The Double Whammy of Pandemic and War: A Systematic Review of India’s Education Diplomacy to Address Educational Inequities in Afghanistan

Higher education is considered an important tool for the overall development of any country, and it holds true in the context of Afghanistan as well. At the same time, a good eco-environment in terms of political will, leaders’ farsighted vision, a fair budget, good infrastructure, and a good teaching community are some of the basic requirements for higher education to move in the direction of new and higher horizons. However, due to the ongoing war during the last couple of decades, the country’s education system has become out of reach for a substantial part of the population due to poverty, lack of infrastructure, refugees and internally displaced, digital division, etc., critically affecting the education equity. This systematic review examines India’s education diplomacy in addressing the inequities in Afghanistan’s education system and making them more equitable. Education was further dilapidated with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Afghanistan is caught between a war and a pandemic and suffers from a double whammy in losses. Subsequently, given their chilling effects, higher education becomes devoid of multiples equities, including education. However, because of their historical and geo-civilizational ties, India has focused on development diplomacy in general and education diplomacy (E.D) in particular to improve educational infrastructures.

Family ASL: An Early Start to Equitable Education for Deaf Children

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children experience systematic barriers to equitable education due to intentional or unintentional ableist views that can lead to a general lack of awareness about the value of natural sign languages and insufficient resources supporting sign language development. Furthermore, an imbalance of information in favor of spoken languages often stems from a phonocentric perspective that views signing as an inferior form of communication that also hinders the development of spoken language. On the contrary, research demonstrates that early adoption of a natural sign language confers critical protection from the risks of language deprivation without endangering spoken language development. In this position paper, we draw attention to deep societal biases about language in the information presented to parents of DHH children, against early exposure to a natural sign language. We outline actions that parents and professionals can adopt to maximize DHH children’s chances for on-time language development.

THE BACK BURNER: EDUCATIONAL EQUITY, RESILIENCE, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AS A PREDICTOR ON PROMOTING STUDENTS MENTAL HEALTH

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of the current research was to determine the effect of equitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being on promoting student's mental health. The researchers eagerly explored everyday situations happening in male elementary schools of district Lahore, focusing on pandemic situations with zeal and zest. Methodology: The researchers structured causal-comparative research focusing positivist paradigm on a sample of randomly selected 980 respondents enrolled in male elementary schools of district Lahore of Punjab-Pakistan. The authors collected the data after administering Scott (2006) Educational Equity and school reforms Scale, Prince-Embury (2013) Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents, Ryff’s (1989) Psychological Well-beings Scale, and Lukat et al. (2016) Positive Mental Health Scale. After ensuring ethical considerations, the researchers run regression technique, one way; ANOVA and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (r) on the participants data. Main findings: The findings revealed that educational equity effect 81%, resilience 87.10%, and psychological well-being affect 66.60% in promoting students mental health. Educational equity, resilience, and psychological well-being have the same effect on 6th, 7th, and 8th grades students in promoting their mental health. Further a significant strong association between educational equity and mental health (r = .900**, n = 985, p < .05), resilience and mental health (r = .946**, n = 984, p < .05) and psychological well-beings and students mental health (r = .815**, n = 985, p < .05). Applications of this study: The results of the research will be applicable for headteachers, teachers, and parents to get aware of the worth of equitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being that play an enormous role in promoting students mental health. The debatable constructs of the current research will provide capable stakeholders to know the entire magnitude of mental health that drastically instigate and enhance student's vigour, attentiveness, dependability, intellectual ability, and optimism. Novelty/originality of this study: It is evident from the literature that less work is conducted inequitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being that play a massive role in promoting students mental health. In the case of Pakistan, the situation is very alarming and the meager because none of the researchers took initiative to framed research on these burning constructs. However, this research will opened new dimensions for the future researchers that will raise their intentions to explore the effect of primary, secondary, higher secondary, and tertiary level students equitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being on their mental health.

Voluntad política a favor de la educación inclusiva y equitativa: Inicios y desarrollo analizando su significado

This theoretical article addresses the question of the commitment of international educational policy to an inclusive and equitable quality education for all people as a fundamental right. The implemented methodology was a review of publications from international organizations and scientific articles from different reference databases, such as Latindex, Erih and Dialnet, between the years 2010-2020. The selected articles and reports have been categorized by different topics that provided understanding to the field of inclusive education, which has allowed the analysis and the results that are presented hereunder. Firstly, the beginnings and development of Inclusive Education are described, collecting the main milestones related to education as a right and placing special emphasis on those milestones of greatest relevance. Subsequently, the different and complementary perspectives regarding inclusive education have been synthetized and analysed, arguing that there are different causes that foster the development of this right. Thus, an attempt is made to delimit the meaning of inclusion, educational inclusion and/or inclusive education, reaching consensus or agreements endorsed by the literature. Conclusions highlight that inclusive education has to be based on equity and the importance of educational policies being committed to this challenge of guaranteeing an inclusive and equitable education for all people.

Educating Adolescent Newcomers in the Superdiverse Midwest

This book juxtaposes superdiversity with English-centricity in the US, set against long-standing challenges with migration and language policy recently underlined by Donald Trump’s election. It explores the history, policies, and practices of a Central Ohio adolescent newcomer program seeking to provide an equitable education to its students.