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.

This is a plea for our good professors of science to step up to the role of professors of conscience. Our universities are disaster zones.  Productive scholars are not tolerated. What do they do? Leave the country?

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.

According to the latest SLICTA report on IT industry, in 2006 Sri Lanka needed nearly 5000 graduates but only 1900 graduates were available locally for a short fall of 3000 graduates. SLICTA’s predicted shortfall for 2007 is 5000 (full report at ). Year Demand Supply 2005 4920 1235 2006 4920 1887 2007 7672 2216 These data are based on a survey of IT industries conducted by MJ Consulting. How realistic are these numbers? ((Why is the demand same in 2005 and 2006?

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.

ඉකුත් ඔක්තෝබර 4 වැනිදා ශ්රී ලන්කා පදනම් ආයතනයේ කෙරුනු පලවන සන්වාදය ඉතා සාර්තකව පැවැත්වුන බවද, ඒ සදහා පැමිනි සැමගේ නොමද උනන්දුව සහ සන්වාදීය දායකත්වය ඒ සාර්ථකත්වයට හේතුවූ බවද මම ඉතා සතුටින් වාර්තා කරමි. එම සන්වාදයට අද්ධියාපනයේ අර්බූදය පිලිබඳ විශ්ලේෂනයකින් දායක වූ අන්තර් විශ්ව විද්යාල බල මන්ඩලයේ සිසුන්ටත්, නව අද්ධියාපන පනතක් සඳහා යෝජනාවලියකින් දායක වීමට සූදානම්ව පැමිනි විලුඳු ආයතනයටත් මම විශේෂයෙන්ම ස්තූතිවන්ත වෙමි. සන්වාදයට සහභාගි වූ හෝ වෙනත් වගකීම් නිසා සහභාගි වීමට නොහැකි යයි දැනුම් දුන් අයගේ ලැයිස්තුවක් ලිපිය අවසානයේ ඔබට දකිය හැක. ඉදිරි සන්වාද පිලිබදව බහුතර මතය වූයේ ඒවා විවිධ මත දරන අයගෙන් සමන්විත පැනල ලෙස පැවැත්විය යුතු බවය. ඊට අමතරව නිශාන්ත කමලදාසයන්ගෙන් ලැබුන අනගි අදහස වූයේ අප සැම ප්රශ්න දිහා බලන්නේ අප එකිනෙකාට විශේෂ තැවුල් (concerns) පදනම් කර ගෙන නිසා ඕනෑම සන්වාදයක් ඒ තැවුල් පිලිබද සන්වේදිතාවෙන් කල යුතු බවත්ය.

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.