STUDENT NAME MUHAMMAD RIZWAN MANZOOR

STUDENT ID 0000374055
ASSIGMENT NO 02
COURSE CODE 8612
SEMESTER AUTUMN 2023
B.ED 1.5 YEAR

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Q.1 Give your views on situation of education as a basic human right
in education.

“Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing

other human rights. As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by
which economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift
themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their
communities. Education has a vital role in empowering women, safeguarding
children from exploitative and hazardous labour and sexual exploitation, promoting
human rights and democracy, protecting the environment, and controlling
population growth. Increasingly, education is recognized as one of the best financial
investments States can make. But the importance of education is not just practical: a
well-educated, enlightened and active mind, able to wander freely and widely, is one
of the joys and rewards of human existence.”

According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, education in

all its forms and at all levels shall exhibit the following interrelated and essential
features: availability, accessibility, acceptability, adaptability.

For more on the human right to education, please refer to the international
standards page.

This article examines the academic discussion about human rights education for
children and young people and argues that the current state of research does not
provide sufficient support and guidance to nations, schools, and teachers in the
establishment of human rights education in schools. The article’s aim is to add
insights into how scholarly work may be contributing to the low uptake of
human rights education in formal schooling. By drawing on educational

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 children’s rights research and research on human rights education, three
cardinal complications are identified; (1) that the main research fields that
address education and rights do not seem to communicate, (2) that it is unclear
what are the aims of human rights education are, and (3) that a curriculum for
human rights education is missing. The cardinal complications are closely
examined and discussed, and a middle ground is explored and progressively
visualized
For many children who still do not have access to education, it is notable because of
persisting inequality and marginalization.

In developing and developed countries alike, children do not have access to basic
education because of inequalities that originate in sex, health and cultural identity
(ethnic origin, language, religion). These children find themselves on the margins of
the education system and do not benefit from learning that is vital to their intellectual
and social development.

Factors linked to poverty such as unemployment, illness and the illiteracy of parents,
multiply the risk of non-schooling and the drop-out rate of a child by 2.

Undeniably, many children from disadvantaged backgrounds are forced to abandon

their education due to health problems related to malnutrition or in order to work
and provide support for the family.

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Financial deficit of developing countries

Universal primary education is a major issue and a sizeable problem for many states.

Many emerging countries do not appropriate the financial resources necessary to

create schools, provide schooling materials, nor recruit and train teachers. Funds
pledged by the international community are generally not sufficient enough to allow
countries to establish an education system for all children.

Equally, a lack of financial resources has an effect on the quality of teaching.

Teachers do not benefit from basic teacher training and schools, of which there are
not enough, have oversized classes.

This overflow leads to classes where many different educational levels are forced
together which does not allow each individual child to benefit from an education
adapted to their needs and abilities. As a result, the drop-out rate and education
failure remain high.

Overview of the right to education worldwide

Most affected regions.

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As a result of poverty and marginalization, more than 72 million children around the
world remain unschooled.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected area with over 32 million children of
primary school age remaining uneducated. Central and Eastern Asia, as well as the
Pacific, are also severely affected by this problem with more than 27 million
uneducated children.

Additionally, these regions must also solve continuing problems of educational

poverty (a child in education for less than 4 years) and extreme educational poverty
(a child in education for less than 2 years).

Essentially this concerns Sub-Saharan Africa where more than half of children
receive an education for less than 4 years. In certain countries, such as Somalia and
Burkina Faso, more than 50% of children receive an education for a period less than
2 years.

The lack of schooling and poor education have negative effects on the population
and country. The children leave school without having acquired the basics, which
greatly impedes the social and economic development of these countries.

Inequality between girls and boys: the education of girls in jeopardy

Today, it is girls who have the least access to education. They make up more than
54% of the non-schooled population in the world.

This problem occurs most frequently in the Arab States, in central Asia and in
Southern and Western Asia and is principally explained by the cultural and
traditional privileged treatment given to males. Girls are destined to work in the
family home, whereas boys are entitled to receive an education.

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In sub-Saharan Africa, over 12 million girls are at risk of never receiving an
education. In Yemen, it is more than 80% of girls who will never have the
opportunity to go to school. Even more alarming, certain countries such as
Afghanistan or Somalia make no effort to reduce the gap between girls and boys
with regard to education.

Although many developing countries may congratulate themselves on dramatically

reducing inequality between girls and boys in education, a lot of effort is still needed
in order to achieve a universal primary education.

