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‘Racist’ school census that ‘targets two-year-olds’ to go ahead despite growing pressure from opposition groups

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

A controversial government census that Lords say “smacks of racism” is set to go ahead, despite increasing pressure from data protection campaigners and human rights groups.

Since September this year, schools, colleges and nurseries have been required to ask parents for personal information including the nationality, place of birth and English language proficiency of their children.

Debating the matter in Parliament, Lords rejected the census, warning that asking schools to record pupil nationality had “all the hallmarks of racism” and victimised children as young as two on the basis of their ethnicity.

Meeting with campaigners on Wednesday, however, Department for Education officials confirmed the government had no plans to retract the census, and would continue to collect nationality and birth-place data – a move campaigners said was “deeply disappointing”.

In an open letter to MPs, Schools Against Borders for Children – a coalition of parents, teachers, schools and campaigners, have urged parents to boycott the next school census for fear information could be used for third party purposes, including immigration enforcement.

Their concerns follow information exposed through a Freedom of Information request that confirms police forces and the Home Office have been handed information from the National Pupil Database in past months.

Meeting with Ian Bell, Head of Data for the DfE, representatives from Schools Against Borders urged the government to scrap the requirement for schools to collect the information, on the grounds that it “violates the right to privacy” for children and families and acts as a “foreign children list”.

Campaign co-ordinator Gracie Mae Bradley said: “We are grateful to the Department for Education for meeting us to discuss our serious concerns over this divisive school census.

“Regrettably there was little indication that the DfE understands the gravity or the scale of the risks of their current course of action.

“It’s deeply disappointing that a mass boycott may be the only way to put a stop to these foreign children lists.”

Growing opposition to the policy now includes politicians across party lines in the House of Commons, following a successful motion of regret in the House of Lords.

The National Union of Teachers has also reacted against the census, warning the government that “schools are not part of policing immigration”.

While the school census has existed for some years previously, requirements for schools to record new details including nationality for the national database was introduced for the first time this term.

The changes have resulted in widespread confusion, with a number of schools incorrectly asking for pupils’ passports and in some cases being advised to guess pupil ethnicity for lack of proof.

One parent with two young children who is supporting the campaign, said: “The foreign children database has frightened a lot of people, with schools chasing parents up to show children’s passports: it just feels unreal.

“I fear about what it says about the country I’m raising my kids in, especially post-Brexit and now post-Trump. Nurseries should not dividing children by immigration status.”

Speaking in the House of Lords earlier this month, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Lord Storey said the new legislation was rushed through without scrutiny during the summer recess, and littered with flaws.

He said: “It is deeply concerning that the Government are creating a vast database of children’s nationalities without giving any reason why it is needed.

“I am afraid that this proposal has all the hallmarks of racism, particularly as language codes are already recorded for pupils with English as an additional language, as are codes on their ethnic background.”

Responding to concerns over how pupil data might be used, the DfE insisted that any information on nationality, ethnicity or otherwise would be stored for the department’s own analysis and records.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Gathering data on pupils’ country of birth, nationality and English proficiency as part of the National School Census will be used to help us better understand how children with, for example, English as an additional language perform in terms of their broader education, and to assess and monitor the scale and impact immigration may be having on the schools sector.

“However, our guidance is clear that there is no requirement for headteachers to ascribe nationality or ethnicity to their pupils. A pupil’s background is personal to them, and if a parent or guardian does not wish to provide this information, schools should record ‘refused’ on their systems.”

[Source:- independent]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Internet

Cybercriminals Offering Services for Hire to Militant Groups, Says Europol

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Cybercriminals Offering Services for Hire to Militant Groups, Says Europol

Cybercriminals offering contract services for hire offer militant groups the means to attack Europe but such groups have yet to employ such techniques in major attacks, EU police agency Europol said on Wednesday.

“There is currently little evidence to suggest that their cyber-attack capability extends beyond common website defacement,” it said in its annual cybercrime threat assessment in a year marked by Islamic State violence in Europe.

But the internet’s criminal shadow the Darknet had potential to be exploited by militants taking advantage of computer experts offering “crime as a service”, Europol added: “The availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities (including firearms) on the Darknet, provide ample opportunities for this situation to change.”

Overall, the report found, existing trends in cybercrime continued to grow, with some of the European Union’s member states reporting more cyber crimes than the traditional variety.

“Europol is concerned about how an expanding cybercriminal community has been able to further exploit our increasing dependence on technology and the internet,” its director, Rob Wainwright, said in a statement. “We have also seen a marked shift in cyber-facilitated activities relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other threats.”

“Ransomware” – programmes which break into databases and demand payment for unlocking codes via virtual currencies such as Bitcoin – continued to expand as a problem, as did highly targeted “phishing” attacks to extract security data from senior figures – “CEO fraud” – and video streaming of child abuse.

