Student suicide prompts Caritas fund

Caritas, the Catholic Church’s social action arm, is to set up a fund for underprivileged students. Father Anton Pascual, executive director of Caritas Manila, made the announcement during the funeral Mass for Kristel Tejada, a 16-year-old student who committed suicide last week after her school allegedly barred her for failing to pay her tuition fees. [...]

Outrage grows over student suicide

Outrage over the suicide of a college student who was forced to quit school for failing to pay her tuition grew on Monday as students, many wearing black, held protest rallies in Metro Manila. The University of the Philippines, where suicide victim Kristel Tejada studied, declared a day of mourning and suspended classes on Monday. [...]

Critics blame girl’s death on university costs

Kristel Tejada, a 16-year-old first year student at the University of the Philippines, supposedly the country’s premier educational institution, committed suicide early morning on Friday. “Financial constraints” may have triggered the suicide of the young Behavioral Science student, who early reports say may have ingested poison. Tejada, the eldest of five children of a taxi [...]

Agencies launch $18m education scheme

The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, have launched a joint US$18 million project to help about four million poor children in six Philippine cities. Entitled “Early Learning for Life,” the project will operate in targeted areas of high need across the country. Tomoo Hozumi, UNICEF country representative, [...]

CEAP schools adopt Google Apps

Catholic education is getting more and more innovative in the Philippines. The 1,345 member-schools of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) will soon need not spend to build and maintain an information technology infrastructure to facilitate their internal communication systems. This is after CEAP entered into a formal agreement with Google to provide [...]

For Vietnam’s Hmong, a constant struggle to stay in school

Vang A Chong’s trip to school must rank among the most arduous in the region. This ethnic Hmong ninth-grader loads a bundle of firewood and 3.5 kgs of rice on his back, then walks 10 kms across cliffs and steep paths from his home in Tran Yen district in northern Vietnam. It takes him three hours to [...]

Jesuit university partners with artisan miners

The Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao University has said it will step in to help small-scale and artisanal miners in the country who have been neglected by the government. University president Father Joel Tabora, SJ, said the government does not recognize the contributions of small-scale miners and instead favors the large-scale mining industry. “The government should [...]

One man’s dream: to raise blind people’s dignity

Domingos Gusmão, a 34-year-old blind man, strives to improve life for thousands of blind people in Timor Leste through the education center he founded eight years ago. Coming from an influential family, he is the third of 10 siblings, four of whom were born blind like him. Gusmão is convinced that proper education is the [...]

Pakistan: Clerics slammed over Malala shooting

Civil society groups this weekend lashed out at Muslims clerics, saying they sought to mislead people by disseminating doctored images of  Malala Yousufzai.  The 15-year-old child education activist was ambushed and shot in the head last month by Taliban gunmen. Some Islamist leaders commented on controversial images posted on Facebook, which allegedly depicted an uninjured and [...]

Realising Malala’s dream

Even after the courageous Malala Yousafzai won Pakistan’s first National Award Peace Prize for pursuing education in the militant-infested Swat valley, very few Pakistanis actually knew much about her. It was a vicious gun attack on the 14-year-old by the Taleban that made not just Pakistanis, but the entire world, take notice of her. Since [...]

Pakistan: Fears blight ‘Malala Day’ in schoolgirl’s hometown

Pakistan marked “Malala Day” Saturday on a global day of support for the teenager shot by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education, but in her home town security fears meant her schoolmates could not honour her in public. Taliban hitmen shot Malala Yousafzai on her school bus a month ago in Mingora in Pakistan’s northwestern [...]

Indonesia: US gives boost to Papuans’ education

The United States government is to provide US$2.8 million towards the introduction of a new curriculum for Papuan students. US Ambassador Scot Marciel announced the aid package today at the end of a two-day visit to Jayapura, capital of Papua province. During the visit, Marciel met with the provincial head of the Education, Youth and [...]

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