Education

Netflix’s Man vs Baby has been a hit with viewers and they can’t get enough of the picturesque village at the beginning of the series.

Man vs Baby, featuring Rowan Atkinson reprising his role as Trevor Bingley, has become a massive hit on Netflix. The festive comedy is a four-part sequel to Man vs Bee, and it sees Trevor taking up a new position as a school caretaker. Following his separation from his wife, Trevor leads a simple, somewhat solitary life in a quaint rural cottage that still relies on a coin meter for electricity. He was looking forward to his daughter’s Christmas visit, but a change of plans left him alone.

After a string of unexpected events, Trevor ends up house-sitting a luxury penthouse in London, where most of the story unfolds. However, viewers have been captivated by the idyllic village featured at the start of the series, which is currently topping the Netflix charts, and are eager to know its location.

The opening scenes of this Christmas comedy were shot in the charming village of Aldbury in Dacorum, Hertfordshire. Dacorum Borough Council proudly shared a snapshot of the film crew on their Facebook page, delighted to see their picturesque locale gaining recognition.

They explained: “The production, which includes Rowan Atkinson among its cast, brought a festive transformation to Aldbury last winter, complete with snow-covered streets, Christmas trees, and seasonal decorations. Working under the production code name St James, Aldbury Parish Council supported the Netflix team throughout the process, with local residents and businesses helping to ensure smooth filming.”

“Hertfordshire Film Office also assisted with traffic management. Many community members had the opportunity to observe filming, with several external scenes shot around the village. Thank you to everyone involved in supporting another production in Dacorum.”

The picturesque village of Aldbury, home to fewer than a thousand residents, centres around Aldbury Village Store. Viewers are also treated to glimpses of the village pond, the historic manor cottage, and the Greyhound Inn’s exterior, the beloved local pub.

The scenes depicting St Aldwyn’s Church of England Primary School were actually filmed at Longfield Hall, a Victorian community venue dating back to 1904 in Camberwell, South London. For the railway station sequence, whilst Tring Station was nearest, its contemporary appearance meant producers opted for Ongar railway station in Essex instead.

Enjoy Dacorum portrays Aldbury as a “pretty, traditional English village with a church, village pond, ancient whipping post and stocks and two pubs”. Thanks to its quintessentially charming character, the village has become a sought-after filming destination for major productions including Midsomer Murders and the second Bridget Jones film.

The 2023 film Lord of Misrule also featured scenes shot in Aldbury, with the Parish Council publishing a touching note from the production crew on their website. They said: “It has been an enormous privilege for us to shoot our movie in such a beautiful, characterful setting and I think we’ll all take a little piece of Hertfordshire away in our hearts as we leave.”

Actor Atkinson reflected on how the concept of a solitary Christmas formed the foundation of the series, explaining: “I certainly like Christmas, like most people. I was quite drawn to the idea of, without wishing to spoil the plot of Man Versus Baby, a lonely Christmas.

“Other than having the baby for company, Trevor’s alone because his daughter has booked a last-minute holiday to Barbados. He’s flat-sitting at Christmas without any of his family around him, and that can be hard.

“When we first see him, he’s got all these presents wrapped by a tiny tree decorated with Heroes wrappers, and he’s looking forward to it, and then he gets abandoned by his family, which is quite sad.”

The series has garnered glowing reviews from both viewers and critics, who have praised it as ideal family viewing. The Mr Bean star explained: “As long as people enjoy what I’ve put a lot of effort into producing, I’m happy. I’ve worked on this show every day of my life for the last year and a quarter, at the very least. I definitely put in the hours.

“I’m someone who does that. I don’t just turn up to act the role: I’m part of the writing and very much part of the post-production, so I’m in every sound mix and visual effects meeting. I’m there from the bitter beginning to the bitter end and so it’s a big commitment. If all of that effort ends up in something good that people like, that’s all you can hope for.”

