Descriptive evaluation uses words to describe and summarize a student's level of competence.

A senior expert with the Primary Education Office of the Education Ministry said the new descriptive evaluation method executed in the current academic year (Sept. 22) in 500 first and second primary school classes involving 15,000 pupils yielded positive results.
Mohammad Hassani told IRNA that the plan was executed on a trial basis, adding it would be extended to third grade primary students during the next school year. "The scheme is predicted to cover 1,200 classes and 30,000 children next year," he stated.
Hassani mentioned an improvement in teaching and learning processes as well as in mental health indexes as the achievements of the pilot project, adding the traditional method of evaluation based on tests and scores was stressful. "With the elimination of exams, a reassuring environment is governing classrooms. The new procedure has not decreased the students' motivation and interest," he commented.
This so-called "descriptive evaluation" which uses words to describe and summarize a student's level of competence is in contrast to quantitative assessment techniques whose summary of achievements yields a score, typically a number.
Hassani added that once the trial period is over, the scheme results would be presented to the High Council of Education which will decide on whether it can be applied to the whole primary education system.
"The attitudes of parents and teachers toward evaluation techniques should be modified," he said.

The total number of students studying at vocational training schools stands at 43,280 in Tehran province.

About 70 percent of technical/vocational instructors across the country will be retired within two years, leaving the country with an acute shortage of trained workforce unless prompt action is taken to substitute the outgoing personnel.
Deputy head of Tehran Education Department for provincial cities, Mohammad Hosseini Fahraji, told Fars news agency, "Another problem challenging Kardanesh (skills education) students in Iran is the scarcity of educational space. A large number of students are eager to be trained in the field, but the capacities are limited."
He put the total number of students studying at vocational training schools in Tehran province at 43,280, of whom about 19,000 are girls and 24,000 boys.

IKRC in association with the Ministry of Health is supporting malnourished children under six in 14 provinces on a trial basis.

Imam Khomeini Relief Committee provided support to some 11,000 children under six who suffered from malnutrition at a total cost of four billion rials this year (to end March 21), ISNA reported.
Deputy head of the committee for family support, Hossein Bohiraei, said IKRC in association with the Ministry of Health is supporting malnourished children under six in 14 provinces on a trial basis.
"Proper food baskets are provided to families of these children who undergo medical tests every six months. In case malnourishment is persistent, they will continue to receive the support," he added.
"As testified by figures, a great portion of children under six are underfed. Given that this is the age for development of brain cells, undernourishment could lead to retardation of the kids."
He blamed impoverishment as the main reason behind the majority of malnutrition cases and said, "Most of these families are overpopulated and under-resourced and therefore incapable of meeting their basic necessities. In some other cases, families' unawareness of a proper nutritional regime leads to underfeeding, despite good financial potentials."
Highlighting the necessity of supervising the nourishment of mothers and children, the deputy regretted that no official body had yet taken any concrete steps to this end.
"We hope the Welfare Ministry would take some action in this regard," he mentioned.

Two hundred schools in Tehran signed contracts to let their walls for educational advertisements.
Director of Public Relations Office of Tehran Education Department, Rahpeima, told ISNA that 500 schools in districts one to 11 of Tehran have already received offers for installation of advertising panels. ÒAbout 300 schools are yet to declare whether they welcome the offer or not,Ó he stated.
Rahpeima noted that Òthe contracts are sent to education offices in every district for final approval. Once the contracts are endorsed, between five and 15 signboards are posted on school walls. The advertising messages are prepared by the advertising agencies and are subject to approval by the Education Department.Ó
He said advertising in schools would cost 13 million rials, of which 80 percent would be given to schools and 20 percent to the Education Department to be spent on cultural projects.

Concurrent with the Clean Air Day on Jan. 18, Mehr-e Sabz scheme will be inaugurated in the country's largest park.
The plan aims to encourage planting of trees, commemorate the two great Muslim feasts of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Ghadir, promote marriage, emphasize health and preserve green environment, ILNA reported.
Head of Tehran Municipality's Cultural and Artistic Organization added that some 100 Basiji (volunteer forces) couples would inaugurate the plan by planting saplings in Azadegan Water Park in south of Tehran.
According to Esfandiar Rahim Moshaei, based on the plan which is implemented in two stages, each couple would plant a sapling and have their names registered in the sapling's ID.
Couples who plan to marry between the two felicitous occasions (Jan. 21-29) are invited to register for the program by calling 8446325 or visiting the website www.tehransabz.com.
The second phase of the scheme would be implemented in March concurrent with the Natural Resources Week extending the opportunity to all Tehrani couples to plant a tree under their name.

More than half of Iranian youth participating in a recent poll asserted that an increase in the number of state TV channels could not satisfy their demands, while about 67 percent said domestic TV had failed to curb youth enthusiasm for satellite TV programs.
As reported by ISNA, young people aged between 14 and 30 years in the capital cities of 28 provinces took part in the poll, of whom 53 percent opined that Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) had been unsuccessful in its attempts to stand up to Western cultural invasion.
About 72 percent of the participants opined that IRIB programs lacked the proper variety, while another 57 percent said the programs were not adequately entertaining and enjoyable.
Based on the poll results, 65 percent of the young people believe that the image portrayed by IRIB of public life is unrealistic, while another 72 percent contend TV programs encourage lavishness and extravagance among people.
Close to 59 percent insisted that IRIB's attempts to meet youth's music demand were a letdown, and 61 percent rejected assumptions that state TV and radio had brought any excitement to their lives, added the report.

