Day: September 10, 2023

As young children went back to school across Sweden last month, many of their teachers were putting a new emphasis on printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice and devoting less time to tablets, independent online research and keyboarding skills.

The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether the country’s hyper-digitalized approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills.

Swedish Minister for Schools Lotta Edholm, who took office 11 months ago as part of a new center-right coalition government, was one of the biggest critics of the all-out embrace of technology.

“Sweden’s students need more textbooks,” Edholm said in March. “Physical books are important for student learning.”

The minister announced last month in a statement that the government wants to reverse the decision by the National Agency for Education to make digital devices mandatory in preschools. It plans to go further and to completely end digital learning for children under age 6, the ministry also told The Associated Press.

Although the country’s students score above the European average for reading ability, an international assessment of fourth-grade reading levels, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, highlighted a decline among Sweden’s children between 2016 and 2021.

In 2021, Swedish fourth-graders averaged 544 points, a drop from the 555 average in 2016. However, their performance still placed the country in a tie with Taiwan for the seventh-highest overall test score.

In comparison, Singapore — which topped the rankings — improved its PIRLS reading scores from 576 to 587 during the same period, and England’s average reading achievement score fell only slightly, from 559 in 2016 to 558 in 2021.

Some learning deficits may have resulted from the coronavirus pandemic or reflect a growing number of immigrant students who don’t speak Swedish as their first language, but an overuse of screens during school lessons may cause youngsters to fall behind in core subjects, education experts say.

“There’s clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning,” Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said in a statement last month on the country’s national digitalization strategy in education.

“We believe the focus should return to acquiring knowledge through printed textbooks and teacher expertise, rather than acquiring knowledge primarily from freely available digital sources that have not been vetted for accuracy,” said the institute, a highly respected medical school focused on research.

The rapid adoption of digital learning tools also has drawn concern from the United Nations’ education and culture agency.

In a report published last month, UNESCO issued an “urgent call for appropriate use of technology in education.” The report urges countries to speed up internet connections at schools, but at the same time warns that technology in education should be implemented in a way so that it never replaces in-person, teacher-led instruction and supports the shared objective of quality education for all.

In the Swedish capital, Stockholm, 9-year-old Liveon Palmer, a third-grader at Djurgardsskolan elementary school, expressed his approval of spending more school hours offline.

“I like writing more in school, like on paper, because it just feels better, you know,” he told the AP during a recent visit.

His teacher, Catarina Branelius, said she was selective about asking students to use tablets during her lessons even before the national-level scrutiny.

“I use tablets in math and we are doing some apps, but I don’t use tablets for writing text,” Branelius said. Students under age 10 “need time and practice and exercise in handwriting … before you introduce them to write on a tablet.”

Online instruction is a hotly debated subject across Europe and other parts of the West. Poland, for instance, just launched a program to give a government-funded laptop to each student starting in fourth grade in hopes of making the country more technologically competitive.

In the United States, the coronavirus pandemic pushed public schools to provide millions of laptops purchased with federal pandemic relief money to primary and secondary students. But there is still a digital divide, which is part of the reason why American schools tend to use both print and digital textbooks, said Sean Ryan, president of the U.S. school division at textbook publisher McGraw Hill.

“In places where there is not connectivity at home, educators are loath to lean into digital because they’re thinking about their most vulnerable (students) and making sure they have the same access to education as everyone else,” Ryan said.

Germany, which is one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, has been famously slow in moving government programs and information of all kinds online, including education. The state of digitalization in schools also varies among the country’s 16 states, which are in charge of their own curricula.

Many students can complete their schooling without any kind of required digital instruction, such as coding. Some parents worry their children may not be able to compete in the job market with technologically better-trained young people from other countries.

Sascha Lobo, a German writer and consultant who focuses on the internet, thinks a national effort is needed to bring German students up to speed or the country will risk falling behind in the future.

“If we don’t manage to make education digital, to learn how digitalization works, then we will no longer be a prosperous country 20 years from now,” he said in an interview with public broadcaster ZDF late last year.

To counter Sweden’s decline in fourth-grade reading performance, the Swedish government announced an investment worth $64.7 million in book purchases for the country’s schools this year. Another 500 million kronor will be spent annually in 2024 and 2025 to speed up the return of textbooks to schools.

Not all experts are convinced Sweden’s back-to-basics push is exclusively about what’s best for students.

Criticizing the effects of technology is “a popular move with conservative politicians,” Neil Selwyn, a professor of education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, said. “It’s a neat way of saying or signaling a commitment to traditional values.”

“The Swedish government does have a valid point when saying that there is no evidence for technology improving learning, but I think that’s because there is no straightforward evidence of what works with technology,” Selwyn added. “Technology is just one part of a really complex network of factors in education.”
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It’s lunchtime at the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District and a colony of sabethes cyaneus — also known as the paddle-legged beauty for its feathery appendages and iridescent coloring — find their way to Ella Branham.

“They’re not very aggressive and they’re kind of picky eaters,” said Branham, a technician, as she exhaled into a glass tank to attract the insects to the carbon dioxide in her breath. “So I’ll be feeding them with my arm.”

