Mar32017

UN migration agency launches $24.6 million appeal for drought-hit Somalia

UN – Top News Stories
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3 March 2017 – To meet the emergency needs of over a million Somalis affected by drought, the United Nations migration agency is appealing to international donors for $24.6 million in funding.

Humanitarian agencies worry that the situation has started to look increasingly similar to the 2011 famine in Somalia, in which over a quarter of one million people died, according to a press release from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

“We named this (2017) drought ‘Odi Kawayn,’ which is Somali for ‘something bigger than the elders,’” said drought victim Halima, explaining that none of the elders has ever seen a drought as severe as this one.

The IOM appeal has been designed to enhance the current response, and expand the agency’s geographic footprint within the northeast African country.

A massive increase in humanitarian assistance is urgently needed to avert a famine, with humanitarian agencies estimating that 6.2 million drought-affected Somalis are in need of assistance, including food, water and sanitation, health and nutrition, protection and shelter.

Mar32017

Iraq: 15,000 children flee west Mosul over past week as battle intensifies by the day, says UNICEF

UN – Top News Stories
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3 March 2017 – Some 15,000 children have over the previous week fled the western section of Iraq’s Mosul city where fighting between the Government forces and terrorists is intensifying by the day, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported.

“UNICEF is responding to the immediate needs at the Hamam Al Alil camp, 20km from Mosul, where aid is provided to children upon their arrival,” UNICEF Regional Emergency Advisor Bastien Vigneau said over the phone from Iraq during the regular press briefing held in the UN Office at Geneva.

He noted that the children were very scared of the sound of the bombs, which was one of the main reasons their parents had decided to flee. They fled with very little luggage and in most cases with a bare minimum of clothes. The children and their families arrived mostly by buses organized by the military.

The main priorities, other than the first emergency response, included health, to ensure that children were immunized, primarily against measles and polio, said Mr. Vigneau.

Matthew Sarmash, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that a significant increase in displacement had been noticed in recent days and the Hamam Al Alil camp was close to reach its maximum capacity. At the moment, 150,000 places were occupied. He said construction under way to accommodate up to 250,000 people there.

UNICEF’s Vigneau said that more than 100,000 children have been displaced from Mosul since the military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) began on 17 October 2016.

He said that 874 unaccompanied or separated children have been identified since mid-October, with half of them reunified with their families or taken care of by extended families, and the others being provided dedicated assistance until they reunify with families.

Mar32017

‘Political leadership needs to support its own people,’ urges UN mission chief in South Sudan

UN – Top News Stories
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A WFP helicopter arrives Thonyor, Leer County, South Sudan, with supplies of nutrition items and vegetable oil, as part of an inter-agency rapid response mission to provide assistance to people threatened by famine. Photo: WFP/George Fominyen

3 March 2017 – The top United Nations official in South Sudan is calling on the country’s political leadership to support its own people in the wake of a famine affecting some 100,000 people, and calling for local authorities to provide humanitarian access to those most in need.

David Shearer, the recently arrived UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the country, today voiced alarm “at how little a response to the plight of these people has been heard from their leaders.”

On 20 February, famine was declared in parts of Unity state. Since then, humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organizations evacuated the heart of the afflicted-area, a town called Mayendit, due to the threat of resumed fighting between the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) and the SPLA in Opposition.

“Those affected by the humanitarian crisis are still citizens of this young country, and they deserve protection,” Mr. Shearer said in reference to the women and children most affected by the crisis. “But the constant fighting shows they are getting none. Instead, they are bearing the brunt.”

Mr. Shearer, who is also the new head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), reiterated the UN’s call for a complete cessation of hostilities between all those involved.

Mar32017

Labour welcomes House of Commons Select Committee calls for mission-based industrial strategy

Labour
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The non-partisan House of Commons
select committee for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has today
released a report calling for a new mission-based approach to industrial
strategy. The select committee’s report criticises the Government’s sector based
strategy for ‘picking winners’ and for lacking ‘meaningful metrics’ to
determine success.

