Diversity in Education

Diversity in education covers a large number of areas that deal in improving education and providing a greater number of opportunities to those who want to learn. While this is one way of looking at diversity, other descriptions would entail including all types of learners and including a wide number of subject areas and disciplines. The impact of this has led to a greater number of people from different backgrounds being able to seek an education.

Diversity in education is a subject that has been discussed and researched in detail. Prior to the idea of education diversity, it was believed that there many people being denied their right to an education. http://www.360career.com  Also, those who had opportunities did not get to study the things they really wanted to. This led to much controversy, debate, etc. which has only been good for education as a whole. Different regions of the world have since then managed to include disciplines in education that can benefit their learners more.

Today, there is a wider variety of subjects available to learners that were never available before. Indeed, there has been much subject diversification under the belt of education diversity. Many years ago, there was just the limited range of academic subjects and courses that students of a fixed age bracket were compelled to study. Today, this has been transformed. There are courses now available to people regardless of the age bracket they may come under. There are also many more subjects to study. For example, performing arts is a broad category under which a number of arts can be studied. This broad category has been developed extensively over the last 30 years. Today, it is a specialized field of study that only serious musicians, actors, artists, etc. pursue.

Diversity in education also encompasses a variety of learning preferences. While there is a mainstream means of learning through formal school education, there are also methods that have been discovered. Many years ago, people shunned learners that could not fit into this formal learning system. As a result, there were many people who ended up wasting their lives without achieving an education. Many of these shunned individuals were later discovered to be ones that had different forms of intelligence. This included dyslexics for example, who proved that they were alternative thinkers.

Many learners who could not fit into the mainstream learning environment were deemed to be deviants or mentally impaired. However, the reality was quite different. While some mainstream thinkers thought these individuals could not learn other experts discovered that these people were not taught according to their perceptive skills. For example, some of them required more attention in order to get them to study. These very learners would eventually become speedy learners once they were propelled into a learning method that suited them.

It is true to say that many people who cannot fit into the mainstream learning system, require a greater amount of attention. Not many schools were willing to spend the extra time required. However, today, there are specialized education boards and institutions that deal with alternative learning abilities. Some of these organizations have discovered learners that only appear to be under average, but are actually super creative individuals. The sad truth is that many individuals with alternative learning abilities were brutally ignored in the past. The good news is that many or these individuals are being discovered today, and they are being allowed to develop themselves in a manner that suits them. 

Diversity in education, as we have seen here, covers several areas, and these areas themselves encompass issues and topics that are of a great variety. Diversity in education itself is a healthy ongoing debate that is a must for future development in education. Without doubt, it can be said that education has developed a great deal thanks to debates in diversity. However, there may be a lot more to discover, and given that many large portions of the world population lack opportunities to get an education, efforts must be sustained. This is said with due consideration given to the fact that there are many alternative or unconventional learners in developed and developing countries that are still being ignored. Therefore, the debate must continue.

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By: Steve

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Education City

Education City, based In Doha the capital of Qatar, spreads across 14 square kilometers of the area. It was a project started by Qatar foundation of Education with the aim and desire of making an educational complex that would be considered as centre of educational brilliance in Doha. The city comprises of schools, research centers and world class universities for higher education.

Education City isn’t only comprised of the local schools and colleges of Doha, as five of the leading Universities of America also have their branch campuses set up in Education city. The universities include Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar that was established there in 1998 that offers graduate degree based on 4 years curriculum in the fields of Fine Arts, Fashion Designing, Interior Designing and Communication Designing. In 2001, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar was established that provides a two year Pre-Medical Program followed by a four year Medical Program that ultimately leads to the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Also in 2001, Academic Bridge Program was established as well in the Education City that trains and prepares secondary school graduates for admission in degree programs and acts as a foundation course. Later in 2003 Texas A&M University was grounded in Qatar offering the under-grad degrees in the field of electrical, chemical, petroleum and mechanical engineering.

Since 2007 the university has also been offering masters degree programs in engineering as well. Carnegie Mellon University came to Qatar in 2004 offering an under-grad degree for the studies of business, computer science and information systems. Georgetown University School of Foreign Service was set up in 2005 in Qatar, providing the students with bachelor’s degree in Foreign Service in four- year’s program. And in near future, in the year 2008, Northwestern University also announces of establishing campus in Education City, offering degrees in the field of Journalism and Communication.

Education City also features a learning centre that mainly focuses average potential students that faced some difficulties and problems in academically, and helps them improve and develop sound learning skills. http://www.360career.com  Education City is also comprised with Qatar Academy offering education to boys and girls on international standards from primary education up till their admission in University, hence the academy is accredited Academic Bridge Program based in USA, and Europe based Council of International Schools.

