Blog BNP Paribas | The bank for a changing world » Education

School for Everyone

Isabelle Palsky — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:35:30 +0000

The École pour Tous (School for Everyone) Association was set up in 2002 with the aim of achieving literacy for all in Burkina Faso. It is, therefore, just like the Ouaga Association, supported by BNP Paribas employee Alain Agostini, which received a “Helping Hand” from the BNP Paribas Foundation.

The two associations work together to enable children in Burkina Faso to gain access to education. School is a luxury in the country, and the public education system lacks the resources needed to fulfil its educational mission throughout the country. The average school attendance rate is only 43%, and 85% of the population is illiterate.

There are many reasons for this: the lack of infrastructure, the costs of schooling, the shortage of teachers, geographical constraints and the limited supply of educational materials, among others.

We talked to some of the association’s managers and teachers about the way in which the teaching is organised, the everyday problems they encounter and, above all, what their future plans are: see the video (sorry, available in French only).

BlogTV: Camping “Green” with GoodPlanet Junior

Isabelle Palsky — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:39:57 +0000

An essential part of sustainable development is raising awareness among, and teaching good habits to, future generations. With this in mind, GoodPlanet Junior, a GoodPlanet program, has organised a green-friendly summer camp for kids.

What kinds of activities are organised to help pass on environmentally-friendly messages? What ideas are addressed? And most importantly: what do the kids have to say?

Spain – “Land of three religions”

Sylvain Taboni — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:01:07 +0000

For many of us this year, Spain means the country that won the World Cup. But for students from the Jean Jaurès secondary school in Saint-Ouen, it’s also a country of buildings that are half-mosque and half-cathedral, of the gardens of the sultans, and a land of cultural diversity. 57 students had a chance to experience all this first-hand at the end of May, during a trip supported by the BNP Paribas Foundation and the General Council of the Seine-Saint-Denis region as a part of the ”Odyssée Jeunes“ programme.

At this secondary school in Seine-Saint-Denis, learning Spanish isn’t just about grammar exercises and vocabulary – it’s a true cultural project, which is also a part to the curriculum in French and History class. The students learn about Muslim art, Spanish craftsmanship and the history of a country that has created, over centuries, a rich and unique cultural identity.

Episode 1: The students’ perspective (French only)

Approaching the subject from the angle of “Spain – Land of three religions”, the students prepared all year long for a trip that allowed them explore the cultural heritage of the country and the influences of Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious art. This fascinating subject led the students and their teachers to travel to Toledo, Granada and Cordoba, to observe in situ how these various influences blended and responded to each other.

Episode 2: Historical, religious and cultural discoveries (French only)

By leaving a great deal of room for personal experience and cultural discovery, this project has turned these young secondary school students into true citizens of Europe.

Episode 3: Learning Spanish (French only)

Episode 4: Reflections on the trip (French only)

We thank the students and teachers of the Jean Jaurès secondary school, and the RCF team for producing this documentary.

In Support of Promising Bulgarian Students

Krasimira Antimova — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:15:37 +0000

In Bulgaria, The St. Cyril and St. Methodius International Foundation exists “To build upon an intellectual capacity, securing access to the best academic centres on an international level for young and capable Bulgarians, who are needed to meet the challenges of transition, as well as for the integration of Bulgaria into Europe and the world.”

True to this mission, and with the help of BNP Paribas Bulgaria, they will be financing the participation of bright Bulgarian high school students in an intensive 6-week summer program at the world-renowned institution, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in Boston. The program will be attended by approximately 80 high school students from the US and other countries including Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Lebanon, Poland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. Once selected, the students go to MIT and work on a research project under the guidance of faculty, post-docs and graduate students at MIT, Harvard, Boston University, and other research institutions in the Boston area.

The Foundation, established in 1982, has initiated a number of other projects including “Bulgarian Teachers”, which aims to encourage excellence among teaching professionals, and the management of various funds to help the academic and professional growth of young people.

Learning the tools of the trade

Lindsay Bennett — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:58:38 +0000

For the last three years BNP Paribas Securities Services has sponsored the Stock Market Challenge events in both Dundee and Glasgow. These events see S3 pupils (aged 13-15) spend the day working in teams of five to trade in shares and foreign currency by analysing information from the stock market. The project not only teaches young people how the financial markets work but encourages them to develop key skills such as communication, problem-solving, decision making, teambuilding, and negotiation. Staff also get involved and act as “traders” during the event.