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 Q.2 Globalization has introduced new trends in teacher education. Explain?
In the context of digitalization, globalization, and internationalization, the twenty-
first century has changed societies as well as their institutions and concepts,
significantly affecting powerful communication technologies and the speed and
forms of access to information. Being employable, coping with global competition,
and having the appropriate equipment and skills for the professions of the future
have become more important than ever in an information-intensive economic
structure. The question of how education will function in adapting to the new work
order and managing and categorizing knowledge has been important. Considering
the success teachers have in achieving the purpose of education, what the skills of
both the learner and the teacher should be in order to adapt to the rapidly changing
world has become more important. Changing learning environments and styles, new
student profiles, and transformations in social life and the business world are critical
issues for the role of the teacher. This study discusses the skills teachers should have
and tendencies toward teacher training within the scope of twenty-first-century
standards. We make the following recommendations: having holistic goals for
teachers’ pre-service, in-service, and professional development; providing
opportunities for national and international mobility; promoting better salaries and
working conditions; providing continuous professional development opportunities
for teachers just starting their profession; lightening the curriculum while preserving
wages; participating in guidance programs; facilitating access to resources;
providing opportunities to systematically associate theory and practice; supporting
consultation with colleagues; and encouraging the selection of mentors only from
qualified and experienced specialist teachers in both in pre-service and in-service
teacher training.



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 Teacher qualifications
 Teacher training
 Twenty-first-century skills
Download chapter PDF
Many studies have expressed the central position teachers have in successful
education. Teachers’ personal and professional characteristics are critical for
students’ learning, harmonious communication skills, and adaptation to the
requirements of the age in which one lives, starting with self-adaptation. With
digitalization accelerating and technology having become an important part of daily
life these days, significant and rapid changes are experienced on social and global
scales. Efforts to improve education systems and transform them with radical
reforms in order to healthily respond to technology-centered rapid changes constitute
the agendas of many countries from different economic levels. The organization of
teacher education is a central issue in efforts to improve and strengthen education
systems. Considering the importance education has both in ensuring society’s
adaptation to the changing conditions and in countries’ efforts to reach local strategic
goals, many studies are found on teachers’ responsibilities and the skills they should
have in order to fulfill these responsibilities.

Expectations about teacher competencies have been important in every period of

world history. The proficiency criteria created with different motivations have also
been determinant regarding teachers’ social status, responsibilities, and areas of
authority. Societies’ values, priorities, goals, and economic structure have been
among the determining factors in perspectives on teachers and what is expected from
education in every period of history. However, because digitalization these days has
impacted these determinants, the issue of education in general and teachers in
particular has to be addressed under new dimensions. Repositioning all individuals

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and institutions involved in the organization of education to take and reviewing
educations’ basic concepts and theories have become essential. As an important
issue of the period when this study was written, the COVID-19 pandemic has been
a period when all studies have analyzed digitalization in the field of education and
the new functions education should have. Changes in many areas such as new forms
of communication, the transformations in the classroom and the school, the diversity
of educational resources, the flexibility of curricula, management styles, learner
profiles, and parent profiles have led to discussions on how to develop and update
teachers’ skills. What makes a good teacher? What makes learning meaningful and
relevant? Which learning methods and principles are critical for an employable
generation to achieve the economic level wanted by society? What constitutes the
main motivation for today’s teacher competencies? What knowledge and skills
teachers have and should have and in which educational atmosphere will they use
their knowledge and skills are fundamental questions. Therefore, teachers can be
said to be faced with an unusual proficiency scale, both for the healthy functioning
of education and for the ability to manage the skills students are expected to have in
the future.

While the new forms of relationships established in the twenty-first century have
completely reconstructed education, teachers are also evaluated according to the
competency standards formulated as twenty-first-century skills. The Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) views twenty-first-century
skills as critical for keeping up with the new forms in the knowledge-based society
and ensuring employability in the new economic order (OECD, 2009). Reform
studies in education have become inevitable for responding to the new social and
economic needs of society.

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 Overcoming the Challenges of the Digital Revolution in
Education Systems
The way the digital world presents information, particularly with the great impact
artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have on all informational processes, has
created a new learning environment. This learning environment, which points to a
certain spatiality in the current education literature, has gained a new dimension in
the digital world. This world represents unlimited, multilingual, multicultural truths
defined with different motivations and has created new areas of discussion not only
about the learning environment but also on critical issues such as the nature, sources,
and truth of knowledge. While online learning processes have been vital for the
continuation of education during the COVID-19 process and are an important
practice for the future of learning environments, they are also a test process that has
revealed new areas of discussion. By containing important clues about the physical
conditions of tomorrow’s school and classroom, this experience obviously will also
be a pioneer in matters such as how to create and present education curricula.