Children wearing masks due to polluted air in Tehran. Jan. 18 marks Clean Air Day. (Photo by Mohammad-Reza Ali-Madadi)

A program to register every displaced child in Indonesia's tsunami-hit province of Aceh is underway in an effort to stop human traffickers from smuggling them out, the UN said.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it was working with the government to establish centers across Aceh that would allow tens of thousands of children made homeless or orphaned to be registered and kept track of.
UNICEF spokesman John Budd told AFP one center was set up in Aceh's capital of Banda Aceh, and the organization was working to establish another 20 as soon as possible across the province.
Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla also announced further details of a ban on adoption put in place earlier amid at increasing the number of reports that human traffickers were spiriting children out of Aceh.
He said members of the public would only be allowed to sponsor the orphans by providing financial aid, and that the children would remain under state care.
Kalla said the children would be placed in orphanages run by the government, Islamic foundations or Muslim boarding schools.
The government also said that children under 16 would not be allowed to leave Aceh without their parents. "The aim of the travel ban is to ensure there is no adoption and to prevent any sale and trafficking of children from Aceh," Social Affairs Ministry spokesman Heri Krisitanto told AFP.
Speaking from Banda Aceh, Budd said trafficking rings could operate relatively easily in Aceh, a remote province on the island of Sumatra. But he said the quick response by the government and aid organizations to the issue may have curtailed the traffickers' efforts.

Highly toxic rocket fuel, spewed out by launches at Russia's space base in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, is causing serious illness among people who live nearby, according to an unpublished study in the British weekly science journal Nature.
The study, which has been conducted by a team of Russian scientists but has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, says that levels of endocrine disease and blood disorder in polluted areas are twice the regional average, the report says.
The work, led by epidemiologist Sergey Zykov, focused on children in the Altai Republic, a mountainous region on the southern fringes of Siberia.
This area was chosen because of pollution from unburned fuel, notably hydrazine, which is used to power the early stages of some Russian launchers.
Zykov compared the health records of about 1,000 children in two polluted areas for 1998-2000, comparing them with 330 records from a nearby unpolluted control group.
He concluded that children in the worst-affected areas were up to twice as likely to need medical attention during this time, and needed to be treated twice as long, Nature said.
According to Zykov's calculations, dozens of liters of unburned fuel are sprayed over several square kilometers of land with every launch.
"These propellants are nasty, toxic substances," Nature quoted European Space Agency (ESA) expert Fabio Caramelli as saying.
"A tablespoon of hydrazine in a swimming pool would kill anyone who drank the water."
The Baikonur Cosmodrome is run by the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos but both NASA and ESA pay to have craft launched from there.

The number of English pupils playing truant has increased by 29 percent since 1997.

More than a million school children in Britain now play truant every year, a rise of more than a quarter since Labour came to power, according to shocking new figures obtained by The Independent, www.independent.co.uk reported.
Despite a long-standing government pledge to cut the number of pupils skipping lessons--blamed for undermining educational standards, particularly in inner-city secondary schools--the number of English pupils playing truant has increased by 29 percent since 1997.
A total of 1,264,103 primary and secondary students took time off without permission last year, substantially more than the 978,000 who did so seven years ago.
Ministers have invested heavily in initiatives to bring down the number of truants, and have gone so far as jailing parents whose children fail to attend. But according to the conservatives, there is a growing culture of truancy. While last year saw a slight reduction in the overall amount of time lost, the number of students "bunking off" has risen sharply--including many in middle-class areas.
Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins said, "The fact that over a million children are playing truant from our schools every year is an appalling indictment of Labour's management of our education system."
A new league table of truancy in England, organized by political constituencies, reveals that the area with the greatest number of secondary students missing lessons is suburban Edmonton in north London. More than 3,000 pupils--64 percent --missed at least half a day of school without permission over the 2002-03 academic year. Other problem areas include Sheffield Brightside, the constituency of David Blunkett, a former secretary of state for education.
This analysis is based on school attendance figures for every parliamentary constituency between 1997 and 2003, revealed in a parliamentary answer asked by the Conservative MP for Fareham, Mark Hoban. The Tory party has seized on the figures to claim they show a "growing culture of truancy".
David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said, "It's intensely disappointing that truancy remains a problem when a great deal of money is being invested in truancy reduction programs."

The number of Portuguese getting married has fallen over the past decade, but the amount spent on their wedding by those who do tie the knot skyrocketed during the same period, AFP quoted a study as saying.
There were 53,735 weddings in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million people, in 2003, a 21 percent decline from 1993, said the study by Ecorex, a company that stages an annual wedding show in Lisbon.
But during this time, the average amount of money spent by couples on their wedding day, from the reception to clothes, legal fees and the honeymoon, has doubled from 10,000 to 20,000 euros ($26,350), it added.
The study said that if expenses incurred by guests on presents, clothes and other items are also included, the total cost of an average wedding is 60,000 euros. That adds up to three billion euros annually--some 2.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.