Qatar Foundation joined hands with RAND Corporation and formed RAND-Qatar Policy Institute, whose main job is to study the problems and difficulties faced by the clients based in Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, and provide and implement resulting solutions. Qatar Foundation is also investing a total of 300 million Dollars, in the construction of world class facility called Qatar Science & Technology Park spreading across 45,000 square meters, providing the companies from around the world with space for laboratory or office set up. Qatar foundation also plans to establish a medical research facility with the name of Sidra Medical and Research Center in 2010 that will offer research programs in the field of clinical care, medical training and biomedical research.

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By: Steve

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Iran, as a historically, culturally, and scientifically ancient country has had a prosperous status in the human life and worlds education. To give an example, Iranian cosmopolitan scientists and educators such as Bozorgmehr, Ferdowsi, Birooni, Razi, Avicenna, Sadie, Khayyam, Nasir-oddin-Toosi, and many others are among the great educators and scientists who have played an important role in human life. When we compare this with other main ancient countries of China, India, Egypt, and Greek, it becomes clear that only Greek scientists and educators are comparable to Iranians in the amount of influence of their science and education on international and historical basis.

But, nowadays, in terms of innovations in culture, education, and other sciences, both philosophically and methodologically, Iranian scientists and educators research products are not remarkable. Todays Iranian human sciences are academically and socially struggling with some essential problems and challenges that block the process of qualitative growth and development of sciences and education in this ancient land which was once one of the most valuable cradles of knowledge and wisdom.

Research indicates that the qualitative development of higher education in our country is much lower than its quantitative growth. During the past 25 years (1981-2005), the Iranian academic community and its institutions have expanded dramatically (Yalpani, et. al, 2006). Currently, there are more than 50 state universities, and nearly 150 non-private technical undergraduate schools, which enroll about 750,000 students. There are also about 60 official research institutions throughout the country. In addition, since 1984, an extensive country wide private university system (mostly undergraduates) was started which enrolls another 750,000 full time students.

We may ask why the qualitative development and scientific products, especially in social sciences and humanities, are not worthy to mention. According to the data provided by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology for the academic year 2003, the total numbers of master and doctoral students and available faculty were 68287, 12189, and 25723, respectively. Subtracting from the latter the 50 percent of instructors/tutors, who are not directly involved in any meaningful research activity, there still remain 12861 potentially researching faculty members.

The same source gives the total numbers of national scientific output for 2003 as 3326 counts. This means that each faculty member has produced in that year 0.23 indexed scientific publications. Should we include all those who with their daily work collect the needed scientific data, i.e., the graduate students, each year we end up with a publication per scientific worker ratio of only 0.034. This number is the resultant when we include all academic disciplines. When we now focus our attention to the Social Sciences and Humanities group, the situation seems to be significantly worse (op. cited). In a research conducted by the present author himself, it has been found out that there are only seven research-based scientific journals of education. in our country with maximum publication volume of 10 thousands for about one million teachers and about one hundred thousand educational experts. All these mean that we are confronting huge problems and challenges with regard to the educational research products and publications.

The question is why there is such a shortage in scientific review articles, especially in education, in our country. Our understanding is that there are different problems confronting scientists in Iran. These problems are tremendously larger and much more complicated for researches in social sciences and humanities than natural and pure experimental sciences. Ideological problems are the most difficult ones in human sciences and education as well. The more brilliant the scientists of human sciences, the more frustrated they are from scientific institutions. Medium-range researchers seem to be much happier with the scientific institution to which they belong compared to the brighter scholars. These institutions seem not to play a positive role in the case of the best scientists. Shortage of facilities provided by institutions are one other major problem for research. Another is the tenuous cooperation among scientists.

In such a situation, the Quarterly Journal of Educational Innovations aims to focus on most significant preoccupations and questions concerning educational issues and then to answer them. The articles of this journal explain some problems and challenges of education and try to show the main roots and factors of the problems that the education system is encountered with. As well, it seeks to reach an understanding and offering of the specific and applied ways through which the educational sciences can be grown and developed. In this special issue of the Quarterly Journal of Educational Innovations, nineteen articles are presented in English language to follow its six years of publication in Persian language. We welcome the researchers and scientists of education and psychology to send their articles in English language to be considered and reviewed for publication. As a prospective aim, we are looking forward to publishing the journal in both English and Persian in parallel form to reach the international scientific society as well as the one inside Iran as we have done in the past time.

 

 



By: Oerp Public Relations

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