast-changing labour market. Rather than suggesting that Edgar Faure and his International Commission on the Development of Education set a particular agenda for education that has, over time, been replaced by an altogether different agenda, the author suggests a reading of the report which understands it as making a case for a particular relationship between education and society, namely one in which the integrity of education itself is acknowledged and education is not reduced to a mere instrument for delivering particular agendas. Looking back at the report five decades later, he argues that it provides a strong argument for the emancipation of education itself, and that this argument is still needed in the world of today.

Exploring university–firm collaboration in teaching: A case study of co-creation

Recently, some authors have pointed out that the subject of university–firm collaboration (UFC) in the teaching context has been neglected. To fill this gap, and considering that educational provision is co-created with various stakeholders, this study aims to provide an exploratory characterization of the current state of UFC in the teaching context and to explore UFC as a mechanism for the co-creation of value. A qualitative approach was chosen, through a case study applied to one faculty at a Portuguese university. Data were obtained through documentary analysis and interviews with people in charge of this faculty. The results suggest that collaboration activities in this domain occur, albeit not systematically or in a planned way. The involvement of the current faculty direction in stimulating this collaboration is recognized, and the leaders see this phenomenon as a mechanism for co-creating value between firms and academia. As a practical contribution, the study proposes a set of recommendations to encourage such UFC. The scientific contribution arises from the presentation of a conceptual structure which explores the UFC phenomenon in the teaching context, bringing together the perspectives of collaboration and the co-creation of educational provision, as well as presenting a number of suggestions for future research.

FROM RESEARCH SKILLS TO RESEARCHER’S TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCE

Different intellectual traditions imbedded in cultural and education settings and theoretical approaches to the understanding of skills, competencies, and transversal skills bring about many uncertainties in the conceptualization of research skills and competencies; together with the social demands towards the quality of graduates' competencies these draw heavily on the changing process of education, quality of educational provision, and interferes with the quality of the graduates’ achievements. Doctoral students usually face a large number of theoretical sources to analyze and make an appropriate theoretical underpinning of research; they also have to meet the uncertainties, experience incompetence that interferes with the allocated time and quality of investigation. While the shift to competence approach in education is thus more complex than many accounts suggest, it does have major implications for important aspects of studies and educators' work. This article aims to initiate doctoral students' thinking of the cultural background of different intellectual traditions in education and identify the most appropriate theoretical sources for their research. The article does not, however, provide final definitions or completed ideas. Based on the experience of the most popular projects in skills’development and theoretical analysis the published considerations might trigger new problems for doctoral students’ investigation and start their navigation in the enormous pool of literature. The article introduces some approaches to understanding and defining research skills, researcher’s competencies, and researcher’s transversal competencies, their structure, and experiences of measuring.

A toolbox for digitally enhanced teaching in synthetic biology

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has forced educational provision to suddenly shift to a digital environment all around the globe. During these extraordinary times of teaching and learning both the challenges and the opportunities of embedding technologically enhanced education permanently became evident. Even though reinforced by constraints due to the pandemic, teaching through digital tools increases the portfolio of approaches to reach learning outcomes in general. In order to reap the full benefits, this Minireview displays various initiatives and tools for distance education in the area of Synthetic Biology in higher education while taking into account specific constraints of teaching Synthetic Biology from a distance, such as collaboration, laboratory and practical experiences. The displayed teaching resources can benefit current and future educators and raise awareness about a diversified inventory of teaching formats as a starting point to reflect upon one's own teaching and its further advancement.

‘I'll play the game, but I cannot stay’ : The role of third space professionals in encouraging the retention, success and sense of belonging of undergraduate students

In 2019, a diverse, post-92, Midlands university implemented a new, hybrid third space role called the ‘academic coach’ (AC) to support its mission towards to support its mission to make its educational provision fully accessible to all its students, to retain them and to ensure their success to support its mission to make its educational provision fully accessible to all its students, to retain them and to ensure their success of all its students. Since a sense of belonging to their institution is such a powerful influence on students’ sense of wellbeing, their development of an academic identity and their resilience in the higher education context, with consequent positive impact upon their retention and success, this role is devoted to the pastoral care and personal tutoring of levels three and four students. This case study considers the journey of the AC in defining and shaping this new role and offers the ACs’ perceptions of their influence on the experience of students at levels three and four by enhancing collaborative and learning relationships within the wider university.

Supporting students during the transition to university in COVID-19: Five key considerations and recommendations for educators

As coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) continues to disrupt pretertiary education provision and examinations in the United Kingdom, urgent consideration must be given to how best to support the 2021–2022 cohort of incoming undergraduate students to higher education. In this paper, we draw upon the “Five Sense of Student Success” model to highlight five key evidence-based, psychology-informed considerations that higher education educators should be attentive to when preparing for the next academic year. These include the challenge in helping students to reacclimatize to academic work following a period of prolonged educational disruption, supporting students to access the “hidden curriculum” of higher education, negotiating mental health consequences of COVID-19, and remaining sensitive to inequalities of educational provision that students have experienced as a result of COVID-19. We provide evidence-based, psychology-informed recommendations to each of these considerations.

Stakeholders’ perceptions of the quality of education in rural schools in Kazakhstan

Since its independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has initiated major reforms to upgrade its education system. However, significant disparities exist in the quality of educational provision in rural and urban schools. This study presents the stakeholders’ – school leaders, teachers, students, parents, and education managers – vision, priorities, and aspirations of quality of education, as well as the opportunities, resources, and support available to them, and the disparities and challenges they face in achieving the quality of education they aspire for.