Man vs Baby is available to stream on Netflix.

Washington, DC – For the past two years, weekdays for Susanna have meant thumbing through picture books, organising cubby holes and leading classroom choruses of songs.

But her work as a pre-school teacher came to a screeching halt in October, when she found out her application to renew her work permit had been denied.

Susanna, who uses a pseudonym in this article for fear of reprisals, is one of the nearly 10 percent of teachers in the United States who are immigrants.

But while the US has increasingly looked abroad to fill teacher shortages, some foreign-born teachers say the deportation push under President Donald Trump has threatened their livelihoods — and risks traumatising their students.

Susanna, an asylum applicant who fled violence in Guatemala nearly a decade ago, said that losing her permit meant she had to stop working immediately.

She recalls breaking the news to her students, some of whom are only three years old. Many were too young to understand.

“In one week, I lost everything,” Susanna told Al Jazeera in Spanish. “When I told the kids goodbye, they asked me why, and I told them, ‘I can only tell you goodbye.’ There were kids that hugged me, and it hurt my heart a lot.”

Looking abroad for teachers

Estimates vary as to how many foreign-born teachers currently work in the US. But one 2019 report from George Mason University found that there were 857,200 immigrants among the country’s 8.1 million teachers, in roles ranging from pre-school to university.

For the 2023-2024 school year alone, the US government brought 6,716 full-time teachers to the country on temporary exchange visas to fill openings in pre-kindergarten, primary and secondary school education.

Many hailed from the Philippines, as well as countries like Jamaica, Spain and Colombia.

The uncertainty for immigrants under Trump’s second term, however, has proven disruptive to schools that rely heavily on foreign-born teachers.

That is the case for the pre-school where Susanna worked, CommuniKids, which offers language immersion programmes in Washington, DC.

Cofounder and president Raul Echevarría estimates that immigrants — both citizens and non-citizens working with legal authorisation — comprise about 90 percent of CommuniKids’s staff.

But Echevarría told Al Jazeera that the push to rescind legal pathways to immigration has jeopardised the employment of several faculty members.

Five other teachers at the school have seen their ability to work affected by changes to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programme.

All five, Echevarría explained, were originally from Venezuela. But in October, the Trump administration ended TPS status for more than 350,000 Venezuelan citizens, including the teachers at CommuniKids.

Their authorisation to work legally in the US will expire on October 2, 2026, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website.

“These teachers lost their ability to make a living,” Echevarria said, noting that his school requires educators with expertise in languages like Spanish, French and Mandarin.

‘Strong bonds’

For the schools themselves, the losses can be devastating. Every state in the US has reported teacher shortages to the federal government.

But advocates say the high stress and low pay of education make teachers difficult to recruit and keep.

That leads some states to look abroad for education workers. In North Carolina, for example, 1,063 foreign nationals worked full-time as grade-school teachers on temporary J-1 visas during the 2023-2024 school year.

The top destinations for such recruits were all southern states: North Carolina was followed by Florida with 996 teachers on J-1 visas, and Texas with 761.

But Echevarria said some of the biggest impacts of the deportation drive are felt by the students themselves.

“Our students develop strong bonds with their teachers, and all of a sudden, overnight, they lost their teachers,” said Echevarría.

“Their number one superpower”, he added, “is their ability to empathise and to create strong, effective bonds with people from any background”.

But when those bonds are broken, there can be mental health consequences and setbacks for educational achievement, particularly among younger children.

A 2024 study published by the American Educational Research Association found that, when teachers leave midyear, children’s language development takes a measurable hit.

In other words, the loss of a familiar teacher — someone who knows their routines, strengths and fears — can quietly stall a child’s progress. The consequences extend to a child’s sense of self and stability.

Mental health consequences

For parents like Michelle Howell, whose child attends CommuniKids, the loss of teachers has also made the classroom environment feel fragile.

“The teachers there aren’t just teachers for these young kids,” Howell said of CommuniKids. “They’re like extended family.

