Stymied by Protests, Iran Unleashes Its Wrath on Its Youth

 

Hundreds of minors have been detained for joining the demonstrations, and many others have died in the crackdown, according to Iranian lawyers and rights activists.

Iran is also a signatory to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its targeting and treatment of children, Mr. Raeesi said, violates its obligations.

The New York Times documented 23 raids on high schools in cities across Iran, where plainclothes militia and intelligence agents interrogated, beat and searched students or where school authorities threatened or attacked students.

In one incident, a Tehran elementary school was attacked last month when security forces threw tear gas in its yard during recess because students were chanting anti-government slogans, according to a parent whose third-grade son attends the school.

The regime in Tehran is so fearful of its children that its security forces have been unleashed upon them causing hundreds of deaths, an unknown number of imprisonments and who knows how many injuries. 

Iran protest: Activists hack state TV as children arrested for school demonstrations

 

Mass protests in Iran have now entered their fourth week posing the biggest challenge to the country's Islamic leaders in years.

Can Ukrainian students in Germany cope under all the pressure? | DW News

 

Should schools require pupils to wear masks?

“I can die if people do not have their masks on." Debates are taking place in the USA about whether children should wear masks in school.

Are schools prepared for children returning to school?

 

The pandemic shut down schools around the world. In some countries they are now reopening. Many parents are relieved, school is starting again in parts of Germany. For the second time, kids will take up their classes under the conditions of the pandemic.

Thai School Scandal

 

As stories about abusive teachers hit the headlines in Thailand, we meet the students who say they have had enough.

From regulating the length of students’ hair to what they wear and how they behave, Thailand’s schools have long been a place where one must abide by strict rules. In some schools, the power imbalance between students and teachers has left children exposed to abuse, bullying and humiliating punishments.

Should schools remain open or be closed to stop the spread of the virus?

 Going to school every morning, spending your day together with other kids in classrooms. None of this can be taken for granted anymore. DW's COVID-19 Special examines education in times of the pandemic.

COVID-19 and the schools crisis - BBC News

 With thousands of schools still closed around the world, there are increasingly urgent warnings of the impact of the pandemic on millions of children. Ros Atkins looks at risks of re-opening and of not doing so.

Doctors' leaders warn vaccine second dose delay may "undermine effectiveness": University students protest across UK over “lack of support” during pandemic

 Senior doctors have called on the Government to shorten the gap between the first and second doses of Pfizer-Biotech coronavirus vaccinations.

Students from more than 50 universities are taking part in a rent strike in protest at how the pandemic has affected their studies.

Coronavirus: Why are so many children still in England’s schools?

England’s schools have closed during its third lockdown but many schools across the country have reported an increased demand for key worker places.

 

CDC Told to Downplay COVID-19 Risks So Schools Could Reopen

CDC TOLD TO SKEW COVID DATA: The CDC was reportedly told to downplay the risks of COVID-19 to better support the Trump admin’s stance on reopening schools, according to former Pence staffer and WH coronavirus task force member Olivia Troye.
 

Boris Johnson defends change of advice on masks in English schools

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended the government's change in position on the use of face coverings in secondary schools in England. Pupils will now have to wear masks between lessons in schools where there are local lockdowns; elsewhere, it will be up to head teachers to decide.

Will free, weekly corona tests keep students and teachers safe?

Schools have been reopening with new measures to keep students and teachers safe -- some offering free, weekly corona tests. Experts warn against 'false negatives' in COVID-19. The World Health Organization has updated its guidance for mask-wearing, as millions of children return to school around the world.

Donald Trump Wants To Sacrifice Your Children For His Ego

People said about Sarah Palin that she lacked simple curiosity and then along came Donald Trump. He doesn't just lack intellectual curiosity but a complete misunderstanding of history, current events, governance and government. He, like the news outlets he so loves creates his own facts or as Kellyanne Conway put it "Alternative facts."  With that list of basic failures comes those that most affect the people he supposedly governs. Lack of empathy, misogyny, racism, whit nationalism and his extreme narcissism.  Are you then surprised that he wants to pretend that the coronavirus pandemic has magically  disappeared and the country has returned to normal. No, you aren't. So, to assuage his fragile ego and continue the fantasy that normalcy has returned the country he's threatening to withhold funds from states who won't reopen their schools.  Of course this isn't for the benefit of the students to further advance their education. It's all for the sole purpose of assuaging Donald Trump's ego and to, he hopes increase his chances for reelection. How exposing the nations students to a worldwide pandemic will increase his chances at reelection are known only to him.