The relationship information technologies establish with education is actually a

reflection of the entire society on education. When dealing with education, today’s
learners prefer the new learning style known as digital learning. Therefore,
knowledge management and the ability to problem-solve using computers have
become mandatory for today’s learners (OECD, 2016). New technologies have
students residing in an area constructed with an unlimited variety of learning tools
where they keep everything at their fingertips and are able to easily access different
cultures, beliefs, and information. Students’ ability to easily access unlimited
information resources can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. It has the
potential to turn into an area where students can increase their desire to learn and
facilitate their learning or, when not managed properly, can be an area that exposes
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them to harmful content and causes them to fail at managing their time. Contrary to
expectations, Internet addiction, having become a significant issue for adults, may
adversely affect the opportunities of digital learning because, while some studies
show families expect the Internet to increase their children’s academic success and
future job opportunities (Ortiz et al., 2011), other findings show youths to use
technology for entertainment rather than school responsibilities (Becker, 2000).
Teenagers use the Internet for games, chatting, and social networks; a significant
increase in technology use has occurred among young children as old as 8
(Schleicher, 2019). Among the subjects studied is the effect technology use has on
students’ imagination and learning skills. In particular, some studies have shown
handwriting to be more effective in the development and productivity of the human
brain than typing with a keyboard (Beringer, 2009; Bounds, 2010). As a result, the
type of technology and its use can be said to determine its effects (Bavelier et
al., 2010).
Social media accounts as the entertainment centers of technology are among the new
learner profile’s areas of difficulty. Spending more time on social media accounts
can negatively affect students’ social life, health, and academic success. Opposite
these disadvantages are also found advantages such as encouraging independent
learning, making learning fun, enabling students to plan their life by providing
access to education without going to school, preparing students for the future,
facilitating and encouraging learning together, and saving time accessing
information (Aggarwal, 2000; Bhakta & Dutta, 2016). This process has turned into
a challenge for students and made having teachers balance students use of
technology inevitable as their primary goal.
Information, media, and technological literacy are critical for students’ to be able to
distinguish reality from fiction, access correct information, and reach necessary and
useful information.

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Life skills are important for students’ academic development, social life, and
personality development and include flexibility in adapting to changing conditions;
not making change an obstacle; setting goals, establishing a team in line with these
goals, and collaborating with the team; being entrepreneurial in making projects,
strategies, and plans on one’s own; being efficient in completing work on time;
meeting with others around common goals or benefits; and forming networks(AES,
2019).
Schools are central in learners acquiring twenty-first-century skills. Both families
and students need school support regarding adapting to change, efficiently and
effectively using technology, and preparing for the future because families’
technological literacy and ability to receive and organize information may be
insufficient. However, the fact that access to technology still requires a certain level
of welfare is another limitation. When schools cannot provide sufficient support in
this sense, the inequality gap in the society may widen. In general, school and teacher
performance will be effective in reducing inequalities and highlighting the
advantages of technology use (Gottschalk, 2019).
Twenty-First-Century Teacher Qualifications
Concepts such as information processing, reasoning, questioning, critical thinking,
and problem solving in relation to twenty-first-century skills include some familiar
skills that have been at the center of school learning for many years while the basic
framework of teacher competencies is determined by the characteristics of qualified
teachers and what competencies they need (European Commission, 2013). Changes
in social life, economy, and educational environments are compelling motivations
for what qualifications teachers should have.
Many studies are found to specifically have tried limiting the competencies twenty-
first-century teachers should have (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Landmann, 2013).
Importantly, many of these studies have confirmed the point of convergence between
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teacher education and the needs of schools to often lay in teachers’ competences
(Day, 2002; Landmann, 2013). The global reality fraught with social and
technological changes forces one to rethink schools’ role in the future and which
skills twenty-first-century teachers should possess.
The impact of information and communication technologies is remarkable in terms
of twenty-first-century skills. When teachers have better problem-solving skills in
environments with good technological opportunities, students also have better
problem-solving skills and performance in math (OECD, 2019a). The focus has
always been on the powerful effects teachers’ competencies have on student
achievement. The effects from teachers explain 75% of the effect school has on
student achievement (Rivkin et al., 2005). Therefore, teachers’ effective use of new
technology in the classroom will also effect both students’ skill development and
turn disadvantage into advantage by producing alternatives for students with longer
more challenging learning processes.
Being a good learner is among the most basic needs a teacher should have. This is
the prerequisite for students’ learning, creativeness, and openness to development
and change. Having teachers strengthen their teaching practices, monitor
innovations in their field, and share these effectively with their students is critical in
terms of having students adapt to areas of change such as the above-mentioned
changing social life, new student profile, changing educational environment, and
new economic order.

