Consider these two sentences:

Wǒ yào qù Běijīng.
我要去北京｡

Wǒ huì qù Běijīng.
我會去北京｡
我会去北京｡

The first sentence, using yào, indicates an intention to go to Beijing. The second sentence, using huì, indicates a confident prediction of going to Beijing.

Intention or Prediction

The two sentences above can be translated as:

Wǒ yào qù Běijīng.
I am going to Beijing.
or
I want to go to Beijing.

Wǒ huì qù Běijīng.
I will go to Beijing (I expect I will go to Beijing).

Yào is sometimes (but not always) used with a time expression to differentiate between want and intend. When used without a time reference, the only way to determine the exact meaning of yào is by context or clarification.

Here are some more examples:

Nǐ yào mǎi shénme dōngxī?
你要買甚麼東西?
你要买什么东西?
What are you going to buy?
or
What do you want to buy?

Nǐ huì mǎi shénme dōngxī?
你會買甚麼東西?
你会买什么东西?
What do you expect to buy?

Chén xiǎojie míngtiān yào gēn wǒ shuō.
陳小姐明天要跟我說｡
陈小姐明天要跟我说｡
Miss Chen is going to speak with me tomorrow.

Chén xiǎojie míngtiān huì gēn wǒ shuō.
陳小姐明天會跟我說｡
陈小姐明天会跟我说｡
Miss Chen expects to speak with me tomorrow.

(Source: mandarin.about.com)

Before the founding of the People’s Republic China in 1949, Xinjiang had but one college, nine secondary schools and 1,355 primary schools, according to the paper titled “Development and Progress in Xinjiang.”

At that time, only 19.8 percent of school-age children attended primary school and the overall illiteracy rate was a shocking 90 percent.

Now Xinjiang has basically made the nine-year compulsory education universal and eliminated illiteracy in the young and middle-aged population. Adult and vocational education started from scratch, and has been developing steadily.

According to the paper, since 2006, with the introduction of a new mechanism that guarantees rural education funding, Xinjiang’s primary and secondary school students have enjoyed free compulsory education.

In 2008, the government granted living subsidies to all underprivileged students who live at school and exempted urban students from tuition fees during their compulsory education period.

Since 2007, the state has initiated an annual budget of 129 million yuan for the education of 51,000 very poor university students and 95,000 secondary and higher vocational school students in Xinjiang, 70 percent of whom come from ethnic minorities.

In 2008, the Xinjiang autonomous region government invested a total of 18.77 billion yuan in the region’ s education system, representing a year-on-year increase of 32.3 percent.

Statistics from that year show that Xinjiang had 4,159 primary schools with 2,012,000 students, and a 99.6 percent enrollment rate for school-age children.

There were 1,973 secondary schools with 1.72 million students, and 32 institutions of higher learning with 241,000 undergraduate and 10,300 graduate students in total.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

The Singapore program, named Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Organizations, Asia (HRST Asia), marks the first time that LBS is conducting the program outside of London.

The HRST Asia program is the latest initiative by the Ministry of Manpower to raise human capital capabilities in Singapore. It is a significant addition to the range of best-in-class Asian-focused programs that the Ministry plans to develop and make available to organizations in Singapore and Asia.

These programs will help establish Singapore as Asia’s center for cutting edge human capital and leadership development programs.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

The country’s Ministry of Education will be building 11 new primary schools and upgrading another 28 existing schools from November 2009.

This is the first phase of the ministry’s plans to enhance primary school infrastructure to facilitate the transition of primary schools to a single session.

The government plans to build a total of 18 new schools and enhance up to 80 existing ones in phases.

The ministry said that with a single session, schools will be able to provide greater flexibility in time and space for teachers to deliver a more holistic education to their pupils. Pupils will be able to benefit from a wider range of academic and non-academic activities that will nurture life skills and develop their character.

The ministry targets to facilitate the transition of all government primary schools to single session by 2016.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

The government will provide 16.4 million Australian dollars (14 million U.S. dollars) to the Stronger Smarter Learning Communities project, which helps school leaders improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

Gillard, who was in Brisbane to announce the funding injection at the Stronger Smarter Summit, said it was time for indigenous students to move to the front of the classroom.

“For too long the nation has succumbed to a sense that there’s something inevitable about indigenous kids ending up at the back of the class,” she told reporters.

“We want to break away from those negative mindsets.”

Schools identified as under performing through the government’s National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests will be forced to improve.

Gillard said they would be required to develop strategies and take action in the areas of attendance, quality of teaching and school leadership, literacy and numeracy, and parental and community engagement.

However, if indigenous families do not send their children to school they could be hit with welfare sanctions in a new trial that is about to roll out.

“There will be some places in this country where there is persistent non-attendance at school – the ultimate sanction is income management,” she said

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

The exams were to take place this weekend, but on Wednesday evening, the Ministry was informed that two people had tried to sell printed copies of the Enem paper to reporters from the O Estado de Sao Paulo daily.

The copies were found to be genuine, forcing the authorities to call off the tests on the weekend.

According to Haddad, the Brazilian Federal Police is investigating the case. It is not known how the test papers were stolen, but representatives of the company which printed the exam papers were called to make statement.

