![]() Source: C.C.L.T By: Brianna Quinonez Countries around the world are constantly striving to prepare their students for the global market, corporate world, and the industrial life. Subjects that are mainly encouraged are math, science, and technology. However, there is one subject that is not only helpful but can be controversial when turned against: foreign language. In one major case, Morocco is now starting to expect their students to be quadrilingual, or being fluent in four languages. The official languages of Morocco are Arabic and Tamazight, also known as Berber, which is a indigenous language native to North Africa. Moroccan officials also want students to be proficient in English and French. While having Moroccan students learn and become fluent in English and French in addition to their two native languages isn’t seen as the issue, learning them is considered one. According to CSIS, “The problem comes not from the scale of the educational task, but from the provision to teach some core subjects, such as the sciences, in French and English rather than in Arabic.” The problem started after Morocco ended the decision to teach only in Arabic. According to the Pulitzer Center, “The decision reflects a widespread sentiment that schooling in Arabic has failed to prepare students for higher education or globalized labor markets.” This decision is under fire, as many people who are from Arabic descendant see the language as a major part of their culture and their identity. The choice to teach students French comes from Morocco’s history. According to Journey Beyond Travel, “France and Spain controlled Morocco in the early 1900s,” which is one of the reasons many Moroccans today still speak French, since the language was learned and passed down to descendants in many families before Morocco gained independence in 1956. The main reason to teach English is because of its status as a world language. According to BBC, “English is the world's favourite lingua franca - the language people are most likely to turn to when they don't share a first language.” However, English is not as common as French is. According to Morocco World News, “66 percent of Moroccans can read and write in French, compared to only 18.3 percent who can read and write in English.” While this was census was taken in September of 2014, it does give us an insight as to which of the “foreign” languages are more popular among the citizens of the North African country. While there are many disagreements about whether Moroccan students should be learning in languages that still aren’t as natural as Arabic and Berber, the argument for it will forever be to prepare its students for the world in languages that are more mainstream than Arabic.
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![]() Source: Picasa/PR By: Saira Canales China tends to be a very conservative country making it very hard to openly say what you believe, since it is not very well accepted by society. So admitting to an HIV outbreak was very difficult to recognize and take action on. Dr. Shuping Wang was the first person to take note that there was something wrong with the blood she was testing. There was severe levels of hepatitis C and HIV. This began in Central China. The more blood she would test, the more contaminated blood she found. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she would have to go to the public about this because the situation did nothing but get worse. When she first came forward on the issue, no one took her seriously and she was looked down upon. As previously stated, China tends to be very conservative, so you can imagine the backlash she got for this. She has even reported that her pharmacy was trashed and lost her job in the process for making “false” accusations. Even through all of this, she still wanted to help somehow, so she would suggest, constantly, that blood donors should get themselves tested before they donated. However, they did not listen, as getting your blood tested is very expensive. She ended up paying for the tests kits and she reported that she found more than 400 donors had HIV. Dr. Shuping Wang said, “My own investigation found the hepatitis C antibody positive rate to be as high as 84.3%. Being a doctor, I was very anxious. I knew that hepatitis C and HIV had the same routes of infection ... I didn’t want to sit in the office of the Health Bureau waiting for the arrival of an AIDS epidemic. I wanted to directly monitor it and prevent it.” To this day she continues her search on the effects of HIV and on what she and others can do to help prevent it from spreading. She will not stop speaking out and she will continue this fight regardless of how many people approach her. She herself said, “The only thing harder than standing up to the government and their security police is not giving in to pressure from friends and relatives who are threatened with their livelihoods, all because you are speaking out,” she said. “But even after all this time, I will still not be silenced, even though I am deeply sad that this intimidation is happening yet again.” |
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