• France: 40 nation deforestation conference to turn plans to action
• South Africa: Alexandra Township on track with its first childhood development centre
• South Africa: Mpumalanga plans to open its first university

• Student editor of Maharishi University of Management's Conscious Times learned of MUM from film
• New Zealand on path to permanent invincibility with Consciousness-Based Education
• Police officer enjoys peace of New Zealand school's Quiet Time programme

• US: Kansas City, Missouri wants to close half its public schools
• Educational DVDs don't help toddlers' language
• Study: US schools face shortfalls after stimulus ends

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Positive Trends
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

France: 40 nation deforestation conference to turn plans to action
10 March 2010 - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will open a daylong conference Thursday of some 40 nations to start turning plans into action to save the world's forests and help rein in the noxious gases blamed for climate change. Ministers from countries of the Amazon and Congo river basins and Indonesia -- whose massive forests, most at risk, are at the heart of efforts to end deforestation -- were among those attending the one-day conference. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for May in Oslo, Norway. (more)

South Africa: Alexandra Township on track with its first childhood development centre
5 March 2010 - Alexandra Township, a stone's throw from Johannesburg's plush Sandton suburbs, will get its first early childhood development (ECD) centre that is aimed at helping children below the age of six from the township. The MaAfrika Tikkun NGO, which focuses on the sustainable transformation of impoverished communities, raised the money for the community. (more)

South Africa: Mpumalanga plans to open its first university
25 February 2010 - Mpumalanga province is working on plans to establish its own university that will develop a skills base for the area and retain school-leavers, many of whom relocate after matric in search of education and jobs. The Department of Higher Education and Training aims to double matriculant enrollment in the country's tertiary institutions over the next five years. Building universities in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape will help meet that target. (more)

US: Farm to School programme changes children's views on food
8 February 2010 - The third and fourth graders at Sharon Elementary know where the vegetables in their soup come from because they've visited the farms. They know the nutritional value of the carrots and cabbage because they've studied them in class, and they know how they're grown because they've nurtured them in raised beds out back. The 105-student school is part of the National Farm to School Network, aimed at getting healthier meals into school cafeterias, teaching kids about agriculture and nutrition, and supporting local farmers. (more)

Good news from Canada, 2-4 February 2010
4 February 2010 - York University's Schulich School Of Business in Ontario was deemed Top Global Green MBA school by US-based humanities organization The Aspen Group for 2009-2010, beating out competitors such as Yale. Also, Greg Scholes, a University of Toronto biophysicist, and his team of researchers have revealed the quantum physics underlying photosynthesis. University of Chicago chemist Greg Engel called Scholes' finding 'an extraordinary result' that 'shows us a new way to use quantum effects at high temperatures'. A fleet of of hydrogen fuel cell buses will transport visitors during the Olympics. The 20-bus fleet will become the largest single use of zero-emission fuel cell buses worldwide. The buses will look like any others used in public transit, but are much quieter and emit only water into the air. For details on these and other Canada news stories including continued good business news: (more)

Good news from Canada, 28 - 30 January 2010
30 January 2010 - A much-anticipated new report on medical education in Canada says there needs to be a radical new approach to the training of doctors, including more emphasis on preventive health care and working in teams with other health professionals. It also says that doctors need to be trained in the community, not just in the classroom, and when it comes to choosing who is admitted to medical school, being a brilliant student is not enough. In science news, a Quebec physicist Louis Taillefer has made significant discoveries on superconductor mysteries. There was also good news about Canada's economy. For details on these and other Canada news stories: (more)

US: More states require 'green' cleaning products
27 January 2010 - More states are requiring schools and government buildings to use environmentally friendly cleaning products. After a burst of legislation last year, 10 states including Connecticut, Illinois, and New York require or encourage 'green' floor waxes, window cleaners, and other products in schools, according to Green Seal Inc, a nonprofit that certifies the products. Similar bills are expected to be debated this year in at least five states. Supporters say the laws protect the environment and reduce the use of harsh chemicals that can harm workers' and children's health. (more)

UK: Wildlife survey aims to involve school children
18 January 2010 - A British charity launched its biggest survey of the wildlife in school yards on Monday, aiming to get thousands of children watching excitedly to find out which creatures share their playgrounds. Wild birds are an unbeatable teaching resource, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says. Colourful, active and abundant, they enthuse and inspire children about nature. (more)

Britain's Royal Society putting Newton's encounter with apple online
17 January 2010 - An 18th-century account of how a falling piece of fruit helped Isaac Newton develop the theory of gravity is being posted to the Web, making scans of the fragile paper manuscript widely available to the public for the first time. Britain's Royal Society said it was making the documents available online Monday. The incident occurred in the mid-1660s when Newton was at his family home in northern England. Users can flip through documents on Newton using page-turning software. (more)