In its report the select committee
backed the ‘mission-based’ approach to industrial strategy, which is also
advocated by the Labour Party. Labour’s industrial strategy will be
challenge-led, mission-oriented and values-driven – providing a long-term
vision for the economy that mobilises both public and private investment.

Chi Onwurah MP, Labour’s Shadow
Minister for industrial strategy, commented:

“This report reaffirms what we’ve
been saying all along: cherry-picking favoured sectors for backroom deals is no
substitute for a real long-term vision. Theresa May says she wants to see a
high-wage, high-growth economy, but public investment has fallen to half the
amount it was under Labour and her sectoral approach is leaving the vast majority
of British workers out in the cold.

“Labour’s industrial strategy will be
led by the big challenges of our time, from decarbonizing the economy to caring
for an ageing population. Rather than taking a scatter-gun approach to sectors
and technologies, we’re setting out key missions, such as drawing 60 per cent
of our energy from low carbon sources by 2030.”

Ends

 

 

Notes to editors:

An article by Iain Wright MP, who chairs the select committee, summarising the
report’s findings can be found here: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/very-little-industry-and-still-less-strategy-wdt7f99wd

Mar32017

GCSE 9 to 1 grades

HM Government
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The new GCSE 9 to 1 grades

The new 9 to 1 GCSE grades

The vast majority of students taking GCSEs in England in 2019 will receive grades from 9 to 1. Students taking 5 lesser-taught GCSE subjects (Biblical Hebrew, Gujarati, Persian, Portuguese and Turkish) will receive letter grades in 2019 before they become numerical (9 to 1) in 2020.

9 things to know about the new GCSE grades

  1. GCSEs in England have been reformed and are graded with from 9 to 1, with 9 being the highest grade.
  2. GCSE content is more challenging.
  3. Fewer grade 9s are be awarded than A*s.
  4. The new grades are being brought in to signal that GCSEs have been reformed and to better differentiate between students of different abilities.
  5. In the first year each new GCSE subject has been introduced, broadly the same proportion of students get a grade 4 or above as would have got a grade C or above in the old system.
  6. These changes are only happening in England. Wales and Northern Ireland are not introducing the new 9 to 1 grading scale as part of their changes to GCSEs.
  7. English language, English literature and maths were the first to be graded from 9 to 1 in 2017.
  8. Another 20 subjects had 9 to 1 grading in 2018, with most others following in 2019. During this transition, students received a mixture of letter and number grades.
  9. You can see how the 9 to 1 grades compare with the A* to G scale in our GCSE grading postcard.

GCSE science

GCSEs for science have changed in England. Students taking separate science GCSEs now get a grade from 9 to 1 in each subject. Combined science draws content from all three subjects and students receive an award worth two GCSEs, consisting of two equal or adjacent grades.

5 things to know about combined science GCSEs

  1. Students taking separate science GCSEs get a grade from 9 to 1 for each subject, with 9 being the highest grade.
  2. Students studying combined science receive an award worth two GCSEs, consisting of two equal or adjacent grades from 9 to 1 (9-9, 9-8, 8-8, 8-7, 7-7…to 1-1).
  3. If the numbers are different, the highest number will always be reported on the left.
  4. Students do at least 8 practical activities (16 for combined science) covering specific apparatus and techniques.
  5. Exam questions about practical work make up at least 15% of the total marks for the qualification.

More information

We’ve got lots of information to help students, parents, teachers and businesses understand the changes. You can:

And if you’ve got any questions, drop us an email at public.enquiries@ofqual.gov.uk or give us a call on 0300 303 3344.

Published 3 March 2017
Last updated 6 August 2019 + show all updates

  1. Updated to reflect that we are in the third year of GCSE reforms.
  2. Article now shows the updated video.
  3. Added results day guides for students and parents.
  4. First published.