Various studies have been carried out globally by institutions and countries’
ministries of education on twenty-first-century teacher skills. The European
Commission (2005) stated within the framework of European Qualifications in its
report “Common European Principles for Teacher Competences and Qualifications”
that education and training contribute to the economic and cultural aspects of the

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information society and therefore should be seen within their social contexts.
According to the report, teachers should be able to (Table 1).
The European Commission draws attention to the fact that pre-service training will
not be sufficient for teachers to gain the qualifications stated here and that teachers
must acquire a professional lifelong learning habit aimed at professional
development. In this direction, the European Commission shared the following
recommendations with policy makers and practitioners:

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Q.3 Open and distance education has played a significant role in professional
development of teachers in Pakistan. Comment.
This paper tells the story of the term ‘Open’ in the field of education, in particular
post-secondary and higher education, and aims to set out a trajectory that has
moved from distance learning, to online learning, to open education, informed
by the fields of mass communications, education for development, and the
radical impact of the digital revolution. A core issue concerns the extent to
which this trajectory represents continuity or discontinuity, or indeed both. We
need first to reflect on the deployment of technology for learning, not as is
sometimes thought a phenomenon of the 20th and 21st Centuries but one that
goes back millennia and does not begin in Europe. The early records of
Babylon, present-day Iraq, inscribed on clay tablets in about 2500 BCE contain
stories, names of significant individuals and accounts of harvest amongst other
things. This technology of writing on clay, then baking it for permanence,
opened up learning on two dimensions. Firstly, the clay tablets provided data
for the first time in known history which supplemented and in due course
supplanted memory as the sole source of information. Secondly, the records
provided a means for organised and systematic learning based on more than the
oral tradition. This crucial contribution to development laid the basis in the
Middle East and Europe at least for the development of science, humanities,
agriculture, economics, etc., and for organised learning in support of
development as we understand it today. Many working in the field of education
presently, especially in richer countries, do not use the framework and
terminology of development in which they could understand their work. But in
many ways we stand on the shoulders of those early scribes and practitioners
more than 4000 years ago. 102 The evolution from cuneiform script and
Egyptian hieroglyphics to the alphabet in Europe made text as we know it today
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 possible.

The text was for thousands of years a handmade artefact, important for the
practice of both private and public reading, as well as being portable, both
essential elements in the opening up of education. Initially, as for example in
the Great Library of Alexandria from the third century BCE, one copy of all the
world's known texts was collected for reference on the spot. Later in the
medieval period the texts were sometimes beautifully and richly illustrated, and
they were certainly expensive, belonging principally to religious and royal
houses. However, literacy remained an elite practice, and formal education in
the few universities was conducted through faceto-face teaching in groups. It
was not until the fifteenth century in Europe that printing began to change the
parameters of learning and teaching in radical ways. While literacy remained

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 an elite practice, and printed books luxury items, there was an expansion in the
cities in particular outside the church and the court bureaucracy. Gutenberg's
pioneering of the movable type printing press massified text production,
providing access to knowledge on a far wider basis that hitherto, and
accelerating economic, political and cultural development. Termed by
Eisenstein as ‘the preservative power of print’, the text advanced the academic
disciplines, their dissemination and that of private study in radical ways
(Eisenstein 1996). We can imagine how this might have disrupted accepted
notions of teaching, when students could read the thoughts of others
independently of their teachers, in other words through more independent
learning, escaping the worldview of their teachers in ways that may have been
very unsettling, for the teachers at least. We can see, therefore, in this brief
account how technologies have been core to the nature and organisation of
learning and teaching for millennia, and thus of education for development.
While printed books, the library, and the lecture and seminar on campus were
the natural landscape for learning and teaching for 500 years or so, they too in
their time derived from revolutionary change, just as did the digital revolution
starting in about 1990. As with digital resources over the last 25 years or so,
they were far from universally available. It is into this landscape that we need
to consider the first experience in the USA with shorthand courses provided by
Caleb Phillips in 1728 in Boston through correspondence education, and very
similar courses in London from 1840 by Isaac Pitman. These first courses in
learning and teaching where learner and teacher were separated by distance
were made possible by postal systems, at the time innovative clusters of
technology. Pitman’s courses in particular were significantly enabled by the use
of the new railway which made possible a national postal system with regular
and dependable collections and deliveries, expanding reach and speed in ways