South Africa: Rural school does it again
13 January 2010 - For three years in a row Mbilwi Secondary School in Limpopo has remained in the elite Club 100 with more than 100 matric pupils who passed maths and science on the higher grade. 'We have nearly doubled the number of pupils necessary to qualify for Club 100, and we hope to shine even brighter with the matric class of 2010,' said Principal Nnditsheni Ramugondo. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

For more news and knowledge in the field of education visit: Excellence in Action

Student editor of Maharishi University of Management's Conscious Times learned of MUM from film
9 March 2010 - The editor of Conscious Times, Maharishi University of Management's online student voice, discovered MUM by seeing Dr John Hagelin talk about consciousness in a movie. Leon Lewis, a student in the BA in Communications and Media programme, is also a filmmaker and web designer. As an artist, he appreciates the effect of Consciousness-Based Education on his creativity. 'Being able to know your true self, you can incorporate it into what you are creating.' (more)

New Zealand on path to permanent invincibility with Consciousness-Based Education
7 March 2010 - Consciousness-Based Education initiatives in New Zealand are bringing the nation closer to permanent invincibility, including a successful school project in South Auckland. (more)

Police officer enjoys peace of New Zealand school's Quiet Time programme
4 March 2010 - The success of the Quiet Time/Transcendental Meditation Programme at a school in a poor area of New Zealand has prompted more parents to enroll their children there. (more)

World class IT infrastructure aids implementing MUM degree programmes in South Africa and globally
3 March 2010 - Under a recent agreement, students at Maharishi Invincibility Institute (MII) in Johannesburg, South Africa can enroll in degree programmes in Business Administration (BA and MBA) at Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in the US. The partnered universities will be utilizing a special IT infrastructure to 'package' the academic curriculum and facilitate administrative tasks. (more)

South Africa: Maharishi Invincibility Institute establishes multi-phase degree programmes in business
2 March 2010 - The Maharishi Invincibility Institute (MII) in Johannesburg, South Africa, has recently formed an agreement with Maharishi University of Management (MUM), whereby MII students can enroll in MUM BA and MA degree programmes in Business Administration. The courses of study at MII are designed according to a specific model, originally developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which includes several distinct phases leading up to degree completion. (more)

South African primary schools see benefits from Transcendental Meditation
1 March 2010 - Multiple schools in South Africa are beginning to implement Consciousness-Based Education, and are noticing profound benefits in students practising the Transcendental Meditation Technique. (more)

South Africa's Maharishi Invincibility Institute to collaborate with Maharishi University of Management, USA
28 February 2010 - On 18 February 2010, the Maharishi Invincibility Institute (MII) in South Africa established an arrangement whereby its students can attain degrees from Maharishi University of Management (M.U.M.), USA, through distance learning. This international Consciousness-Based Education programme is a model that can be applied throughout the world, coordinators say--creating the first truly global university, and an ideal opportunity to transform the physiologies and brain development of a new generation of leaders. (more)

Students on becoming Teachers of Transcendental Meditation
24 February 2010 - Students at Maharishi University of Management, Iowa, USA, speak about the value of becoming Teachers of the Transcendental Meditation Technique. More students are planning to do so, inspired by increasing demand for Teachers to teach at-risk children in schools around the world. (more)

Students' photos to be exhibited around world: Maharishi School
22 February 2010 - Photographs by students at Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield, Iowa, USA, will be featured in the Photo Imaging Educational Association exhibit, which will be shown at 54 venues in Australia, Canada, South Africa, the UK, and the USA over the next three years. (more)

New Zealand: Transcendental Meditation transforming schools, communities
21 February 2010 - Two New Zealand schools have implemented Consciousness-Based Education this past year, and 238 students and faculty are now practising the Transcendental Meditation Programme. (more)

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Flops
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

US: Kansas City, Missouri wants to close half its public schools
7 March 2010 - Kansas City was held up as a national example of bold thinking when it tried to integrate its schools by making them better than the suburban districts where many kids were moving. The result was one school with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and another with recording studios. Now it's on the brink of bankruptcy and considering another bold move: closing nearly half its schools to stay afloat. Buffeted for years by declining enrollment, political squabbling and a revolving door of leadership, the district's fortunes are so bleak that Superintendent John Covington has said diplomas given to many graduates 'aren't worth the paper they're printed on'. (more)

Educational DVDs don't help toddlers' language
5 March 2010 - Putting children in front of educational DVDs does not help boost their language skills, according to a US study that focused on one product, the Baby Wordsworth from the Walt Disney Company's Baby Einstein series. The researchers also asked parents about their childrens' television viewing before entering the study. The earlier a child started watching Baby Einstein DVDs, it turned out, the smaller his or her vocabulary was. Researchers speculated that parents who place their kids in front of the screen could be trying to remedy slow language development, or they could be using the DVDs as baby sitters, cutting back on social stimulation. Some experts have even suggested that baby videos might be harmful by impeding social and cognitive learning. (more)

