February 2017

The Global Conference on Education and Research (GLOCER) has been quick off the mark announcing that its May 22-25 event at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee is inviting researchers to submit abstracts for white papers, research papers, roundtable discussions, symposium...

The Economist is hosting a sustainability summit on March 23rd / 24th.  Details here.  Its blurb says: Over the past two centuries, global economic development has often come at the expense of our environment.  Ice caps have melted, forests have been flattened,...

I am reading (slowly) Charles Foster's Being a Beast published by Profile Books 2016, ISBN 978-1781255346 It's a book where the being (as opposed to being with has to be taken seriously.  I suppose a more apt title might have been Trying to be a...

I wrote the other day about the problems inherent in target 4.7 of the SDGs: By 2030, ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles,...

I've been re-reading the Tbilisi Declaration which remains more inspiring than many a document produced recently.  It's 40 years old this year, so we can expect celebrations, etc.  Though what exactly is to be celebrated remains unclear. I was struck by...

In its Christmas edition, the Economist ran a leading article on the need for even more liberalism in 2017 – despite its many sets-back in 2016.  I was struck by the passage: As a set of beliefs that emerged at the...

A day at the zoo - not a favourite place of mine.  I went for a Joint School Grounds & Natural Environment Sectors LOtC Partnership meeting and the main animals I saw were human (mostly young), flamingoes and moorhens.  The last...

The LSE's Centre for Economic Performance has released videos of its recent seminar: Subjective well-being over the life course: evidence and policy implications.   Here's the background: Why should governments care about people's wellbeing? How would policy change if raising wellbeing...

A study has found that the provision of free breakfast clubs for primary schools in disadvantaged areas boosted maths and literacy results.  The work was evaluated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and looked at free breakfasts provided before the...

I wrote the other day about Oxfam's careful arithmetic in its showcasing of how so much wealth is owned by so few.  8 billionaires, says Oxfam, own more [ $426bn ] than half the world's population [ $409bn ].  Not so, says...