Readwrotes Blog

     Testing times: Students at SDN Negeri 064025 Medan state elementary school in North Sumatra sit tests during the first day of elementary school national examinations Tuesday. As many as 39,373 students of elementary schools in Medan joined the exams, which are scheduled to end on Thursday. Antara/Septianda Perdana Septianda Perdana, Antara, Medan | Tue, 05/04/2010 4:18 PM | Archipelago 

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 01/27/2009 9:42 AM | National Dozens of university students in Malang, East Java, held a rally during President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's visit Tuesday, to protest the newly endorsed law on legal education entities and the joint ministerial decree on minimum labor wages. The students marched and tried to enter the Brawijaya University campus, where Yudhoyono is scheduled to inaugurate several facilities. Police stopped the students about 200 meters from the campus gate. "We only want to meet with the President. We are asking him to withdraw the law and the decree. The [education] law will lead to discrimination against the poor," Iwan, the rally coordinator, said in his speech, as quoted by kompas.com . The law and the decree have been separately criticized, the one because it may lead to the commercialization of education, the other for violating existing labor law. Yudhoyono is scheduled to give a lecture at the univ...

Suherdjoko and Agus Maryono , The Jakarta Post, Semarang/Purwokerto About 5,000 students and teachers from Catholic and Protestant private high schools staged a rally on Saturday at the Central Java legislature to protest against the education bill now being deliberated at the House of Representatives. The teachers and students, who came from the provincial towns of Semarang, Ungaran, Magelang, Salatiga, Magelang, Ambarawa and Muntilan, said the bill was a threat to national harmony. In their statement read by Catholic priest Tri Hartomo, the protesters said the bill was not in line with the preamble of 1945 Constitution which states that one of the national objectives is to build an intelligent nation. ""Instead of educating people, Article 4 of the bill asserts that national education aims to produce faithful and devout people,"" the statement read. Article 13 is at the center of the controversy as it stipulates that students have the right to...

  Uniforms for sale: School and university uniforms are given price tags during a rally at Hotel Indonesia traffic circle on Sunday to protest the soaring education cost. The rally was to commemorate the National Education Day. JP/Nurhayati

 Dina Indrasafitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 05/02/2010 4:09 PM | National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh has suggested high schools with few students and low pass grades based on the recent national examinations should merge. “If a region has two high schools with few students, and they are located near to each other, they could merge,” Nuh said in Jakarta on Sunday. Nuh said the government would set a strict and high standard on the establishment of new schools in the future. “Therefore, it doesn’t mean that someone who owns a building can simply establish a school. We have requirements and standards to fulfill,” he added. This year, all students from 267 schools participating in the national examinations have to take remedial tests on May 10-14. Some of the failing schools only had 20 students taking the national exams, said Nuh.

Arghea Desafti Hapsari ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 04/03/2010 9:04 AM  |  National The Constitutional Court’s ruling that annulled the educational legal entities law, giving universities greater autonomy to develop their resources, will not affect the state budget allocation for education, an official said Friday. “The Constitution has stipulated that the allocation for education should be at least 20 percent of the total state budget,” National Education Ministry spokesman Muhajir told The Jakarta Post. The government for the first time in 2008 managed to increase the education budget to 20 percent of the 2009 state budget. It was Rp 224.44 trillion (US$24.45 billion). The ministry’s higher education director general Fasli Jalal said the subsidy for higher education in 2009 was Rp 18 trillion, Rp 2 trillion higher than the previous year. The subsidy was used, among others, to pay salaries and fund scholarsh...

Antara | Tue, 02/23/2010 4:29 PM | National Students from the Faculty of Law at North Sumatra’s Muhammadiyah University light candles as they attempt to study during an electricity blackout Tuesday. The local branch of the state power company PT PLN said rolling blackouts would continue until late 2011 when two new power plants would start operating. Antara/Irsan Mulyadi

The Associated Press , Beijing | Wed, 02/24/2010 9:22 AM | Sci-Tech China has rejected a news report that U.S. investigators traced hacking attacks against Google Inc. to two Chinese schools and said suggestions the government might be involved were irresponsible. A foreign ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said Chinese law prohibits hacking and the government will take steps to stop it. At a regular news briefing Tuesday, Ma rejected a report by The New York Times last week that investigators traced hacking attacks on Google to Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School in China. "Reports that these attacks came from Chinese schools are groundless, and accusations of Chinese government involvement are irresponsible and out of ulterior motives," Ma said. Google cited the hacking attacks in a Jan. 12 announcement that said it would no longer cooperate with Chinese government censorship of the Internet and might close its...