Attacks on bank cash-machine networks were also increasing, the report found, as were frauds exploiting new contactless payment card transactions, while traditional scams involving the physical presence of a card had been successfully reduced.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Internet

Global Business Groups Petition China’s Premier on Cyber Rules

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Global Business Groups Petition China's Premier on Cyber Rules

In a letter addressed to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, 46 global business groups spanning finance, information technology, insurance and manufacturing urged Beijing to revise its draft cyber rules which they said would hamper trade.

The signatories include industry associations from Asia, Australia, the United States, Mexico and Europe, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.

Foreign industry groups have made no secret of their concerns over China’s draft cyber security law, which in June underwent a second of three parliamentary readings typically required before being adopted.

They say the draft regulations, as well as cyber rules from China’s insurance regulator, include provisions for invasive government security reviews and onerous requirements to keep data in China.

“Trade-inhibiting security reviews” for information and communications technology products and services under the rules may weaken security and constitute technical barriers to trade under the World Trade Organization, the groups said in the letter.

Broad data residency requirements “would impede economic growth and create barriers to entry for both foreign and Chinese companies”, they said, urging China to revise the rules.

“The current drafts, if implemented, would weaken security and separate China from the global digital economy.”

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the letter on Thursday.

Chinese officials have said the cyber-security rules, along with internet restrictions including the blocking of popular foreign sites like Google and Facebook, are needed to ensure security against growing threats such as terrorism.

The first draft of the cyber-security law, published more than a year ago, toughened user privacy protection from hackers and data resellers, but also boosted the government’s powers to access and block dissemination of private information records that Chinese law deems illegal.

It is not clear when the law may be adopted, but it could undergo a final reading by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, or parliament, later this year.

The petition from the industry groups came as China prepares to host world leaders at the G20 summit in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou in September.

Beijing hopes it will be a platform to address slower economic growth and rising protectionism, even as it struggles to make difficult reforms at home.

Foreign businesses in China are becoming increasingly pessimistic, in part due to rules that companies think could make it harder to operate there.

The cyber rules have added to problems between China and its trade partners, from overcapacity in the steel sector to worries about Beijing’s Made in China 2025 plan, which calls for a progressive increase in domestic components in sectors such as advanced information technology and robotics.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Education

The Groups Fighting for Girls’ Education in India

by Loknath Das October 16, 2017

written by Loknath Das

Image result for The Groups Fighting for Girls' Education in India JAISALMER, INDIA—Once a year, the history lecturer Vijay Kumar Ballani and his colleagues go door-to-door in this rural village, imploring parents to send their children to a cinderblock complex that lacks classroom space, bathrooms, and desks. He gives the same stock speech.

“Education is free, lunch is free, books are free, sanitary napkins are free,’’ Ballani tells parents, urging them to visit this government-run school on the edge of the Thar Desert, where, on a warm day late last spring, 12 teachers were overseeing the education of 260 students from first grade through high school. “Your kids will have a better life if they are educated. No one will cheat you.”

Ballani, known as “Mr. Desert’’ for his knowledge of this area, also gives tours of the golden forts and palaces of Rajasthan when he isn’t teaching or pushing villagers to keep children in school. Not surprisingly, he has better luck with boys; girls are too often needed by their families to toil in fields or care for younger children, especially in rural areas.

Now change, while slow, is coming to this country that has long left females behind, particularly here in Rajasthan, where only 52.66 percent are literate and some 350,000 are not in school, according to Educate Girls, a nonprofit aimed at getting more rural girls into classrooms. Less than half of them finish 10th grade in this pocket of northwestern India.

Here and elsewhere in this rapidly growing country, girls are increasingly the focus of new initiatives aimed at keeping them in school. All face obstacles.

The school where Ballani teaches has few amenities. There’s no playground, gym, or running water, and very little technology. And despite India’s push to guarantee a good education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14 under the country’s Right to Education Act of 2009, most students will not finish school.

“They are too poor—their parents want them to work,’’ Ballani said, while showing a visitor in and out of dusty classrooms at his school, GSSS Damodora, where students dressed in powder-blue uniforms sat on the floor awaiting instruction.

Vijay Ballani, also known as Mr. Desert, goes door-to- door in the Jaisalmer region to encourage parents to send their children to school. (Kim Palmer / The Hechinger Report)

About 65 percent of India’s students attend similar government schools, many with dismal outcomes. Just under three-quarters of students in rural India can’t subtract two-digit numbers by grade three, and only half of grade five students can read at a second-grade level, according to a recent World Bank report. The slow pace of improvement in India’s schools some 70 years after the country gained independence from Britain remains a source of frustration, but has given way in recent years to a range of public and private initiatives aimed at boosting attendance, literacy, and the number of girls who attend school.