The winners of the last Stock Market Challenge School competitions were invited to visit the Scottish offices in Dundee and Glasgow at the end of May. These visits were designed and geared up to allow for pupils aged 13-15 to come into our offices and gain an insight into the world of working in a bank!

The event went remarkably well in both sites and the school pupils left with an increased knowledge and understanding of who we are and what we do. The pupils learned about our company values and even had a treasure hunt around both Scotland offices! They had an opportunity to ask a senior manager questions about their job role (thanks to Carol Barnes and Jennifer Parihar who were put on the hotspot for questioning!) and the pupils also learned about the tradeflow cycle and were able to watch a live trade matching.

Lastly, the pupils participated in our Shine poster competition in Scotland. There were lots of prizes up for grabs over the course of the day and each pupil received BNP Paribas goodies to take away with them to remind them of their day with us! Shine is part of our leadership programme, which is about creating an open management culture of transparency, inclusiveness, empowerment and accountability by promoting our core business values of Team Spirit, Excellence, Innovation, Respect, Client Focus and Fun, and developing the leadership potential of our people.

A great day out was had by all and we are pleased to say that all pupils took away a learning from the day in the offices.
Thank you to everyone who helped to make the day a success!

Volunteers Turn Out to Help “Mathletes”

Megan Stinson — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:07:07 +0000

On Saturday, May 22, BNP Paribas North America once again sponsored the 5th annual AMS Pi5NY Math Tournament; the largest in-person math tournament in the U.S. With a turnout of over 750 students from all five of New York’s boroughs, the event was a roaring success!

The tournament, held at the Armory, one of the premier sports venues in New York City, commenced with an Olympic-style parade of the student-mathletes. The teams of five then pit their wits and math skills against other teams in their division during a 45-minute competition to answer the most problems correctly. BNP Paribas volunteers helped judge the competition while bleachers filled with cheering family and friends helped keep the energy high throughout the day.

Employees from BNP Paribas were enthusiastic about participating in the day’s events:

“It was great to help create an experience for the kids that encourages learning mathematics and teamwork, two skills that would be very helpful in any career, especially banking” said David Vener, Structured Credit, who volunteered at the event.

Cambyse Parsi, Group Risk Management, added: “It was great to see kids from all over New York City so thrilled about a math tournament. Volunteering was a fun. We got to be ushers, judges and meal disbursers in a matter of a couple hours and also collaborate with colleagues differently from business hours.”

Project Why: an educational environment for the children of New Delhi

Sophia Le Tanneur — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:50:43 +0000

During Sustainable Development Week, which ran from 1st to 7th April 2010, Cortal Consors and B*capital established a partnership with the Franco-Indian association Enfances Indiennes (Children of India) with the aim of collecting clothes, school equipment and toiletries for children living in the slums of New Delhi.

These donations will be flown out to New Delhi in the second half of 2010. The network of the Sri Ram Goburdhum Charitable Trust will be responsible for taking delivery and distributing these items within the framework of Project Why established by the Enfances Indiennes association.

Project Why’s mission is to successfully educate the most underprivileged children. In October 2000 there were only 50 children following educational support programmes designed to enhance their knowledge and to develop their personality and social skills, and today, over 500 children are benefitting from the project. The children come from all over the Giri Nagar region and spend on average 3 hours a day studying in the Project Why centres. Project Why has 7 teaching sites across New Delhi, a day care centre for 20 children with special needs and a support centre for disadvantaged women.

If you wish to help these children and support the partnership with the Enfances Indiennes association, please send an email to enfancesindiennes@hotmail.com or visit the Project Why website.

The program Odyssée Jeunes is in full swing!

Stephen Rempala — Fri, 07 May 2010 09:28:04 +0000

Four months after the launch of the program, 82 school trips in 10 different countries have been funded. That adds up to over 3,200 students experiencing the knowledge the world has to offer outside of the classroom! Each trip brings a sense of culture, learning, knowledge as in the following two educational trips

The Jean Jaurès Montfermeil middle school provides students with opportunities to act and express themselves freely; to let go and show their artistic side. In their drama classes, the goal is not just to memorize a text, but to get involved in a group project, work with others, and work with one’s imagination.

Led by a passionate Literature teacher, a group of students will be presenting their own play at the French Theatre Festival in Istanbul, Turkey, which runs from May 15th to the 18th . Written and performed by these budding actors, the play’s theme is future, an important reflection for teenagers who will be preparing to lay the groundwork for their future. Working throughout the entire school year, the occasion will also be a chance to share the French culture while scratching the surface of the culture in Turkey.