Donald Trump has threatened to cut school funding for areas that refuse to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic, adding he disagrees with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “very tough” and “expensive” guidelines.

Pence says 'it's time' to get kids back to school, adding CDC will release new guidelines

Vice President Mike Pence, a member of the White House's Coronavirus Task Force, addressed the issue with schools reopening in the fall during a press briefing on Tuesday. 

He said the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will now release new guidelines after Donald Trump called the current ones "very tough" and "expensive". 

"We're absolutely determined to work in partnership with our states to give the guidance for states and communities to be able to safely reopen our schools," Mr Pence said.

The new guidelines would be "part of a five-part series of recommendations that will give all new tools to our schools," he added. 
Earlier on Tuesday Mr Trump threatened to cut the federal funding of any school or district that refused to reopen in the fall. The president also pushed for schools reopening on Monday. 

"As the President made clear yesterday it's time. It's time for us to get our kids back to school," Mr Pence said.


I'm sure Trump's most ardent supporters will be willing to sacrifice their children's lives to the coronavirus and his ego. While the other 70% will not. 

Japanese student rejects apology over university 'sex listing'

While the #MeToo movement has taken a strong hold in Europe and North America the same can't be said about Japan.  Here sexual harassment, assault, misogyny and blatant paternalism are still alive with no end insight.  So, it should unsurprising that a Japanese tabloid would publish a completely sexiest article about which inferred that female students from certain universities where easily lured into hook-up's during drinking parties.         

A Japanese university student on Wednesday rejected an apology by a magazine over a report on how easy it was to coax female undergraduates into having sex after her online petition objecting to the article went viral.

The weekly tabloid magazine, Spa!, caused outrage with an article in late December ranking five Japanese universities on how easy it was to persuade female students to have sex at drinking parties.

Kazuna Yamamoto, an international relations student at the International Christian University in Tokyo, posted an online petition protesting about the article that received over 40,000 signatures in six days

Female students riding trains are often groped while traveling to school. With the most infamous being the Saikyo line in Saitama. 

The Voting Age Has Changed In Japan: So, Why Is Ehime Trying To Suppress Political Enthusiasm?

Japan has lowered its voting age from 20 to 18 with their first chance to participate in electoral politics in this summer's House  of Councillors elections.  But as with so many changes in Japan there's always an exception to what should be a straightforward  policy.  In this case the government sent a letter to every Board of Education in the country saying that schools could require pre notification if students engaged in political activities.  

If students are allowed to vote in an election and want to participate how are they to do so freely if they must inform their school? Will the students advisors try and dissuade them from involvement, pressure them to vote for their prefered party,  intimidate students or will they just try and bully them into avoiding the process altogether?      

Against this backdrop, the Ehime prefectural education board held a meeting of vice principals of prefectural high schools in December. At this meeting, it distributed handouts with examples of how school rules could be changed to ban any political activities on school premises and oblige students to give a week’s notice when they participate in such activities off campus.
An official of the board said it did not instruct schools to change their rules and left the decision up to them, adding that the handouts were for reference only. But the board asked the schools to report back if they implemented such changes.

One can understand disallowing campaign activities in schools.  That said in Japan when a person or group in a position of authority issue a recommendation that's taken as a regulation that must be enforced rather than as a guideline.   

This Is Not Good Governece

Punjab state IT board in Pakistan commissioned a video game to be produce about the school massacre which took place in Peshawar in December of 2014 at a public military school which left more than 150 people dead the majority of whom were students.  What sort of government would, not only consider producing such a game but then actually create it and sell online at Google Play? It's just sick that these people would try and profit from the deaths of these students.

A video game based on a Taliban school massacre in Pakistan's city of Peshawar in December 2014 has been withdrawn following a barrage of criticism.

The game - Pakistan Army Retribution - was released by a government digital agency in the central Punjab province.

Players could act as soldiers shooting the attackers in the school. The agency later admitted it was "in poor taste".

More than 150 people, mostly pupils, were killed in the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.

The game was released on Google Play several weeks ago - around the second anniversary of the attack.

However, it became a focus of public attention after Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reviewed the game, declaring that it "failed on every front".

UK Students Sympathetic To Palestinians Being Reported

Stifling freedom of expression in UK schools

London, UK - Schoolchildren in the UK who express support for Palestine face being questioned by police and referred to a counter-radicalisation programme for youngsters deemed at risk of being drawn into terrorism under new laws requiring teachers to monitor students for extremism. One schoolboy told Al Jazeera he was accused of holding "terrorist-like" views by…