New literacy efforts are evolving via NGO’s like Pratham, whose mission is “every child in school and learning well,” while Round Table India claims to have builtone classroom a day for the last 10 years, including a new a community schoolserving an isolated tribal village. A summer coding camp is introducing Indian girls to computers, while new performance-based contracts known as social impact bonds are being introduced to improve learning and get more girls in schools. The government is also taking steps to provide additional non-school support (like bicycles to help students get there), and is moving toward newpartnerships and private takeovers aimed at improving teacher training and school conditions.

Still, increasing numbers of families are opting out of government schools in favor of low-cost private education options, while visionary educators are reimagining new solutions, especially for girls. In the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, one school is changing lives in an area where more than 599 million people live below the poverty line and nearly 10 percent of girls are out of school. In rural Rajasthan, construction will soon be underway for a new all-girls school that will showcase local goods and heritage handiwork in this former medieval-trading center, while combining education and economic development for local women.

Students sit on the floor in a classroom. — Students attend a government school in Jaisalmer. (Kim Palmer / *The Hechinger Report*)

Just a few miles away from where Ballani teaches, Michael Daube is raising money for the new girls’ school and economic center in Jaisalmer. The charismatic American artist and founder of a New York-based non profit recently broke ground for the Rani Ratnavati Girls School, named for a royal family member credited with saving the Jaisalmer Fort.

The center will rise on a dusty desert site, in a region where some 9.7 percent of girls aged 11-14 are out of school.

“Girls’ education is very low on the list of priorities in India, and rural Rajasthan fares near the bottom,’’ said Daube, who heads an organization known as CITTA, which builds and supports development of schools and hospitals in India.

On an early spring day, Daube, dressed in flowing white, described his vision for a cooperative where 400 girls will study and work alongside their mothers and grandmothers, next to a community center that showcases the intricate hand-sewn rugs, scarves, and saris for which the region is known. Local musicians played while the royal family of Jaisalmer looked out at the barren former Indian heritage site, next to government land Daube hopes to acquire. “A small project can have a global impact,’’ Daube said.

The Manhattan architect Diane Kellogg is designing the complex, which will include an exhibition hall for female artists to display and sell their products. Girls will attend classes while local women weave and embroider their delicate handicrafts. Daube says he has drawn financial support from brands such as Kate Spade, Barneys, and J. Crew, which have pledged to showcase projects from the women’s center as a way of keeping their faded heritage alive. Patchwork artistSantosh Rathi says he’ll work alongside them.

Students at a village school gather for a performance. (Liz Willen / The Hechinger Report)

“I will provide the old embroidered pieces so people know they existed,’’ Rathi said after the groundbreaking ceremony, pointing to quilts specially crafted to be among goods a bride’s family traditionally gives to a bridegroom’s family as part of a dowry. “It will help keep these traditions alive and make them [the women] economically powerful.’’

CITTA has experience building both a hospital and a school in Juanga, a village in India, which now has 360 students from kindergarten through 10th grade. The school goes beyond educating children: It also teaches villagers hands-on skills like nutrition, money management, and animal husbandry. The royal family of Jaisalmer is helping with some costs; Daube and CITTA are holding fundraisersfor the more than $300,000 needed to build the Rani Ratnavati school and hope it will become self-sustaining within five years.

* * *

A privately funded all-girls high school is also reporting great success in northern India. In 2003, the Prerna Girls School began providing a low-cost option that has served over 5,000 girls from impoverished families. In her new book, Reaching for the Sky, Empowering Girls Through Education, the author and Brookings fellowUrvashi Sahni weaves in stories of many of the girls, including graduate Aarti Singh, now 25 with a master’s degree and dreams of becoming a professor.

When she first heard about Prerna, which means inspiration in English, Singh had one question: “Do they beat you?’’ That abuse had been part of her experience at a local village school, where teachers showed up sporadically. Singh never learned to take an exam and fell way behind. She is the eldest of five girls; her mother married at 16 and is illiterate. Her father drank and beat her mother and siblings so regularly that Singh’s mother once threatened to poison all her children and herself to end their misery.

Although she liked studying, Singh was discouraged from attending because it wasn’t considered safe. When her family moved to Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, they stayed in an abandoned room and moved to a local hospital at night, where they would search for empty beds. Everything changed when Singh got to Prerna. “I felt like I belonged … you can go to your teacher and talk to them about your personal problems. Discussing our lives was part of being in school,” she recounts in Reaching for the Sky.

Sahni, who also works closely with government schools on an advisory council, is often asked her opinion on improving education for girls in India. She’s convinced that having schools recognize the trauma and poverty inherent in their lives is a start, particularly in a country stratified by gender, religion, and a caste systemthat still permeates daily life.

“To change mindsets, you have to start at school,’’ Sahni said. “It’s not just about reading and writing and counting. It’s about developing a social and political consciousness. You want them to have a good life.”