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 that remained largely stable until electronic communications nearly 150 years
later. Pitman’s courses also provided timely student feedback on their shorthand
exercises, making them innovators in providing student feedback at a distance,
a practise now universal in online and distance learning. The railway altered
important elements of the human experience, making it possible to live and
work in different places and to commute for daily work from country to town,
as well as to take day trips or holidays. The speed of the letter in transit with the
modern postal service also changed how human beings were able to relate to
people living elsewhere in both business and family contexts. All this serves to
demonstrate that while the digital revolution over the last 25 years or more has
changed a wide range of sectors beyond recognition, it is not the first time that
technology has changed the organisation of learning and teaching. It also makes
clear how the framing of all experience in a local context began to be
diminished. Distance and e-learning has played a significant role in the
evolution of development in richer and poorer countries alike. 103 University
of London External Programmes It was from the nineteenth-century
assemblage of technologies in the UK that the most important innovation of the
period was made possible, the opening up of post-secondary education in the
UK with the University of London External Studies system. From 1858 this
new system made a radical intervention to provide educational opportunity: it
separated place from study. In other words it published curriculum for its
degrees, and set examination papers for those students who lived outside
London in the same way as it did for students registered on campus. The
students could stay where they lived and sit examinations in any approved
examination centre near them. Students studied either with the support of a fast,
developing network of tutorial colleges, or completely independently, a pattern
that continues to this day. This extraordinary disaggregation of the learning and

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 teaching process meant that geography was diminished as a barrier, as was
exclusion from the elite universities in the UK on the grounds of social class or
finance. Further, the University of London removed exclusion on the grounds
of gender, being the first to admit women, in 1878. To complete the range of
innovative practices the University of London admitted students on an
international basis, and this served the far-flung cohorts of British citizens
serving the British Empire in all parts of the world. This opening up of
education was soon seized upon by those indigenous peoples in the Empire who
had the English language and money to support themselves, a small number
initially, but demonstrating nonetheless that university education could in
principle be taken up by all. In the first decades after independence from the
former British Empire, many of the new cohorts of political and professional
leaders gained their university education from the University of London without
ever having visited the UK. This system opened up university education across
the barriers of geography, social class, gender and race, and is a remarkable
story of education for development (Bell & Tight, 1993)

Formal education has a critical role to play in the development of skills and
capabilities for individuals to be productive and engaged citizens in society. Yet
mainstream formal education practices alone are no longer sufficient to cater to
complex societal demands as individuals frequently alter career directions, seek
alternative education access and attempt to balance competing life, work and
education requirements. Formal and informal learning opportunities through open,
flexible and distance learning (OFDL) models are necessary elements within the
broader education system. As such, contemporary educators are increasingly
experimenting with open and flexible learning and teaching models and technologies
that can create socially engaged and active learning contexts. Further, the integration

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of diverse educational scenarios can help to inform new learning models and
teaching strategies.

Educators are acutely aware of the need to re-adjust learning and teaching practices
to foster 21st-century capabilities. This process is closely associated with an open,
flexible and sustainable space that is no longer simply a physical construct but also
includes an online environment that is not only supportive of this new type of
learning but also acts as a catalyst for learning. The online learning environment is
an important, integrated part of our educational system that enables learners to
explore connections between what they have learned and other sources of knowledge
and experience.

In recent years, broad learning initiatives (e.g., open educational resources, Khan
Academy, massive open online courses, as well as micro-credentialling) haveoffered
openness, transparency and flexibility in accessing learning and demonstrating
outcomes. These initiatives have vastly extended the opportunities for students to
access alternate modes of learning while interacting with peers on a global scale.
However, to date much of the research investigating the role, impact and influence
of these learning opportunities has focused more on the practical outcomes (e.g.,
student grades), in lieu of more theoretical or policy-driven perspectives (e.g.,
Houlden & Veletsianos, Citation2019; Selwyn, Citation2011).

The theoretical perspectives bring critical insights and debate regarding the ways
online, open, and flexible learning environments operate to balance an increasingly
technology-dominated education context. There is a need to create new conceptual
and theoretical frameworks to guide our understanding of the future potential of
online and flexible learning contexts to educate young people. We still have much
to understand about how student learning processes develop and adapt to changing

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contexts. Similarly, there is much work to undertake in identifying effective, scalable
and sustainable approaches to designing and implementing more personalised and
contextualised learning support, as well as providing our teachers with relevant and
timely data to empower actionable intelligence.

Developments in the field of learning analytics have generated new opportunities to

invigorate the online, open and flexible learning environment, marked by the
digitisation of immense volumes of clickstream data and the capacity to access and
learn from it. Work in learning analytics provides for increased feedback
opportunities and brings to light data on previously hidden student learning activity.
Analysing these unprecedented volumes of data about learners in online and distance
education has great potential to help us understand the learning trajectory of diverse
sets of learners. The traditional approaches to the study of data on student learning
long practised in conventional educational settings are increasingly incongruous in
an era of increasing modes of digital learning. There is an urgent need for new sets
of research questions that adopt advanced approaches and utilise new methods, and
to identify the underlying mechanisms affecting changes in learning and interactions
in online settings, in order to gain further understanding of the complexity of
learning in such flexible, changing adaptive or scalable contexts.