Branham had volunteered to let the South American mosquitoes feed on her blood so they can produce eggs and maintain the colony for education and research at the lab in the Salt Lake City district. It’s one of the many mosquito control districts around the United States that seek to hold in check one of the world’s deadliest animals — one well-positioned to thrive as climate change fosters a warmer and wetter environment.

Mosquitoes can carry viruses including dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika. They are especially threatening to public health in Asia and Africa but are also closely monitored in the United States. Local agencies reported more than 1,100 cases of West Nile virus in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most humans who contract West Nile show no symptoms. But for some, it can cause vomiting, fever and in rare cases seizures or meningitis. Over roughly the last 25 years, nearly 3,000 deaths and more than 25,000 hospitalizations linked to West Nile were reported throughout the United States — most of them in August.

West Nile deaths have been reported this year in states including Texas and Colorado, and mosquitoes are thought to be the source of “locally acquired” malaria infections of people in Maryland, Florida and Texas.

Ary Faraji, an entomologist and the executive director of the Salt Lake City mosquito abatement district, said monitoring shows the mosquito season starting earlier and lasting longer as the climate has warmed. The district used to historically shut down each year in mid-September, but that has gotten later and later. Last year, district workers were still setting and checking traps until Thanksgiving.

And this year — where an abnormally snowy winter and a very rainy spring left more water across the landscape for mosquitoes to breed in — his staff estimated that there were five times as many mosquitoes in May compared to the average year.

That’s where the health threat comes in. While both males and females feed on sugar or nectar throughout their lives, females require blood meals to nourish and develop their eggs.

“They are the true vixens,” Faraji said. “Some can be so beautiful and yet some can be so deadly.”

Faraji’s staff — made up of scientists and college and doctoral students — traps, sorts and tests mosquitos for viruses using drones, boats and ATVs. Their work takes into account how trends ranging from weather patterns to population growth will affect disease transmission.

“The more people you put in a closer vicinity of where the mosquitos are, the higher chance of pathogen transmission,” he said, noting the challenges of the wetland areas surrounding Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

Though dangerous, mosquitoes are also critical to ecosystems throughout the world, with various species serving as pollinators or food sources to fish, birds and frogs.

“We try to maintain a balance and suppress them to the point that they’re not negatively affecting communities,” Faraji said. “Taking them away would definitely negatively impact our ecosystem overall.”
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The death toll from flash floods that have inundated central Greece due to Storm Daniel has risen to 12 with the number expected to rise. The clean-up task in the Thessaly area comes as health officials warn of infectious diseases that are breaking out as a result of dead livestock scattered across devastated sections.

Hara Petropoulou pleas for assistance after Storm Daniel caused widespread flooding in central Greece.

“Help,” she shouts to the anchor of a Sunday morning show. “Please help.”

“We may have survived the floods that drowned our towns and homes… but the stench of decomposing animal carcasses …. Our chickens, our goats, rabbits and sheep… It is horrific and it is going to kill us,” she adds.

The wife of a farmer in the farming heartland of Greece, Petropoulou says she is left with no other option than to clean up the debris herself.

“I have a bottle of chlorine in my hand… and I’m ready to head out into a meter of mud and floodwaters to clear out our chicken coop and to drag away the dead sheep the storm left behind.”

“I have no other choice,” she says.

Petropoulou is not alone. Thousands of other farmers are following suit.

But that is exactly what health authorities are warning against.

Dysentery, diphtheria, and malaria are just some of the infectious diseases resulting from the floods that ravaged Thessaly, the farming heartland of Greece, and livestock for much of the past week.

On Sunday, state health and veterinary officials said they had deployed dozens of special crews to collect dead livestock, taking decomposing carcasses to special incinerators to be burned.

But with dozens of villages and hamlets still stranded … all devoid of clean water and sewage, fears of further outbreaks grow.

“Authorities alone have been tasked with the cleanup of dead livestock,” said Deputy Health Minister Irini Agapidakishe on public television.

“People have to stay away from dead livestock, and those that have survived… Goats, chicken, sheep, cows even their pets have to be steered clear and away from contaminated fields.”

“The repercussions,” she said, “will be terrible.”

The looming health crisis adds to Daniel’s destruction after walls of water pounded the Thessaly plain. Officials say over a four-day period, the storm drenched the affected areas with more rainfall than London sees in a full year.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis toured the region to inspect recovery operations. He was expected to announce unprecedented aid measures in a late-night address.

Locals though want more. They say the biggest but most pressing challenge is to rebuild the region to fortify it against future natural disasters and climate change.
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Mosquito-borne dengue fever is taking a heavy toll on South Asian nations this year as Bangladesh grapples with record deaths and Nepal faces cases in new areas, with disease experts linking worsening outbreaks to the impacts of climate change.

Authorities in the two countries are scrambling to contain and treat the disease – which is also known as “breakbone fever” for the severe muscle and joint pains it induces. Entomologists and epidemiologists say rising temperatures and longer monsoon seasons are providing ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.

