Education

Blame your cleverness for your spelling mistakes!

London, Aug 26 : Struggle with words’ spellings? Well, don’t underestimate your language skills, for chances could be that you’re too clever.

That’s the conclusion of a new research, which suggests that spelling mistakes are sometimes made because people know too much.

Researchers at Collins Dictionaries found that the most commonly misspelt word was supersede - being wrong on one in ten occasions.

The problem arises because people use their knowledge of the words that have a phonetically similar ending, like intercede, precede or cede, from the Latin cedere - to yield. They then wrongly assume that supersede is spelt with a ''c''.

Brit MPs want sex education for kids as young as four

sex educationLondon, Aug 26: Kids as young as four years old should get sex education, Brit MPs have said.

A cross-party group of MPs is urging the Government to make lessons on sexual health and relationships mandatory for young children, the intention being to reduce Britain’s high rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease.

Top Canadian universities in India to attract students

New Delhi, Aug 25 : Fifteen of Canada’s elite universities are in India to hold information sessions on Canada as a destination for higher education.

The delegation is led by Michelle Beaton of Ryerson University, Toronto, and assisted by Ginette Sanfaçon of McGill University. The delegation will be in India from August 18-28.

The sessions are being organized by the Canadian Higher Education Committee under the aegis of Council of International Schools (CIS) and have been held in Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi. It is Council’s fourth consecutive tour to India.

Brit teachers turning to binge eating to cope with stress

London, Aug 23 : Teachers in Britain are under so much stress that they are turning to binge eating to cope with it, says a new survey.

In the survey by the Stroke Association, nearly half of the teachers admit they turn to comfort eating to cope with the stress.

It found that 47 per cent of teachers admitted they lost sleep when stressed, while 45 per cent said they turned to comfort eating to deal with it.

About 42 per cent said they cried, 37 per cent admitted they became angry, 29 per cent said they turned to drink and 16 per cent admitted to turn to smoking to cope.

Only 13 per cent said they took exercise to deal with stress and two per cent said they turned to drugs.

UK universities ''favouring poor background students''

London, Aug. 23: Some of Britain’s leading universities are reported to be favouring less-qualified students from poorer backgrounds.

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph reveals five out of 20 elite institutions in the UK make lower grade offers to sixth-formers from poor-performing schools and deprived homes.

The London School of Economics, Bristol, Nottingham, Newcastle, and Edinburgh all allow staff to choose students with worse grades.

Overall, almost two-thirds of the elite Russell Group - which represents research-intensive universities - attach weighting to candidates' schools, home postcodes and whether family members also attended university as a tiebreaker during the application process.

Malaysian school teachers beat up Indian kids black-and-blue, call derogatory names

Kuala Lumpur, Aug 22: Over the past almost one year, incidents of school teachers physically abusing students of Indian origin have been on the rise in Malaysia, and in some instances, teachers even called the Indian students by derogatory names.

The school teachers have reportedly acquired the ‘hate-Indian students’ attitude after the transfer of a school teacher from a secondary school in Banting, who is now facing an inquiry after she admitted to leveling racial slurs against Indian students.

Several parents of such children here have lodged police reports since November last year alleging that as many as five school teachers had physically and verbally abused Indian students.

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