The aim of this special themed issue of the journal is to foster scientific debate
among educationists, data and learning scientists, statisticians, computer scientists,
teachers, practitioners and others to understand how learning analytics can lead to
an understanding of learning and teaching processes while (re)invigorating the
quality of online and distance education. In this special themed issue, we present
state-of-the-art research studies which show how theoretical models and innovative
approaches have been employed to understand learning and teaching through the use
of large-scale or granular datasets. We are not interested in new technical

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possibilities simply for their own sake: what is important is their implications for
online learning and teaching.

Q.4 Exotic socio-political barriers to teaching profession in Pakistan.

Importantly, each featured article also has a uniquely hopeful and positive tone to it, each
providing useful suggestions to how we can come together to dismantle some of these
pervasive barriers. The winning articles serve as a collective ‘call to arms’, each
advocating in unique ways for values of inclusion, accessibility, and diversity of
psychology. These ideas will crucially shape our agenda as we continue to reddress the
barriers to our profession.

'I knew what it was like to interact with the world differently'
It was heart-breaking letters from the British Psychological Society that sparked my
friendship with Helen, at a Deaf house party more than 20 years ago. We had just met,
but while chatting realised that we were both psychology graduates and had both written
to the BPS ask whether it would be possible for a deaf person to have a career in clinical
psychology. The replies said we could not become clinicians because the ability to
communicate was essential. The hurt on Helen’s face mirrored the sting that I had also
felt on opening my BPS-logoed reply. Our rapport was kindled by knowing sighs. We
didn’t have to explain, or edit ourselves. The moment was brief. It was a shrug passed
between two people who knew what it is to live in a world designed for other people.

Unspoken in that moment, were our years of access struggles: the obstacles to taking
part and accessing information that must be grappled with at every turn; the ignorant
attitudes that must be carefully managed; the extra emotional energy spent convincing
others that we were capable, or assuaging their discomfort around disability. We both
understood the burden of what I call ‘access labour’ – days and hours spent persuading

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people of our right to take part, chasing funding for communication support, and all the
additional admin that comes with living with a disability.

My psychology ambitions had hatched as a teenager while devouring Oliver Sacks’

written insights into the lives of people living with rare neurological conditions. I wanted
to have conversations with those within the pages, who were living in a world that was
not designed for their unusual brains. I wanted to know them, to understand them, to
help them understand themselves, and to help them stoke enough fortitude to navigate
the relentless barriers in society. I knew what it felt like to interact with the world
differently, and to need greater stocks of resilience and determination, because every day
is strewn with obstacles and prejudice.

Eventually, through sheer single-mindedness, I did become a clinical psychologist. The

BPS’s response had come from a place of assumption and ignorance, which was
common at that time. Of course deaf people can communicate. Deaf folk are often

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talented communicators, and as Bruno Kahn’s writing on this subject shows, we have
much to teach those who can hear. I work in tandem with a BSL interpreter. It’s a
mindful, conscious process and together we are more than the sum of our parts. Clients
sometimes tell me that there is greater healing power in feeling heard, by not just one,
but two people. It is a different way of working, that brings extra tools to the box, and
can add to, rather than diminish, the therapeutic process.

Barriers to our profession are rooted in broader structural inequality. The BPS has a role
in dismantling societal injustices, for example, the crisis in accessible education for
children with disabilities. Obtaining a statement of educational needs is an uphill battle
for many families and this needs to change. Provision is often woefully inadequate –
tokenistic and poorly resourced, leading to underachievement. This is coupled with
shockingly low expectations and a lack of visible disabled role-models. Children with
disabilities may never see psychology as a potential career.

At university, a disabled student has to expend more energy just to level-peg. They may
not be left with the time or mental resources needed for the ‘CV enhancing’ extra-
curriculars that are deemed essential to get to the next rung on the psychology ladder.
Disability support is not available for voluntary work or internships anyway – these
opportunities are closed off.

Access to training is just the first hurdle. There are also hidden barriers to career
progression, such as using time as a benchmark of competency. There is not only
pressure to succeed, but to do so within a certain timeframe, and not enough recognition
that some people may take longer because of barriers, not ability. The call for
submissions to this very programme stated, ‘…we are mostly interested in identifying
high potential amongst those starting their journey in psychology’. But showcasing your
early career potential is probably a privilege not available to psychologists with

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disabilities, who need stamina to overcome prejudice and persuade people that they are
employable.