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 11/10/2009 12:23 PM | National The Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) has told its members to do away with conventional teaching methods and develop new teaching paradigms allowing for more active student participation. PGRI's representative for international affairs, Unifah Rosyidi, told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of an international seminar in Jakarta on Monday that it was high time Indonesia's teachers answered to the new demands and challenges of developments in education. "Education in the old days placed teachers in the center, but today, the learners, or students, are the center. Today, education is not just a matter of transfering knowledge, rather it is more about facilitating the students to get better, and to actualize themselves," she said. Monday's seminar on developing a child-friendly school invited hundreds of teachers and lecturers from schools and universities from...

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 08/04/2009 10:06 AM | Headlines Captain Indonesia: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono unveils the 2010 state budget proposal during the House of Representatives’ plenary session in Senayan, Jakarta, on Monday. JP/R. Berto Wedhatama President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono says that the government will allocate Rp 327.6 trillion (US$33 billion) for the operation of state ministries and institutions during the 2010 fiscal year, but a number of lawmakers and experts say that this is not enough. The National Education Ministry will receive Rp 51.8 trillion from the budget, making it the highest single recipient of the state revenues. “The large allocation to the Department of National Education is mainly intended to finalize the execution of the compulsory nine-year basic education program,” Yudho-yono said during an extraordinary plenary meeting at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Monday. “We also aim to fin...

By Ish Mafundikwa Harare 07 July 2009 A Zimbabwean teachers' union is threatening to boycott classes every Friday if a number of their grievances including low pay are not addressed. Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou announced the intended boycott at a press conference in Harare. "We resolve to boycott classes and stay away from schools on Fridays beginning the 10th and 17th of July 2009. We will further boycott classes and stay away from schools on every Thursday and Friday starting on the 23rd of July if government does not respond to our action by the 17th of July 2009," Zhou said. In addition to the boycotts, Zhou said teachers would march in all urban centers on the Fridays they would not be at work. Zhou said his union has been pushed to act because the government had shown bad faith by not meeting any of the promises agreed to when the teachers went bac...

By VOA News 04 July 2009 Americans are celebrating the July 4 Independence Day holiday with fireworks, parades and concerts. Washington and New York are among the cities that will have spectacular fireworks displays Saturday night. Many small towns have been forced to scrap or scale back their celebrations because of the economic crisis. In his weekly Saturday address, U.S. President Barack Obama encouraged Americans to "kick back" and "enjoy a little time off." But he also reminded people the country is facing challenges "on a scale unseen in our time," from the severe economic recession to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Obama said meeting the challenges will require "extraordinary effort on the part of every American," and he urged support for his plans to reform U.S. education, health care and energy policies. The Fourth of July holiday marks the day in 1776 when the 1...

By Kent Klein Washington 04 July 2009 Pres. Barack Obama On U.S. Independence Day, President Barack Obama is calling on Americans to remember the spirit of the nation's founders, and to embrace his domestic initiatives. Republican Senator John McCain, meanwhile, wants stronger U.S. language against Iran's violent crackdown on protesters. President Obama, in his weekly address, asks Americans to remember the sacrifices and achievements of the men who voted for independence 233 years ago. "We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all; that a small band of patriots would declare independence from a powerful empire; and that they would form, in the new world, what the old world had never known - a government of, by and for the people," he said. In July, 1776, the representatives of 13 British colonies in America, gathered in Philadelphia, Penn...

By Lisa Schlein Geneva 03 July 2009 Displaced Pakistani children wait their turn at a food distribution center of Jalozai refugee camp in Peshawar, 25 May 2009 The U.N. Children's Fund says it is deeply concerned about the condition of thousands of children who have been displaced by conflict in northwestern Pakistan. UNICEF says children are in urgent need of health, education and other services. The U.N. Children's Fund reports nearly half of the estimated two million people displaced by conflict in Pakistan's Swat Valley are children. It says many are in urgent need of health and educational services, nutritional support, access to clean water and sanitation, as well as protection. It says these problems are made even more difficult by the sweltering summer heat. UNICEF says it is particularly concerned that some 700,000 children will miss out on the coming school year. School is supposed to ...

