Under the current educational system in China, education in primary school and junior high school was free-feed and compulsory, however, for a long time, children of migrant workers were excluded from the compulsory educational scheme in urban area.
However, despite his calls for education reform, Obama reinforces the current educational paradigm by highlighting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) as the skills students need for the new economy.
Because the current educational landscape emphasizes inquiry-based learning as a foundation of science education, teacher-training in Singapore focuses on augmenting the quality of inquiry-based science lessons.
It is not only poor or disadvantaged children whom the current educational system fails.
The current educational system gets even more withering criticism than business schools.
The challenge is to have quality options available to all students, not only to those who know how to benefit from the current educational system.
And in our present circumstances, it also renders unthinkable the possibility of materialising radically democratic alternatives to the current educational system, and weakens and invisibilises the many projects and struggles now striving towards this goal.
She calls this process "serial mastery" and notes that the current educational system in most countries, from kindergarten through university, does a poor job of equipping people for continuous learning.
Teachers, administrators and any number of newspaper and magazine articles have explained that the current educational philosophy is that all students can achieve and that the self-esteem of each student, no matter the level of his or her accomplishment, is paramount.
Of course the Olympics will have an immediate impact on participation rates in school sport, however, I fear, in the current educational climate, the impact will be short term and rely more on chance, luck and the schools' individual priorities and circumstance rather than an intelligent, well thought out national model that could have positive reverberations for generations to come.
"I am a passionate champion for children's well-being and I am very concerned about the current educational climate where many of ur children are in danger of being over-tested, over-worked and faced with the overbearing pressure to perform" she said.