So, what are the solutions? Simply, ask people what can be done to foster their inclusion.
Find out. Ask questions. Have conversations. Be brave and step outside your comfort
zone. Make it easier for people to self-disclose. Be curious about the impact on
accessibility of the Covid-related shake up in working practices. The shift to Zoom
meetings might be one person’s logistical nightmare but another’s revelation! Scrutinise
professional competency frameworks for any criteria that may be indirectly
discriminatory. Disabled people may have fewer choices so make sure that they are not
penalised by part-time working, or less mobility between jobs, fields, or grades – when
you find an accommodating workplace you tend to stay put. Recognise that disabled
colleagues may not be able to travel for conferences or meetings. Ensure events are not
arranged at short notice, as many need to plan their access in advance. Allocate
accessibility budgets and seek out access requests. Make this the default rather than an
afterthought.

My friend Helen never became a psychologist, to the detriment of our profession, our
diversity and the Deaf community who need more therapists who can sign. Her
experience begs questions: How many deaf or disabled pioneers were lost to our
discipline? How many aspirations were short-circuited? The seismic forces of Covid and
Black Lives Matter have shown how the world can turn quickly upon its heel. The
disruption, although yet to settle, shows that change is possible. Members who have sat
under the radar, perhaps waiting for this moment may, at last, feel able to bring their
experiences to the table. Such voices should be encouraged so that we can work together
to make our profession more inclusive.

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Q.5 What ethical issues are faced by teachers? What are the ways to resolve
these?
He is also senior fellow of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social
Policy at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law, and he is the author
of books including “Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right, and “Class
and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-
White Achievement Gap.” He was a national education writer for The New York
Times as well.
Here is a transcript of his remarks, presented to the Bank Street community on May
14, and published on the Bank Street website:
President Polakow-Suransky, Dean Roach, and faculty: thank you for this
extraordinary honor.

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Bank Street graduates: I’m flattered to be sharing this occasion with you. With
courage, you have chosen to enter or advance in the nation’s most critical profession,
at a time when selfish and misguided elites have made public education, and its
teachers, scapegoats for the unacceptable racial and economic inequality that those
elites have permitted, indeed encouraged, to persist and grow in America.
It has often been said, by self-styled education reformers, that teaching in
impoverished, segregated, communities is the “civil rights” cause of our time. That
notion suggests breathtaking disrespect for the sacrifices of those who fought, and
continue to fight, for adequate housing, good health care, quality early childhood
and community programs, full employment at living wages, and racial integration.
Yet our national education policy insists that we can ignore those unsolved problems
and assure children’s success simply by recruiting better teachers who have higher
expectations for their students.
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the ignorance of that view than the tragic story of
Freddie Gray, the young African American man killed by Baltimore police last
month. He was born prematurely to a heroin-addicted mother and spent months in
hospital before he weighed enough to come home to a dilapidated apartment where
lead paint was flaking off the walls. By 22 months, his lead level was four times as
great as the dangerous level associated with serious loss of cognitive ability—that’s
right, four times as great. Such lead poisoning also predicts lessened ability to self-
regulate and greater tendency to aggression. For girls, it predicts higher rates of teen
pregnancy. Before dropping out of high school, Freddie Gray had spent years in
special education. He and his two sisters, also lead-exposed, all suffered from
attention deficit disorder. Their schools were filled with other children with similar
problems. Yet we have a federal law that says schools like these should be
reconstituted—closed and teachers dismissed—unless every student reads and
computes at a challenging level of proficiency.

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If, as a nation, we were working to combat poverty and segregation, teaching would
be one tool in a larger and all-important civil rights battle. But it would not be the
only tool. It would complement housing, health, and economic policies that enable
children like Freddie Gray, and his sisters, to arrive at school ready to benefit from
the high-quality instruction that you and others like you are able to offer.
This leaves you, the graduates, with a burning question you will spend your teaching
careers, at least for the foreseeable future, pondering: How do you do the good work
for which Bank Street has prepared you, within a system that may undermine your
efforts and thwart your students’ education?
In Atlanta, some educators responded to this question by engaging in criminal
activity. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Atlanta educators who erased and
corrected answers on their students’ tests. At first, I was troubled by their vindictive
and selective prosecution and imprisonment, because such illegal activity is
widespread in America today, where education is not the only place where we
substitute numbers for quality. Veterans’ hospital administrators falsified records to
pretend that prompt appointments were scheduled when no doctors were available.
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs who imposed a system of accountability, but not
resources to meet his standards, resigned. But there were no prosecutions of the VA
staffers who committed fraud. Nursing home administrators routinely report, falsely,
to Medicare that patient welfare standards are being met, yet none have been tried
for altering public records. The mayor of Chicago has been re-elected with a claim
that he’d reduced crime, a claim based on inaccurate statistics that police
commanders filed with the FBI, but no commanders serve jail time for conspiracy.
I know that prosecutorial strategy can never be uniform; prosecutions, to some
extent, must always be selective and I give you these examples without intending to
excuse the Atlanta educators. But the contrast should trouble us.