“They hug them, they hold them, they do the things a parent would do. When those people disappear, it’s not just hard for the kids. It’s hard for everyone.”

Howell, who is Chinese American, said the sudden disappearances reminded her of her own family’s history.

“I used to read about things like this happening in China, the place my family left to find safety,” she said. “It’s very disturbing to know that what we ran from back then is our reality now. People disappear.”

School psychologist Maria C, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her work in the Texas public school system, has noticed the children she works with struggling with instability caused by the deportation push.

The disappearance of a loved one or mentor — say, a favourite teacher — could flood a child’s body with cortisol, the hormone meant to protect them in moments of danger, she explained.

But when that stress becomes chronic, the same hormone starts to hurt more than it helps. It interferes with memory, attention and emotional regulation.

“For some, it looks like anxiety. For others, it’s depression or sudden outbursts,” Maria said. “They’re in fight-or-flight mode all day.”

She added that selective mutism, an anxiety disorder, is on the rise among the children she sees, who range in age from five to 12.

“It used to be rare, maybe one case per school,” she said. “Now I see it constantly. It’s a quiet symptom of fear.”

Preparing for the worst

Back at CommuniKids, Echevarría explained that he and other staff members have put together contingency plans, just in case immigration enforcement arrives at the pre-school.

The aim, he said, is to make both employees and students feel safer coming to class.

“We put those steps in writing because we wanted our staff to know they’re not alone,” he said. “We have attorneys on call. We’re partners with local police. But above all, our job is to protect our children.”

But as an added precaution, teachers are advised to carry their passports or work permits with them.

Even Echevarría, a US citizen born in Virginia, said he carries his passport wherever he goes. The fear of deportation has a way of lingering.

“I’m bilingual and of Hispanic descent,” he said. “Given how things are, I want to be able to prove I’m a citizen if anyone ever questions it.”

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Multiple people have been reported injured in a shooting near the Ivy League campus in Providence, Rhode Island.

The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, has confirmed that two people have been killed and eight more are critically injured after an active shooter was reported on the campus of Brown University.

Around 4:22pm local time (21:22 GMT) on Saturday, the Ivy League university issued an emergency update that there was a gunman near the Barus and Holley engineering lab.

“Lock doors, silence phones and stay stay hidden until further notice,” the university said in its update.

“Remember: RUN, if you are in the affected location, evacuate safely if you can; HIDE, if evacuation is not possible, take cover; FIGHT, as a last resort, take action to protect yourself.”

Later, at 5:27pm local time (22:27 GMT), the school reported that shots had been fired near Governor Street, approximately two blocks away.

The Providence Police Department announced a few minutes later, “Multiple shot in the area of Brown University.”

Earlier in the day, the university withdrew an announcement that indicated a suspect had been taken into custody. It clarified, “Police do not have a suspect in custody and continue to search for suspect(s).”

US President Donald Trump published a similar retraction on his online platform Truth Social, after erroneously posting around 5:44pm (22:44 GMT) that the suspect was in custody.

“I have been briefed on the shooting that took place at Brown University in Rhode Island,” Trump also wrote. “The FBI is on the scene.”

Law enforcement remains on site at the university. The incident is currently under investigation.

Saturday’s shooting is the second major incident of gun violence on a university campus this week.

Just four days ago, on December 9, Kentucky State University in the southern city of Frankfort also experienced gunfire on its campus, killing one student and leaving a second critically injured. The suspect in that case was identified as a Jacob Lee Bard, the parent of a student at the school.

The risk of gun violence has transformed the academic experience in the US, with many schools holding preparedness drills for active shooter situations.

The shooting comes as the academic semester winds down at Brown University. The last day of classes for the fall semester was on Thursday, and the school is in its final examination period until December 20.

The seventh oldest university in the US, Brown is considered part of the prestigious Ivy League, a cluster of private research colleagues in the Northeast. Its student body numbers at 11,005, according to its website.