The threat is not restricted to South Asia as dengue rates are rising globally with 4.2 million cases reported in 2022 — up eightfold from 2000 — the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Earlier this year, WHO said dengue is the fastest-spreading tropical disease worldwide and represents a “pandemic threat.”

In Bangladesh, at least 691 people have died so far in 2023, and more than 138,000 have been infected, official figures show, making this the deadliest year since the first recorded epidemic in 2000. The previous record toll was 281 deaths last year.

A lack of proper prevention measures has allowed the dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread across almost all of Bangladesh, said Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist and zoology professor at Jahangirnagar University in the capital of Dhaka.

He said this raised the risk of more infections occurring during September. Dengue is common during the June-to-September monsoon season, when mosquitoes thrive in stagnant water.

“This climate is favorable for the breeding of Aedes mosquitoes,” Bashar said in an interview. “Dengue is not only a problem for Dhaka, it is now a problem for the entire country.”

Nepal struggling

Meanwhile, Nepal — which first recorded dengue in 2004 — has had at least 13 dengue deaths and more than 21,200 cases so far this year across 75 of its 77 districts, according to officials.

This year could match the 2022 toll of 88 deaths and 54,000 cases, said Uttam Koirala, a senior public health officer at the national epidemiology and disease control division.

Meghnath Dhimal, a senior research officer at the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), said the incidence and spread of dengue had been rising quickly nationwide in recent years.

Rising temperatures mean cases have started occurring in colder autumn months, while Nepal’s higher mountain districts that never before had the disease are now struggling to curb its spread, he said, describing the shifting patterns as “strange.”

For example, the city of Dharan in the mountainous east has been hit particularly hard this year — with dengue cases rising so fast that hospitals and ambulances are overwhelmed by demand, according to Umesh Mehta, the local health division chief.

The city of more than 160,000 people saw the number of dengue cases peak at 1,700 a day as of late August, he said.

Amrit Kumar Thakur, a Dharan resident, was one of four members of his family to contract dengue last month. The 27-year-old said the disease started with a mild body ache and got steadily worse before he was treated at a temporary health center set up to deal with the fast-growing number of cases.

“Dengue was the worst health experience of my life,” said Thakur, adding that he and his relatives had fully recovered.

Ideal conditions

WHO says dengue is rising partly because global warming benefits mosquitoes, along with other factors including movement of people and goods, urbanization and problems with sanitation.

In July, WHO said an unusual episodic amount of rainfall in Bangladesh, together with high temperatures and high humidity, had helped the mosquito population to grow across the nation.

Furthermore, Bangladesh has experienced longer-than-usual monsoon seasons in recent years, with erratic rainfall over the March-to-October period and more breeding grounds popping up for mosquitoes, according to various disease and health experts.

The number of potential breeding sites identified in 2023 is the highest in the last five years, said Nazmul Islam, director of the disease control branch of Bangladesh’s health department.

Fiercer floods fueled by heavy rains and melting glaciers — driven by climate change — are another major factor behind the spread of dengue, said Mohammad Mushtuq Husain, an adviser at the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research.

The Bangladeshi government has also cited climate change as a driver behind the country’s worsening dengue outbreak.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, the prime minister’s special envoy on climate change, said last month on the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the nation’s record dengue cases are “a clear instance of (the) climate change health nexus.”

Bangladesh needs to think about a national plan for adapting its health system to prevent diseases like dengue from turning into major disasters, Chowdhury said in an interview.

Informing the public

As dengue lacks a specific cure, health experts say the disease must be kept at bay through control of mosquito breeding, engaging with the public, and managing symptoms.

In Dhaka, officials are going around the city spraying insecticide to kill mosquitoes and imposing fines on people if breeding sites for the larvae are found.

Atiqul Islam, mayor of the Dhaka North City Corporation, said the authorities would have to keep informing residents of the risks, and monitoring the situation, throughout the year.

“It’s not the time for pinning blame, rather everyone should come forward to deal with the dengue situation — for their love of this city where we are born, live and die,” said Islam.

In Nepal, Dhimal from the NHRC said no authority alone could stop dengue as mosquitoes are found everywhere from garages to the corners of houses which are out of reach of the government.

“Everyone should be aware and proactive and contribute from their side to control the spread of the vector,” he added.

Civil society and development organizations are also helping to tackle the disease.

Sanjeev Kafley, head of the Bangladesh delegation for the International Red Cross, said it was helping to raise public awareness, procuring testing kits, and boosting the availability of platelets used in blood transfusions to treat some patients.

Yet when it comes to treatment broadly, ordinary families face high costs. Researchers from Dhaka University’s Institute of Health Economics have warned that total medical expenses for dengue patients may exceed $91 million this year, up from $41 million in 2019.

Dhaka resident Akhtar Hossain spent $545 on private hospital care for his daughter, Ayesha Tabassum Taqwa, who ultimately died of dengue last month at the age of 10.

Hossain cried as he spoke of Taqwa’s love of learning.

“Her books, notebooks … are all still on the reading table. (She) will never arrange new books,” he said. “(But) who can we blame and what is the point of talking about it?” 
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