The Education Ministry said that a new version of the exam paper is ready, and students will sit the exam in 30 to 45 days.

Reprinting the exam papers will cost the Brazilian government about 35 million reais (19.66 million U.S. dollars). Additionally, the postponement complicates the admission exams calendar, since many universities hold additional exams which depend on the Enem results.

The Enem is used by many public and private universities as part of the entrance requirements. Over four million students from all over Brazil are to sit the exams this year.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

Students who attend the Young Oak Kim Academy don’t have classes together, according to local television channel KABC.

Inside a new high-tech building, girls and boys are placed in separate classrooms studying science, technology, engineering and math. They are however allowed to mix during breaks.

The middle school students sat in the auditorium, girls on one side and boys on the other.

The goal is to build confidence in the girls and get the boys to focus, according to school officials.

The concept of the sex-segregated classes stems from studies, cited by administrators, showing middle school students process information differently and are easily distracted in a mixed gender environment.

Researchers also found that girls start losing their interest in math and science, and by high school their skills drop off precipitously.

Administrators say parents can opt to send their children to traditional mixed-gender school if they do not like the concept of gender-separated classes.

The principal says he already sees a difference with calmer classrooms.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

“With equitable access to education in rural and urban areas the government was nurturing outstanding youth,” the deputy minister told a three-day meeting of the 15th ASEAN Youth Day being held in Nay Pyi Taw.

Kyaw Myint said Myanmar was working closely together with member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the fields of economy, social welfare, education and culture with harmonious efforts. Regional peace and stability was gaining a good momentum in the course of development through ASEAN’s united efforts.

He attributed the ability of the member nations in tackling difficulties of regional challenge to their constant united endeavors.

He pointed out that the ASEAN Social Culture Community (ASCC), which was drawn and is being implemented, places special emphasis on conducting workshops and courses, and holding of youth meetings for exchanging views.

He said that the ASEAN youth meeting plays a leading role in the implementation of the ASCC, stressing that ASEAN youth represents the most important part of the entire population of regional grouping.

A ceremony to present prizes for outstanding regional youth was held on the occasion.

Youth delegates from Brunei, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand took part in the meeting which will continue up to Wednesday.

In April this year, a five-day ASEAN workshop on youth, culture and development, hosted by Myanmar, was held in the country’s second largest city of Mandalay.

The workshop, jointly organized by Thailand-based Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization, Regional Center for Archaeology and Fine Arts, and ASEAN Foundation, was attended by dozens of youth delegates from the Myanmar Ministry of Culture, National Culture and Fine Arts Universities and some social organizations.

Meanwhile, ASEAN’s culture- and arts-related ministers agreed to enhance the regional cooperation in the areas of culture and arts at a meeting of ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Culture and Arts (AMCA) held in Nay Pyi Taw in January last year.

The areas of cooperation was outlined as human resources development, protection, preservation and promotion of ASEAN cultural heritage, and development of small and medium cultural enterprises.

ASEAN ministers endorsed the work plan of the working groups set up by related ASEAN senior officials, agreeing that funding for cultural cooperation activities be streamed and broadened.

The regional ministers resolved to enhance the cultural profile of ASEAN among the member states and internationally, then report said, adding that at the AMCA+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) meeting attached, the regional ministers supported China’s proposal to expedite the drafting of an implementation plan for cultural cooperation between ASEAN and China, welcoming the prospect of a memorandum of understanding between ASEAN and South Korea to formalize cultural cooperation and Japan’s initiatives on such cooperation with ASEAN including the proposed ASEAN+3 computer graphics art gallery.

The AMCA met in Nay Pyi Taw to promote a deeper understanding of the region’s civilization, arts and culture, and was aimed at contributing towards the emergence of an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community by 2015. The roadmap for the community called for preservation and promotion of the region’s cultural heritage and cultural identity.

Meanwhile, an ASEAN Youth Leader Conference was launched in June this year in Jakarta, Indonesia, which discussed the world’s economy, held exchange of experiences and reviewed the impact of the life style and future condition.

A cultural festival also took place on the occasion with each ASEAN member demonstrating its traditional music and dances.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

“Education will keep running although students have to study in mosques and emergency tents because their schools are ruined by the earthquake,” said Fauzi Bahar, Padang’s mayor told the radio station.

The local government recorded that 64 percent of schools in Padang were ruined by the massive quake.

Fauzi also urged citizens not to be drifted by the impact of the disaster.

“Those who have to go to rice fields, go! Those who have to fish, go to the sea! And those who have to trade, go to markets,” he said, adding that people should not stand still and just wait for help.

West Sumatra province was rocked by the earthquake that killed more than 700 people and the hardest hit are Padang, Pariaman and Padang Pariaman regencies.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)

Tsinghua University will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2011, the association established in Paris marks a great step of Tsinghua’s development, the deputy shcoolmaster Chen Xu said at the launching meeting.

The association has confirmed over 160 Tsinghua alumni in France till now, most of who came to the country after 2000, Wang Shanjin, the Executive Director of the association said to Xinhua.

Tsinghua Alumni Association in France is the fourth one in Europe, following Britain, Germany and Netherland, and the 190th around the world.

Tsinghua University was established in 1911 in Beijing.

(Source: xinhuanet.com)