Urgent Press Release: Continued killings of teachers in Pakistan

March 30, 2013

Contact: Fred van Leeuwen, General Secretary, fred.vanleeuwen@ei-ie.org

Education International – representing 400 education unions in 173

countries with a total membership of 30 million teachers – is deeply

concerned about the recent attacks on teachers in Pakistan. The

assassination of a teacher of an all-girls school in the Khyber tribal

district on 25 March and the murder of the principal of the Baldia Town

school in Karachi earlier today (30 March), which are believed to be the

responsibility of a Taliban terrorist sect that opposes the education of

girls, has caused outrage among the teaching profession worldwide.

“We will not ever be intimidated by extremists, not in Pakistan and not

anywhere else where we are fighting to accomplish the right to education

of all children, girls and boys,” says Fred van Leeuwen, General

Secretary of Education International. “But we expect our communities

to stand up and support teachers when they are so brutally prevented

from implementing that right for their students.”

Worldwide, 32 million girls are still denied the right to education today.

This week’s attacks on teachers and schools are a stark reminder to the

world of the persistence of threats, intimidation, arson attacks and

sometimes even murder that are the weapons used in a war against

girls’ opportunity. Education International has urged the national

government of Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to trial

and to make every possible effort to ensure the safety and security of the

country’s educators and students.

Education International has lodged a formal complaint against these

acts of violence with the appropriate international agencies, including the

International Labour Organization in Geneva and UNESCO in Paris. The

organisation has welcomed the support of UN Secretary-General, Mr

Ban Ki-moon, and the UN Special Envoy on Global Education, Mr

Gordon Brown, who have already strongly condemned the acts of

violence.

In memory of the assassinated teachers Education International will

establish a special Scholarship Fund to promote girls’ education and

assist teachers and students victimised for their advocacy of girls’

education. The Fund will be officially launched at a ceremonial meeting

to be held in Pakistan in the coming weeks.

Education International is the voice of teachers and other education employees across the globe. A federation of about 400 associations and unions in more than 170 countries and territories, it represents 30 million educators in education institutions from early childhood to university.

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Mindfulness at school reduces (likelihood of) depression-related symptoms in adolescents

Secondary school students who follow an in-class mindfulness programme report reduced indications of depression, anxiety and stress up to six months later. Moreover, these students were less likely to develop pronounced depression-like symptoms. The study, conducted by Professor Filip Raes (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven), is the first to examine mindfulness in a large sample of adolescents in a school-based setting.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation therapy focused on exercising ‘attentiveness’. Depression is often rooted in a downward spiral of negative feelings and worries. Once a person learns to more quickly recognise these feelings and thoughts, he or she can intervene before depression sinks in.

While mindfulness has already been widely tested and applied in patients with depression, this is the first time the method has been studied in a large group of adolescents in a school-based setting, using a randomised controlled design. The study was carried out at five middle schools in Flanders, Belgium. About 400 students between the ages of 13 and 20 took part. The students were divided into a test group and a control group. The test group received mindfulness training, and the control group received no training. Before the study, both groups completed a questionnaire with questions indicative of depression, stress or anxiety symptoms. Both groups completed the questionnaire again directly after the training, and then a third time six months later.

Before the start of the training, both the test group (21%) and the control group (24%) had a similar percentage of students reporting evidence of depression. After the mindfulness training, that number was significantly lower in the test group: 15% versus 27% in the control group. This difference persisted six months after the training: 16% of the test group versus 31% of the control group reported evidence of depression. The results suggest that mindfulness can lead to a decrease in symptoms associated with depression and, moreover, that it protects against the later development of depression-like symptoms.

The full study can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0202-1.

The study was carried out in cooperation with the Belgian not-for-profit Mindfulness and with support from the Go for Happiness Foundation.      

Contact: Professor Filip Raes, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, tel: +32 (0)16 32 58 92 or +32 (0)494 07 11 00, e-mail: filip.raes@ppw.kuleuven.be