This is a breaking news story. More details to come.

This year marks a critical juncture for the global realisation of the right to education.

In just three weeks, we will start the final four-year countdown to 2030, when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should have been achieved. That includes SDG 4, which calls for inclusive, equitable, and quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all.

At the heart of the commitment to lifelong learning was the recognition that free primary education alone is insufficient to prepare children to succeed in today’s world.

Early learning opportunities create vital foundations

Early childhood learning has profound long-term benefits for children’s cognitive and social development, educational attainment, health, and employment prospects. It’s also a powerful equaliser. It can narrow early achievement gaps for children from disadvantaged households and place them on a more equal footing with better-off peers.

Giving children access to quality early childhood care and pre-primary education can help get them ready to learn in primary school, supporting them to acquire vital early literacy and numeracy skills.

Despite these benefits, nearly half of all children miss out on early childhood education. In low-income countries, just one in five children has access to preschool.

Secondary education is the key to unlocking more and better human capital

Secondary education is also increasingly important for success in today’s world. Children with secondary education are more likely to find work as adults, earn more, and escape or avoid poverty.

The inclusion in the SDGs of both early childhood and secondary education reflects a broad international consensus that they are essential to children’s development and national progress.

Unfortunately, this consensus is not adequately reflected in international human rights law.

Strengthening children’s right to education

Existing international law guarantees children free and compulsory primary education. However, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) says nothing explicit about early childhood education. Nor does it require states to guarantee every child free secondary education.

While the SDGs are significant political commitments, they do not have the force of law. Countries report on their progress through voluntary national reviews, with no formal mechanism for children to claim redress if governments fail to deliver, nor a plan for ensuring progress beyond the year 2030.

Better legal protection, monitoring and realisation

A strong and clear legal standard in a human rights instrument would have the force of law, be subject to independent monitoring mechanisms, and need not be limited to a specific time period.

This is why Sierra Leone, Luxembourg, and the Dominican Republic moved a resoultion at the UN Human Rights Council calling for the development of a new human rights treaty that makes early years, pre-primary, and secondary education an undeniable part of the right to education.

I am delighted that the resolution was co-sponsored by 49 additional states and that significant progress was achieved during consultations on the initiative in Geneva earlier this year.

The power of international law to effect change

I am under no illusion that a new human rights instrument will offer a panacea to the challenges many states face in delivering a quality education to children. In fact, some people argue that international law in general—and international human rights law in particular—has had its day.

It’s true that the international human rights regime faces significant challenges and serious threats. But universal human rights laws and practices still have a central part to play in defending and advancing human dignity.

International human rights law has shaped legal and public understandings of human dignity and non-discrimination, resulting in improved rights for individuals, including women, children, persons with disabilities, minorities, and other vulnerable groups. Billions of people now possess rights that protect them from practices that had long been common in many societies.

For example, in the decade following the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, nearly twenty countries, including Sierra Leone, adopted or amended national legislation to raise their minimum age of voluntary recruitment to at least 18.

Human rights treaties can and do influence policy and practice. They also help build political will to ensure that the rights they set out can be enjoyed in practice.

Affirming our commitment to education

As the due date of the SDGs approaches, there is still a wide gap between what we committed to and what we have achieved.

Supporting this new human rights treaty, which will make it clear that the right to education includes learning both before and beyond primary school, is an important way to commit to closing that gap.

It will also provide a much-needed signal that international cooperation to advance human rights is still viable.

So on International Human Rights Day, I urge other UN member states to join Sierra Leone and the other countries supporting an Optional Protocol on the right to education, to ensure that every child has the opportunity to receive a quality, free pre-primary and secondary education.

Surat, India – In 2018, Alpesh Bhai enrolled his three-year-old daughter in an English-language private school in Surat. This was something he never imagined possible while growing up in his village in the Indian state of Gujarat, where his family survived on small fields of fennel, castor and cumin, with their earnings barely enough to cover basic needs.