Study: US schools face shortfalls after stimulus ends
28 December 2009 - Using federal stimulus money to avoid layoffs at schools is going to create a shortfall even more difficult for states and schools to contend with when that money runs out, according to a first-of-its-kind study. New York alone will see a $2 billion shortfall after stimulus money ends in 2011-12, and that could drive up some of the nation's highest local property taxes another 8 per cent, according to the analysis by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The post-stimulus era is often called 'the cliff,' and schools fear massive teacher layoffs may occour. And the future may be even darker: depressed housing values -- which lag about three years behind a recession -- will hurt the ability of schools and local governments to raise tax revenue, making the crisis last much longer. (more)

India: Schools caught in middle of rebel fight
10 December 2009 - Indian children are increasingly caught in the middle of fighting between the government and communist rebels in impoverished rural areas, with at least 42 schools attacked in the past year, a human rights group said Wednesday. The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than four decades in several states in central India. A spate of recent attacks has raised concern they are lashing out ahead of a planned government offensive aimed at routing them from their forest strongholds. While the rebels frequently target police and government workers, schools are also often destroyed by rebels or occupied by police, jeopardizing the education of tens of thousands of India's most disadvantaged and marginalized children, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report. (more)

Co-ed dorms linked to more drinking, promiscuity
26 November 2009 - In findings that may confirm parents' worries, a new study suggests that co-ed college dorms are encouraging kids to drink heavily and be more promiscuous. In a survey of more than 500 students at five US universities, researchers found that students living in co-ed housing were 2.5 times more likely than those in all-male or all-female dorms to admit to binge-drinking on a weekly basis. They were also more than twice as likely to say they'd had at least three partners in the past year. Moreover, researchers discovered this was not a matter of 'selection' -- that is, kids who are more prone to drinking and partying being more likely to request co-ed housing. Researchers speculated that co-ed dorms may implicitly set different 'social norms' than single-sex housing does. Ninety per cent of university housing in the US is now co-ed. (more)

UK: Three in 10 teachers suffer false misconduct claims
26 October 2009 - Nearly three in 10 teachers have faced false allegations of misconduct from pupils, according to a poll published on Monday. The survey for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found that 28 per cent of staff had faced allegations that later proved to be groundless. Mary Bousted, the union's general secretary, said false claims blight teachers' career, private lives, and health. The union, which has 160,000 members, said staff are at risk of malicious claims by a handful of pupils that are then copied by other children. A separate poll for the same union in April found that nearly half of staff had considered leaving the profession because of pupils' increasingly bad behaviour. (more)

UK: Children starting school too soon, report says
17 October 2009 - Children should delay the start of formal schooling to the age of six, a year later than at present, the largest review of primary education in England for 40 years recommended on Friday. The study said introducing children at the age of five into the constraint and discipline of a classroom -- a throwback to Victorian days -- provided little benefit and could even be harmful. But the government called the review 'disappointing' and out of date. Teaching unions criticized the government's response. 'It is absolutely extraordinary that the government has decided to ignore the Cambridge Review recommendations,' said the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers. 'Any government worth its salt, would have embraced this immensely rich report as a source of policy ideas.' (more)

Report: States are not boosting aid for schools - US
1 October 2009 - An internal watchdog at the Education Department says states are using money from the economic stimulus to plug budget holes instead of boosting aid for schools. Congress included $100 billion for education in the stimulus law earlier this year. Part of that was a $40 billion fund to stabilized state and local budgets. Nearly three-quarters of the $40 billion stabilization fund has already been awarded. But as the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers decided not to prohibit states from using the stabilization money to replace precious state aid for schools. They required states to maintain spending on K-12 schools and colleges, but only at 2006 levels, which allowed most states to make significant cuts to education. That flexibility 'may be leading to a reduction in state support for public education', the report said. (more)

US: Arts an easy target as many states cut budgets
30 August 2009 - States across the country are slashing their arts funding for the second year in a row as they cope with falling tax revenues. Those cuts, which often happen during recessions, are a serious blow to arts agencies and individual dancers, painters, and actors at a time when private donations are down and many art organizations are being more selective in what they produce. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies estimates states reduced their arts funding an average of 7 per cent in the fiscal year that began 1 July. That average doubles to 14 per cent when Minnesota is not included because the state almost tripled its art budget to $30.2 million thanks to a new sales tax. In financially strapped states like Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, and Florida, the reductions are steeper, falling 30 per cent or more, forcing agencies to trim the amount or value of grants, shutter programmes that provide arts education, and lay off employees. (more)

US: Achievement gap divides black, white students
14 July 2009 - Reading and math scores are rising for black students across the country, but not enough to close the gap between them and their better-scoring white peers, an Education Department report released Tuesday found. The gap in reading is especially dismal -- only three states have managed to narrow the divide between black and white students in fourth grade, and no state has narrowed the gap in eighth grade. The report did not draw conclusions on the underlying reasons for the disparity, though it noted that poor children have lower scores and that a disproportionate share of minority students are poor. Researchers say the socio-economic gap is present even before children start school. (more)