Note: We reproduce this item verbatim from Daily News because we see the news value of it from a different perspective. We all know that OBAs and OGAs now exist purely with one objective – getting ones’ offspring admitted to a popular school. They are exclusive elite clubs with membership strictly controlled. It is well known that most of the OBAs and OGAs operate like small mafias. In this environment, it is not a surprise the OBA of Ananda College trying to reinforce its political power by inviting powerful political personalities to its ilk.
Looks like JVP has come out of its prolonged hibernation. New posters are plastered all over the city, ostensibly by so called ‘Inter University Student Federation’ but don’t we know better?  ‘Rata pura upadhi kada vasa damanu!’ they say. No kidding.
Microsoft plans to start testing a new education PC called IQ PC and an education channel on its MSN portal in India next month. The India launch of the IQ PC and education channel will be the first worldwide. It is part of Microsoft’s “Unlimited Potential” program, which aims to use technology to increase the reach of education, said a spokeswoman for Microsoft India on Wednesday. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the Unlimited Potential program in April. The new education PC, which is a combination of online and offline content, is likely to be priced at about Indian Rupees 21,000 ($513).
A group of girls returning home from school in Afghanistan’s Logar province recently did not for a moment expect what lay ahead.  As they walked down a dirt track, insurgents sprang out of the parched farms and began firing on them. Some of them fled into the farm, but two girls, one aged 13, the other 10, were killed in the ambush. Three of their friends were wounded. This kind of attack on schoolchildren, the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan, highlights how the insurgents are trying to disrupt education in the war-ravaged nation.
Almost two thirds of homosexual pupils in Britain’s schools have suffered homophobic bullying, a survey suggests.  Almost all of those had experienced verbal bullying but 41% had been physically attacked, while 17% said they had received death threats. The study was done by the Schools Health Education Unit for campaign group Stonewall, which said adults in schools were often behind the bullying. The government said that all forms of bullying were unacceptable. Stonewall said the report, on the views of 1,145 young people, was the largest poll of its kind ever conducted in Great Britain.
 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) will convene a forum in Sri Lanka from 26 to 28 June to bring together Deans of Education from four Asian countries to prepare plans to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) into teacher education. From 26-28 June, UNESCO Bangkok, in cooperation with project partners Japanese Funds-in-Trust (JFIT), Microsoft (initiating partner) and Cisco Systems, will convene a forum for Deans of Education from Teacher Education Institutes (TEIs) from Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia and Indonesia: In this forum, convened as part of the UNESCO the Next Generation of Teachers (Next Gen) project, Deans will collectively explore the challenges of integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) into teacher education and will develop plans for implementing the Next Gen project activities in their respective Teacher Education Institutes. The forum, to be convened in Colombo, Sri Lanka, follows the Bangkok Deans’ Forum, held in May 2007, which was attended by Deans from TEIs in Lao PDR, Malaysia, People’s Republic of China, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. According to Dr. Molly Lee, Co-ordinator of the Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID) at UNESCO Bangkok, the first Deans Forum was a great success.
Dharma Sri Abeyratne COLOMBO: The Rajarata University will not be reopened until the students vacate the University premises, University sources said. The students say they don’t vacate the administrative building until their demands are addressed by the adminstration. The university premises has been declared out of bounds after the students forcefully entered into the administrative building. Following this, the students last Friday surrounded the administrative building and forcefully held Vice Chancellor Prof. K.
Rohan MathesCOLOMBO: The new recommendations of the National Education Commission (NEC) on admissions to Year One, following the recent Supreme Court decision, was handed over to President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees yesterday. Thereafter, a lengthy round of preliminary discussions took place between President Rajapaksa and the representatives of the NEC including NEC Chairman Dr. A.V. Suraweera, Vice Chairman Lal Perera and the Secretary C.
(LeN-2007 June 18, 7.50 pm) The Ordinary Level examination is one of the crucial examinations in the country which decides the future education of the children but it is sad to note that 52.7% of the applicants who sat for the exam have failed it. According to statistics issued by the Examinations commissioner General Anura Edirisinghe 21,813 students have not passed a single language. But the latest information is that Education Minister’s daughter has also failed the examination.
Nishantha KAMALADASA LITERACY: Computer literacy and English language skills are necessary to build a competent employee required by the corporate sector. However this competency is absent in many educated youth. This is in spite of increased Government and parental spending. These two important subject areas have not reached the expected level of achievement because they also have been taught by teachers at classes but not been learnt by the students. They did not learn English or ICT because they had not used either, in the process of learning.