He had studied in a public school, where, he recalled, “teachers were a rarity, and English almost didn’t exist”.

“Maybe if I knew English, I would have been some government worker. Who knows?”, he said, referring to the dream of a majority of Indians, as government jobs come with tenure and benefits.

His finances improved once he joined the diamond cutting industry in Surat, a city perched along India’s Arabian Sea coast, where nearly 80 percent of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished. Monthly earnings of 35,000 rupees ($390) for the first time brought Alpesh a sense of stability, and with it, the means to give his children the education he never had.

“I was determined that at least my children would get the kind of private education I was deprived of,” he said.

But that dream did not last. The first disruption to business came with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The sanctions on Russia hurt supply chains, as India sourced at least a third of its raw diamonds from Russia, leading to layoffs.

Alpesh’s earnings fell to 18,000 rupees ($200) a month, then to 20,000 rupees ($222). Soon, the 25,000 rupees ($280) annual school fee became unmanageable. By the time his older daughter reached grade three, just as his younger child started school, the pressure became impossible.

Earlier this year, he pulled both children out of private school and enrolled them in a nearby public one. A few months later, when new United States tariffs deepened the crisis as demand slumped further, his polishing unit laid off 60 percent of its workers, Alpesh among them.

“Seems like I’ve come back to where I started,” he said.

Surat, India’s diamond hub, employs more than 600,000 workers, and hosts 15 large polishing units with annual sales exceeding $100m. For decades, Surat’s diamond‑polishing industry has offered migrant workers from rural Gujarat, many with little or no education, higher incomes, in some cases up to 100,000 rupees ($1,112) a month, and a path out of agrarian hardship.

But recent shocks have exposed the fragility of that ladder, with close to 400,000 workers having faced layoffs, pay cuts, or reduced hours.

Even before Russia’s war on Ukraine began in February 2022, Surat’s diamond industry faced multiple challenges: disrupted supplies from African mines, weakening demand in key Western markets, and inconsistent exports to China, the second-largest customer. With the onset of the war, India’s exports of cut and polished diamonds in the financial year ending on March 31, 2024, fell by 27.6 percent, with sharp declines in its top markets – the US, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

The 50 percent tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump have worsened the downturn.

Alpesh now works loading and unloading textile consignments for about 12,000 rupees ($133) a month, barely enough to cover food and rent.

“If I had kept them in the private school, I don’t know how I would have survived,” Alpesh said. “People here have killed themselves over debts and school fees. When you don’t have enough to eat, how will you think of teaching your children well?”

His daughters are still adjusting. “They sometimes tell me, ‘Pupa, the studies aren’t as good now’. I tell them we’ll put them back in the private school soon, but I don’t know when that will happen.”

‘An exodus’

Some workers have returned to their villages, as many migrant families in Surat can no longer afford rent or find alternative work.

Shyam Patel, 35, was among them. When exports slowed and US tariffs hit in August, the polishing unit where he worked shut down. With no other work available, he returned to his village in the Banaskantha district the following month.

“What other option was there?” he said. “In the city, there’s rent to pay even when there’s no work.”

He now works as a daily-wage labourer in cotton fields in his village. His son, who was in the final year of high school, dropped out after four months of the new academic session.

“We’ll put him back in school next year,” Shyam said. “The government school said they can’t take new students in the middle of the term. Till then, he helps me in the fields.”

Across the city, the disruption is evident in government data. More than 600 students left school mid-session last year as their parents lost work or returned to their villages, mostly in Saurashtra and north Gujarat.

“Most migrants come to Surat to settle – the city has entire [neighbourhoods] and housing clusters built for diamond workers,” said Bhavesh Tank, vice president of the Diamond Workers Union Gujarat. “An exodus in the middle of the year is unprecedented, and the drop in school enrolment suggests many are not coming back soon.”