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 The Straight and Narrow: Academic Integrity and Cheating

Maintaining academic integrity is about ensuring everyone plays by the rules. But
what happens when cheating sneaks into the picture?

 Strategies for Promoting Academic Integrity

Spotting cheaters can be tricky, but there are strategies that can help, like:

 Creating a culture of honesty and trust

 Using plagiarism detection tools
 Setting clear expectations for work
Don’t try to hide the topic, address it openly and keep building that honesty culture.

Behind Closed Doors: Privacy and Confidentiality

Everyone has secrets, right? Schools are no different. They hold a treasure trove of
student information, from grades to health records. But with that power comes a
great responsibility – to protect this data.

All Aboard: Equity and Inclusion

A classroom should be like a rainbow – diverse and inclusive. But sometimes,

unconscious biases can sneak in, casting a shadow over the vibrancy. It’s up to
teachers to keep the rainbow bright, ensuring every student is treated fairly.

See also Developmental Easter Activities for Kids

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Plugged In: Use of Technology and Online Learning

With the levels of technology required in schools now, it can feel highly daunting to
the less technical teacher. There are many ethical considerations to bear in mind,
including digital equity, online privacy, and cyberbullying. You also need to balance
technology carefully to still ensure your classroom is conducive to learning.
The Ties that Bind: Teacher-Student Relationships

As a teacher you nurture your students, helping them grow. But it’s crucial to
maintain professional boundaries, avoiding over-familiarity while still providing
support and guidance.

Marking the Map: Assessment and Grading

Grading can be a slippery slope. It’s essential to be fair and unbiased, but it’s also
easy to let unconscious biases slip in. Just being mindful of this will help, but there
are strategies you can seek out to help keep grading as balanced as possible.

The Latest Ethical Issues and Legislation

Ethical issues change and evolve over time. 2023 has already brought a flurry of new
challenges for teachers.

Gun and Knife Violence in Schools: The tragic reality is that gun and
knife violence affects students and schools dramatically. Teachers are often
tasked with keeping students safe during these devastating situations.
Politics in Education: The debate around subjects like critical race theory
has become a hot potato in many classrooms, with teachers caught in the
crossfire.

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 Social-Emotional Learning: Some folks see this as indoctrination. But
in reality, it’s about teaching students how to deal with stress and anxiety, like
giving them a map to navigate their feelings.
Flu and Student Absenteeism: Illnesses like the flu, COVID or RSV
can lead to student absences, disrupting learning and adding another layer of
complexity to teaching.
De-Implementation: This is about letting go of ineffective practices to
reduce workload.
Substitute Teacher Standards: The requirements for supply teachers
have been lowered in many regions, raising questions about the quality of
education students receive in the absence of their regular teachers. Poverty:
Schools often shoulder the burden of providing meals for students living in
poverty, adding to the many roles a teacher plays.
Teacher Shortage: There aren’t enough teachers to go around, leading to
bigger class sizes and more pressure on existing educators.
Teacher-Prep Programs: The focus is not just on how teachers are
trained, but also on how they’re recruited to the profession.
Tutoring Programs: As a means of addressing learning loss due to
COVID, tutoring programs are becoming more prevalent, adding another
complex dimension to a teacher’s role.

See also The Importance Of Sport In Schools

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Frequently Asked Questions

 What Are Some Ethical Issues Facing Teachers?

Ethical issues teachers face include academic integrity, student privacy, educational
equity, online learning ethics, and fair grading practices. Additionally, issues like
gun violence in schools, politics in education, social-emotional learning, flu and
student absenteeism, poverty, and teacher shortage are also significant concerns.

 How Can Teachers Deal with Ethical Dilemmas?

Teachers can navigate ethical dilemmas by using professional standards as a guide,
seeking advice from colleagues or mentors, reflecting on the possible consequences
of their actions, and considering the perspective of all parties involved.

 Why Is Ethics Important in Teaching?

Ethics is essential in teaching because it helps teachers make decisions that are fair,
respectful, and in the best interest of students. It’s like the compass that guides them
through the choppy seas of their professional responsibilities

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