International

Curriculum to include household skills

Starting from the upcoming fall semester, students in primary and middle schools will have at least one course every week to learn basic household skills such as cleaning and cooking, plus cutting-edge technology including 3D printing and laser cutting.

The Ministry of Education recently released a new curriculum standard for labor education in compulsory education. The standard has three types of tasks: everyday chores, including cleaning, organizing, cooking, and using and maintaining home appliances; productive labor, including agriculture, making traditional handicrafts, and experience and application of new technologies; and service, including volunteer work.

Primary school students in first and second grades need to do basic cleaning, wash vegetables and peel fruit, and learn to raise one or two kinds of plants or small animals.

Third and fourth graders should clean their classrooms, wash their underwear, socks and shoes, know how to make cold dishes and use home appliances.

Fifth and sixth graders should master the skills of cooking two or three common dishes, such as fried eggs, or scrambled eggs with tomato.

For middle school students, they are encouraged to cook three or four dishes independently, learn how to make one or two kinds of traditional handicrafts, and experience one or two types of industrial labor, new technologies, modern service or volunteer work.

The new curriculum also stipulates the establishment of labor week, which refers to extracurricular, off-campus, continuous and intensive activities that occur every school year.

It calls for the participation of families in students’ labor education. Schools should use various means to help parents realize the importance of labor education and help parents make household lists to improve students’ independence.

The curriculum has been widely discussed on social media and became the top trending topic on Sina Weibo.

Netizens welcomed the inclusion of such courses and said it is necessary to teach young students basic skills. Some have regretted not learning such skills during their school days.

Yang Jianping, mother of a first grader in Beijing, said she strongly supports teaching students such courses so they learn the necessary technical and labor skills in life.

Her son’s head teacher asks the students to clean the classrooms and use disinfecting wipes to clean the desks, chairs and classroom floors, she said.

She also asks him to help make simple dishes and has taken him to plant vegetables at his grandmother’s garden in the countryside during winter vacation, Yang said.

“He is very interested in planting vegetables and asks to video chat with his grandmother to see the plants every day,” she said.

Xiong Bingqi, director of 21st Century Education Research Institute, said more supervision and regulation are needed to ensure local governments and schools allocate enough resources and teachers for labor education and open enough courses.

He said labor education needs family participation, yet many parents only value academic education and overlook other forms of education, he said.

Such forms of family education harm the development of children by taking away opportunities to experience life, develop necessary skills and become independent people, he added.

International

Chinese Government Offers Scholarships For 2025

The Government of China is providing full scholarships to Barbadian students to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in that country, for the academic year commencing September 2025.

To be eligible for a scholarship, applicants must be citizens of Barbados in good health; high school graduates under the age of 45 when applying for general programmes; be 25 years old if pursuing undergraduate studies, and under 35 years old if pursuing a master’s degree – applicants must already possess a bachelor’s degree and graduated with at least Lower Second Class Honours.

Applicants must also be under age 40 if pursuing a doctoral degree and must have a master’s degree, or hold a master’s degree or that of an Associate Professor (or above) and be under age 50 when applying for senior scholarship programmes. Applications, procedures, and the relevant rules are available from www.campuschina.org or www.csc.edu.cn/studyinchina.

For more information on the scholarships for 2025, interested persons should contact the Tertiary Section of the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training at 535-0863, or visit www.mes.gov.bb. The deadline for the submission of applications is Friday, January 17, 2025. (PR/GIS)

International

People Of African Descent Take Centre Stage At UN

The start of the Second Decade for People of African Descent was proclaimed as January 1, 2025, by the United Nations General Assembly, yesterday.

The theme of the Second Decade is “People of African descent: Recognition, Justice and Development”.

The decade will mobilise United Nations agencies and the international community more broadly to focus on the challenges faced by people of African descent around the world and to promote the respect, protection, and fulfilment of all of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

During the course of the first decade, which ran from 2015 to 2024, the UN and its member states took a number of steps to address the challenges faced and promote the contribution of people of African descent around the world.

At the national level, Barbados has been pursuing reparatory justice through the work of Special Envoy Trevor Prescod. The University of the West Indies has established a partnership with the University of Glasgow that has led to the creation of a joint master’s programme on reparatory justice.

At the regional level, CARICOM has been pursuing reparatory justice through its reparations commission, chaired by Sir Hilary Beckles and through the Prime Ministerial sub-committee on reparations chaired by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.

Upon the adoption of the resolution by the UN General Assembly, Barbados’ Ambassador to the UN, François Jackman, noted: “The facts surrounding the challenges faced by people and societies of African descent are increasingly well-known and well-understood – in part due to the higher profile these issues have assumed as a result of the proclamation of the First Decade.

“This welcome proclamation of a second decade will, however, inevitably lead to disappointment if we do not provide it and its programme of activities with the support that is required. It will therefore be essential for the international community to mobilise the necessary human and financial resources to realise the promise of this second decade.” (PR/GIS)

International

PRESIDENT XI JINPING CALLS FOR AN OPEN WORLD ECONOMY

During meeting with the leaders of major international economic organizations, President Xi Jinping noted that as each economy faces its own set of challenges, it is imperative to build an open world economy through cooperation, drive development through innovation, seize the important opportunities of the digital economy, artificial intelligence and low-carbon technology, foster new sources of economic growth, and support the cross-border flow of knowledge, technology and talent. Building “small yard with high fences,” decoupling and disrupting supply chains bring harm to others without benefiting oneself. China always believes that the world does well when China does well; and when the world does well, China will do even better. For countries, economic interdependence should be seen as a good thing that enables all to draw on each other’s strengths for mutual benefit and win-win results. It should not be taken as a risk.