The union estimates that about 50,000 workers have left Surat over the past 12 to 14 months.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu nationalist group allied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been closely observing the diamond industry crisis in Surat.

“The number of dropouts has reached a point where even government schools are struggling to take in new students, said Purvesh Togadia, a VHP representative in the city. “The poor quality of education is making the transition even more disheartening for families.”

The poor quality of education in public schools is well established. In 2024, only 23.4 percent of grade three students could read at a grade two level, compared with 35.5 percent in private schools. By grade 5, the gap persisted – 44.8 percent in government schools versus 59.3 percent in private ones.

Kishor Bhamre, director at Pratham, an organisation working on children’s rights across education and labour, said the setback is not just academic but psychological.

“Children moving from private to government schools lose the environment they grew up in – their friends, familiar teachers, and a sense of community. For many, it also means shifting from an urban to a rural setting, which makes the adjustment even harder and affects their learning,” he said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Surat Municipal Corporation and the state’s education minister for comment, but did not receive a response.

Limited help

The Diamond Workers Union has repeatedly appealed to the state government to provide an economic relief package and revise salaries in line with inflation. The union has also urged authorities to address the equally pressing situation of the growing number of school dropouts among workers’ children.

The Gujarat government in May introduced a special assistance package for affected diamond workers – a rare move in the industry.

Under the scheme, the state government committed to paying for one year of school fees for diamond polishers’ children, up to 13,500 rupees ($150) annually. To qualify, workers must have been unemployed for the past year and have at least three years of experience in a diamond factory. The fees will be paid directly to the schools.

The government received nearly 90,000 requests from diamond workers across Gujarat, including about 74,000 from Surat alone.  After a slow start – it had provided assistance to only 170 children by July – officials reported disbursing 82.8 million rupees ($921,000) towards school fees for 6,368 children of jobless diamond workers in Surat by mid-September.

But about 26,000 applicants were rejected, reportedly due to “improper details mentioned” in the forms, leading to frustration and anger among workers. In the past few days, nearly 1,000 diamond polishers have filed applications with the local government, demanding to know who rejected their forms and on what grounds, and alleging opacity in the process.

The scheme’s rigid eligibility criteria have also excluded workers.

“The scheme only covers those who have completely lost their jobs, but it leaves out many who are facing partial cuts or reduced work,” said Tank. “They’re struggling just as much and need support equally.”

Tank added that education remains one of the most common concerns among workers reaching out to the union’s suicide prevention helpline, which was set up by the Diamond Workers Union after Surat had already recorded at least 71 suicides among diamond workers by November 2024. It has received more than 5,000 calls so far.

Divyaben Makwana, 40, lost her 22-year-old son, Kewalbhai, who had been working as a diamond polisher for three years. On June 14, he died by suicide.

Kewalbhai had been under immense mental stress after losing his job in the diamond market, his mother told Al Jazeera.

“He was earning around 20,000 rupees ($220) a month, and when even that collapsed,” he took his life, she said. “We took him to the hospital and did everything we could. I borrowed 500,000 rupees ($5,560) from relatives and friends, but we couldn’t save him. Now, I don’t have a son – only a loan.”

She lives in Surat with her husband, who has been unable to work due to prolonged illness, and their younger son, Karmdeep, 18. With no means to return to their village in Saurashtra, Divyaben has begun working as a domestic worker to make ends meet. Karmdeep dropped out after grade 11, and now attends a local coaching centre, where he is learning diamond faceting while looking for work.

“Education has become so expensive,” Divyaben said. “At least with coaching, he’ll learn a skill. By the time the market recovers, if he’s trained as a craftsman, maybe we’ll be able to repay some of our debts.”

She paused, her voice low. “I don’t know if education, whether taken on loan or given free, can really change our fate. Our only hope is still the diamond.”

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, these organisations may be able to help.

You can access the Diamond Workers Union helpline at +91-92395 00009.