With the collaboration and help of the BNP Paribas Foundation, the General Council of Seine-Saint-Denis, and the association Sport’A Vie, 20 students are headed to South Africa for the World Cup! These middle schoolers from Gustave Courbet in Pierrefitte, France will be attending and producing reports on the games. Supervised by media professionals through the collaboration of many partners (TF1, Eurosport, New Web …), they will discover a practical and professional world and be at the center of the action.

This socio-educational project is a continuation of work undertaken throughout the year as the student group is exploring the world of reporting, audiovisual and media. For the program, the Foundation TF1 inaugurated in mid-March a television studio within the school to help young people direct their stories and reports. The themes chosen by their teachers, such as apartheid or geography of the country, help to raise awareness and deepen their knowledge about Africa. Their shows – once a month with a specific theme – will be broadcasted from March to June and the last in September, will tell the journey to South Africa.

A symbol of vitality of the teaching staff, this trip lets students learn about the world outside of the walls of their everyday institution, engaging in society.

OLPC: Not a computer, but an educational project

Jessica Coper — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:27:31 +0000

“The guarantee only works if the machine has been dismantled” – Nicholas Negroponte.

L’Atelier devoted the whole of Wednesday 4 February to an association whose objective is to ensure access to education for all children from 6 to 12 years old in emerging countries: One Laptop per Child (OLPC)

The morning got off to a strong start, with Jean-Michel Fourgous, the deputy mayor of the town of Elancourt, describing to us the genuine progress that has been observed in children since the implementation of digital teaching materials (interactive whiteboards [IWBs], iPods, computers etc.) in the classrooms.
What has effectively happened is that children have become active protagonists in their own education (along with improvements in motivation and concentration, as teaching materials, particularly in the sciences, become more attractive), and the teacher has seen his role change from that of an instructor to a facilitator, who must himself master the equipment in order to successfully fulfil his function, signalling a shift from an instructional to a constructivist vision of teaching and learning.

Pierre Lena, a research astrophysicist at the Observatoire de Paris (the Paris Observatory), who is one of the founders of La Main A La Pâte (the “Hands On” project for teaching science in primary schools) and Daniel Andler of the Paris Sorbonne University, a philosopher of science and of the theory of knowledge, representing the Compas Group, have also confirmed the necessity of introducing and mastering digital technology in the service of education.
For them, as well as François Taddéi, a research biologist and author of the OECD’s report on education, the stakes are global rather than national. Providing access to, and therefore promoting understanding of, the digital world to the children of every nation prevents them from becoming excluded – and as exclusion tends to give rise to violence, this is of immediate and critical importance.

The results of an “Education and Technology” Ifop survey commissioned by L’Atelier were then presented. French parents were interviewed to assess their perception of the usefulness of digital technology in education, and to ask them about the form they felt it should take. It appears from this study that the majority of parents are in favour of the introduction of new technologies in the education of their children, particularly when the age range concerned corresponded to that of their own children!

Read the Atelier report (French)

All this information is essentially intended to introduce OLPC.
OLPC World is an American association headed by Nicholas Negroponte, a researcher at MIT, which aims to provide its small, green-and-white, extra-robust “XO” computers to all children aged 6 to 12 in the countries in the southern hemisphere, in order to enable them to access education.
The XOs have already been rolled out in many parts of the world, most notably the 396,000 XO laptops provided to Uruguay. The principle is to “reach saturation point”, so that every child has one. The laptops are distributed at the initiative either of the governments of the countries concerned, or of non-profit organisations. There is a genuine willingness on both sides to obtain access to education and to give it.
However, OLPC is not content with simply distributing the machines. They also train teachers to use them, as in Cameroon, so that they can fully master the equipment and can support the child as he or she learns to use it.
The XO runs on the Sugar environment, of SugarLabs, designed specifically for children.
The number of “activities” programmed for children is growing more and more rapidly – there are currently 237 – thanks to the contributions of the teachers and engineers who belong to the association.

OLPC France especially supports the initiatives undertaken in the Francophone world, such as the distribution of XOs in Madagascar and the translation and development of educational content, and is responsible for mobilizing volunteers and donors around the various projects.

However, if these efforts are to be successful, the help of volunteers is essential: OLPC needs translations of the activity programs as well as donations of money, time and all the energy that can be provided.

Are you ready to help?