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By Salam FARAJ BANI SAAD, Iraq, April 2, 2024 (AFP) – In a small village in central Iraq, children cram into dilapidated classrooms in a converted farmhouse with open-air toilets, a symptom of how education has been neglected in the oil-rich but war-weary country. “We close the school when it rains because water leaks through the roof,” said Oudai Abdallah, director of a public elementary school in Bani Saad district, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north […]
By Aysha Safi and Susannah Walden KABUL, March 20, 2024 (AFP) – Sequestered at home in a remote Afghan town, 18-year-old Shekiba often roams the house hunting for the patchy internet signal that is her last link to an education. Shekiba has turned to online learning since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and shut her out of classrooms, signing up for live economics lectures she squints at on a pocket-sized phone screen. She […]
“Rizz” — a colloquial term defined as “style, charm, or attractiveness” — has been crowned word of the year for 2023, Oxford University Press (OUP) announced on Monday. Its lexicographers chose “rizz”, which also conveys “the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner”, from a shortlist of four words and phrases, after help from the public. An online vote had whittled down the list from eight finalists, all selected “to reflect the mood, ethos, […]
By Camille BAS-WOHLERT COPENHAGEN, Nov 16, 2023 (AFP) – How was the air breathed by Caesar, the Prophet Mohammed or Christopher Columbus? A giant freezer in Copenhagen holds the answers, storing blocks of ice with atmospheric tales thousands of years old. The Ice Core Archive, housing 25 kilometres (15 miles) of ice collected primarily from Greenland, is helping scientists understand changes in the climate. “What we have in this archive is prehistoric climate change, a […]
By Etienne BALMER, Elie GUIDI NAMEGATA , Japan, Oct 31, 2023 (AFP) – Fading photos of smiling children still adorn the staircase walls at the Ashigakubo primary school, one of thousands that have shut in ageing Japan over the past 20 years. The school, which was more than a century old, was forced to close in 2009 when the last few dozen children left to join a bigger one “because they couldn’t make any friends”, […]
By Dylan GAMBA LIBREVILLE, Sept 27, 2023 (AFP) – At Omar Bongo University in Gabon’s capital, student Nathan Ovono Obiang is as absorbed by what’s going on in his post-coup country as he is in his maths lessons. “I don’t see any prospects, but we are aware that things can’t change from one day to the next,” the 25-year-old, who is in the third year of a degree course, said. Just under a month ago, […]
The United Nations called on Thursday for strict rules on the use of AI tools such as viral chatbot ChatGPT in classrooms, including limiting their use to older children. In new guidance for governments, the UN’s education body UNESCO warned that public authorities were not ready to deal with the ethical issues of rolling out “generative” Artificial Intelligence programs in schools. The Paris-based body said relying on such programs rather than human teachers could affect […]
By Luna LIN Agence France-Presse BEIJING, June 7, 2023 (AFP) — Among the millions of fresh-faced high schoolers sitting China’s dreaded “gaokao” college entrance exam on Wednesday, Liang Shi sticks out like a sore thumb — a grey-haired, self-made millionaire stubbornly taking the test for the 27th time. Liang, 56, is no fool. He worked his way up from a menial job on a factory floor to establishing his own successful construction materials business. But […]
by Alexandra Del Peral and Eric Randolph Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Deep in the vast La Sante prison in Paris, law student Morgane is discussing the classic novel “The Outsider” by Albert Camus with one of the prisoners. Adama finds some of the language tricky, but said reading is a “lifeboat”. “It allows me to escape, to think of something else. I imagine the scenes in my head. It’s as if I was […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A new species of orchid with delicate, glass-like blooms has been discovered by Japanese scientists, who found the pink and white plant hiding in plain sight. Despite its presence in Japan’s parks and gardens, it took researchers at Kobe University a decade to confirm that the plant — dubbed the “Spiranthes hachijoensis” — was a previously unknown species. “It was a surprise to discover a new species of spiranthes, which is […]
by Viken KANTARCI in Solna and Camille BAS-WOHLERT in Ballerup Agence France-Presse SOLNA, Sweden (AFP) — Come rain, sleet or snow, young children nap outside even in mid-winter all across Scandinavia, where outdoor preschools teach children a love of nature. Sitting in the forest on a tarp laid out over the snow in Solna near Stockholm, Agnes and her friends — all around five — are lining up sticks. “We use pieces of wood to […]
by Bahira Amin Agence France-Presse CAIRO, Egypt (AFP) — Thousands of Egyptian bibliophiles weave through a labyrinthine display of books, reviving an annual tradition at the Arab world’s largest book fair, but this year it comes at a steep cost. The 54th Cairo International Book Fair was overshadowed by a punishing economic crisis that has seen Egypt’s currency, the pound, halve in value and prices skyrocket in the past year. Organizers say the fair lured […]
