WHEN Shirley-Anne Somerville says she will take full responsibility for the appeals process for this year’s diet of “exams”, she’s doing nothing noble or exceptional: she is merely explaining where responsibility lies – with her. The SQA is not some alien monster inflicted on the education system, controlling exams and, of its own volition, making teachers’ and pupils’ lives a misery. No, the SQA is a quango set up by and controlled by the Government. It is the Government that sets the policy and it is for the SQA to exercise its technical expertise to carry out this policy effectively and efficiently. So, Curriculum for Excellence is a Government-determined programme and this includes not only the outcomes but also the assessment regime. SQA’s job is to provide the technical expertise to ensure that the assessments achieve the aims determined by the Government.
Office Products International
This week’s episode of OPI Talk features two guests: Greg Gibson, VP and General Manager, North American Papers at International Paper, and Matt Dodd, Senior Executive Director of Corporate Philanthropy at City of Hope.
Gibson is this year’s National Business Products Industry’s Spirit of Life Honouree, spearheading the 2021 Sustain Hope campaign. NBPI has been supporting City of Hope for over 40 years, raising more than $220 million during that time.
This fundraising campaign has been like no other, of course, with so many physical events cancelled. One of these is the City of Hope medical research centre campus tour, typically held in February. As Dodd explains, this is being replaced by a Virtual Tour in mid-June, preceded by a final push for the NBPI’s personal giving campaign.
South County Notebook: May 24, 2021
SCHWARTZ
Memorial Hall Museum to offer free admission to military personnel
DEERFIELD Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association’s Memorial Hall Museum will once again join museums nationwide in the Blue Star Museums initiative, a program that provides free admission to currently serving U.S. military personnel and their families this summer.
The program, which started earlier this month, will continue through Sept. 6. “Like the resilience that military families demonstrate time and again, PVMA’s Memorial Hall Museum is an example of resiliency in the arts sector over the past year,” said Ann Eilers, acting chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. “We are grateful to PVMA’s Memorial Hall Museum for (its) leadership in strengthening community through (its) participation in the Blue Star Museums program this summer.”
GAELIC policy in Scotland will soon outlive Gaelic communities, experts have warned, as they called for an urgent change of approach. Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin and Iain Caimbeul, a former chief executive of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, said Scotland s Gaelic language policy risks becoming part of the problem . In a new academic paper, they argue existing policy is contributing to the decline of Gaelic communities. Mr Ó Giollagáin, who is director of the University of the Highlands and Islands’ (UHI) Language Sciences Institute, previously led a major study that warned Gaelic-speaking communities are at risk of dying out within a decade.