Aashna Shroff started Girls Code Camp to introduce girls in India to computers. (Sathwik Pochampally)

With over 1.3 billion people, India is second only to China in population and will account for 25 percent of the world’s labor pool by 2030. Ashish Dhawan, a former investment manager who started the Central Square Foundation to boost education in India, has repeatedly insisted his country act “with a sense of urgency,’’ if it wants to become an economic superpower, and improve both the quality of its schools and teaching force.

Aashna Shroff, a 22-year-old Stanford graduate, feels that urgency. She grew up in Mumbai and was one of only two girls taking computer classes at her private high school, Chirec International. Her older sister, who studied computer science at MIT, sent her lectures and coding lessons. When Shroff arrived at Stanford, she found herself overwhelmed by opportunities she never had in India, and immediately wondered how she could help girls left behind in her country.

At government schools she visited back home, Shroff found “some might never have even seen a computer.’’ So she began working with other Stanford students and faculty to form a nonprofit Girls Code Camp, which aims to teach computer science to middle and high-school girls in India. The camps have already served about 800 girls; Aashna is now studying at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and hopes to develop low-cost education tools for countries like India.

“There are so many barriers for women in India when it comes to education,’’ Shroff said. “They get their periods and stay home for a week and fall behind. Or their parents have another child and they stop going to school and start babysitting the younger ones and become the mother of the household.’’

A group of people are gathered. — Members of the royal family of Jaisalmer, including Queen Raseshwari Singh, gather for the
groundbreaking of a new all girls school with Michael Daube of CITTA. (Kim Palmer /*The Hechinger Report*)

Shroff has little faith in the country’s government schools, and is skeptical that private partnerships are a viable solution, noting that financial reimbursements often aren’t timely or substantial enough and put “undue pressure on private entities to pool their resources in raising money rather than ensuring quality of education.”

* * *

Sahni, the author, also expressed skepticism about private takeovers during a talk she gave about her book before a packed crowd in Manhattan in October; she believes they have failed to deliver and lost the faith of communities.

“The private schools are not necessarily better,’’ Sahni said. “I don’t know that just becoming private will make anything different.”

Sahni is deeply involved in efforts to improve government schools in Rajasthan and elsewhere, and hopeful that improvements will be coming and is already seeing a shift. “I would definitely not give up on public schools,’’ she said.

A group of boys in a classroom; some sit at desks, and a bunch of students sit on the floor. — Inside a classroom at a government school where there aren’t enough desks. (Kim Palmer / *The Hechinger Report*)

Back at GSSS Damodora, the lecturer Ballani is more concerned about classroom space and equipment. He’s also hoping the school will get more qualified teachers, which are desperately needed throughout the country. India will need some 3 million new primary-school teachers by 2030 and over eight million secondary, according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates.

“If we get more teachers and make a joint effort with parents and concentrate on the work of students, we can get much better results,’’ Ballani said, before the conversation turned back to a list of everything the school needs: a projector, furniture, a library, books, and clothing for colder weather.

He did get some good news on that front recently: a new donation he’s especially excited about. “We are going to have fresh drinking water,’’ Ballani said.

[“Source-theatlantic”]

October 16, 2017 0 comment

Internet

Facebook Groups App to Be Discontinued on September 1

by Loknath Das August 7, 2017

written by Loknath Das

Facebook Groups App to Be Discontinued on September 1

HIGHLIGHTS

Facebook says it will be improving Groups experience in main app
The users’ groups will remain unaffected despite discontinuation
The app is currently available on both Android and iOS

Facebook’s standalone Groups app, meant for heavy users of its Groups feature, is not a very popular app and this is why it wouldn’t come as a surprise to many that the social media company has finally decided to discontinue the app. On September 1, Facebook Groups app will be discontinued and the company will improve the Groups features within the main app itself.

While it is currently unclear how Facebook will be improving the Groups experience within the main app, starting next month, the Groups app will cease to exist, as pointed out in a report by Android Police. In its note to app users, Facebook said, “Thanks for using the Groups app. On September 1, this app will be going away so we can focus on improving groups experience in the main Facebook app.”

Facebook further assured users that their groups are not going away and that they will still be able to access them from the main app. The company said that it is currently working towards making the Groups experience even better in the main app. While we will have to wait and see if the company will be able to keep the current app users happy with its addition to the main app, hopefully the company will be able to do so without affecting the user experience of the main Facebook app.

Currently, the Facebook Groups app is available on both Android and iOS.

Recently, Facebook surpassed Microsoft and Google’s parent company Alphabet in terms of profit per employee for 2017. Facebook, as per a report by Recode, made $188,498 (roughly Rs. 1.2 crores) per employee.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

August 7, 2017 0 comment