Wahyoe Boediwardhana , THE JAKARTA POST , MALANG, EAST JAVA | Sun, 06/21/2009 1:18 PM | Discover (JP/Wahyoe Boediwardhana) Malang State Institute of Polytechnic (Polinema) in East Java is more than ready should the controversial law on educational institution taken into effect. The newly passed bill will transform state universities into business-like entities by cutting subsidy and entitle universities to generate money to pay operational cost, including by raising students' admission fee and tuition. While many concerned students and lecturers took to the street to stage protest over the new regulation, Polinema management cooperates with private business in selling fruit juice in plastic bottles. The whole processing and packaging of the drink trademarked Josiee are based on researches carried out by Polinema students and lecturers. The production itself is taking place in a building of Polinema Chemical Engineering. "W...

by Patricia Cecil-Reed The ball has dropped, the champagne corks have popped, and all across America people are returning to work after the New Year's festivities. The question is: How do you feel returning to your job? You may already have made your New Year's resolutions, but do they include your career plans? The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to look back at the past year and plan for the one ahead. Evaluate what you really want, personally and professionally, and make a plan to get it. Fulfill a long-held good intention to further your career training or complete a degree program . If you want to try for a promotion in your field, or change career paths entirely, now is the time to go for it. Physical Therapist Assistant ($44,340 average annual salary--U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) Physical therapist assistants play a hands-on role in the rehabilitation of disabled patients, and have the specific pleasure of watching their work make a phys...

by Gabby Hyma n There's nothing like eight grinding hours at a dull job to kill your professional libido. When it comes to work, you may have to try out a number of positions until you find one that satisfies. Truth is, we all have something we love to do, and we know how to do it with panache. If your day (or night) relationship with your career has gone as stale as a week-old bottle of champagne, it's time to cry a little, get back on your feet, and find something new. Here are six positions to think about before you roll over and fall sleep: Management Consultants You get dewy eyed just reading books on the habits of successful business professionals. What you really like is being on top. That's why you need to pursue an online MBA degree and find work as a management consultant . Take a position with a consulting firm, or work as a private contractor like 21 percent of people in the profession. And why not? Job growth for management, scientific, an...

Tuesday, 2 June 2009 | 2:22 AM KOMPAS.com - Jakarta’s public order officers (Satpol PP) have turned out to be a bigger drain on city finances than the basic education sector, a local human rights group alleges. “In Jakarta, the 2007 funding for the office amounted to Rp 303.2 billion [US$29.7 million], that is a lot more than the funding for basic education and public health services, which totaled Rp 188 billion and Rp 200 billion respectively,” Imparsial director Rusdi Marpaung said Monday at a press conference in Jakarta. Research conducted by Imparsial also revealed that public order officers mostly conducted their regular raids through coercion, leading to incidents of violence in some reported cases. “In doing their job, the use of discussion, negotiation and compromise is rarely seen,” Rusdi said. Imparsial research coordinator Al Araf said the group had recommended the dissolution of the Satpol PP to prevent more human rights violations from occurring. He added the Satpol PP wo...

By Lisa Schlein Geneva 20 June 2009 Newly displaced families wait for registration outside an IDP camp outside Mogadishu, Somalia, 15 May 2009 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is urging the international community to do more to protect and care for refugees around the world. The appeal comes as the agency commemorates World Refugee Day, which focuses on the plight of tens of millions of refugees and displaced people uprooted by conflict and persecution. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says people flee their homes not because they want to, but because they have to. It reports there were more than 42 million refugees and internally displaced people worldwide by the end of 2008. And, those numbers are continuing to grow. Victims of conflict The UNHCR says so far, this year, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes in conflict-ridden places such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia. An...

Yuli Tri Suwarni , The Jakarta Post , Bandung | Thu, 06/04/2009 12:51 PM Students from poor families will likely find it increasingly difficult to enter state-owned universities in the coming years, as the number of seats offered through special entrance schemes, which require higher admission fees, are steadily increasing. The Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), for example, will offer 1,140 of its total 2,985 seats (or 38 percent) to students who pass a special entrance test this academic year. As of 2004, just 13-20 percent of seats were made available through this scheme. Padjadjaran University (Unpad), also in Bandung, offers 3,795 of its 10,000 seats (also roughly 38 percent) through a special scheme. Previously, less than 30 percent of total seats were made available through the scheme. The Bandung based Indonesian Education University (UPI) even makes some 80 percent, or 3,500 of its total 4,205 seats, available through special entra...