NATIONAL CHILDREN SCIENCE CONGRESS TO HAVE WIZ KIDS INDIA EXPO THIS YEAR Dubai e-Government Department conducts educational seminar to initiate electronic streamlining of schools
Dubai schools to get electronically upgraded
November 25, 2001
Dubai; In an effort to promote and ensure the smooth functioning of a gamut of electronic services across all communities, the Dubai e-Government Department conducted an educational seminar for five Dubai-based schools on Sunday, November 25, 2001, as part of the ongoing implementation of the School Management System (SMS) project. In the first community education initiative offered by the e-Government Department, the participants, who included representatives of both public and private schools that had been selected on the basis of a series of grades, were introduced to the detailed working of SMS. The seminar highlighted the significance of education and the need for creating awareness of e-services among the youth and is in keeping with His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid's IT education project.
"The youth of today are the leaders and decision makers of tomorrow and we believe that it is important to educate them on the benefits of day-to-day use of technology, in all aspects of life. This is a strategic move to initiate them into a technologically savvy world, so that e-services become an inseparable part of their lives even as they grow into young men and women," said Salem Al Shaer, Director Electronic Services, Dubai e-Government Department. "The future generation is most receptive to embracing new technology and lessons learned in youth will remain with people for a long time. We aim to utilize the portal to create a comprehensive educational center in Dubai," he added.
The introduction of the SMS is an attempt to ease the administrative burden of schools by the use of electronic services, so as to save time and effort that can be better utilized in classroom teaching and learning. SMS presents extensive solutions that facilitate in accomplishing school management tasks perfectly and accurately by simulating the schoolwork, using availability of help screens, expansion of the data and the accuracy of conclusions that eliminate human errors.The first phase of the two-phased pilot project undertaken by the e-Government Department comprises revamping the entire administration system of the selected schools. Students and parents will subsequently have access to relevant data and information from the e-Government Portal. The second phase, to be implemented later, will permit schools to exchange information through the e-Government Portal. The eventual aim of this venture is to create a first of its kind one-stop educational centre in Dubai.
The invited representatives of the five schools were provided rigorous training on the correct application of the system, so that they could train their respective schools in turn. Initiated three months ago, the first phase of the project was implemented in five different schools and will continue till the end of this academic year. The second phase would be implemented on the basis of the feedback and response of the first phase.
SMS ensures the complete automation of the manual school management programs and offers a group of modules including registration and personnel, stocks, school reports, library and school schedules. The program is characterized by a wide variety of new features such as multi-platform Windows 95, 98 with 32 bit that accelerates performance. The multilingual interface is an asset as it allows the user a choice of languages that includes English, French and Arabic. It provides over 800 reports, apart from ready templates covering all the school needs and the facility to work on all types of printers with various paper sizes. It has multiple help systems for data protection and maintenance as well as provides a system to discover entry errors with immediate caution tool.
NATIONAL CHILDREN SCIENCE CONGRESS TO HAVE WIZ KIDS INDIA EXPO THIS YEAR The National Children’s Science Congress and Wiz Kids India exposition will be held in Pune between the 27th and 31st of next month. The focal theme is "Indigenous Scientific Knowledge for Better Tommorrow". About 6 lakh children in the age group of 10 to 17 and about 70,000 teachers are taking part in nation-wide competitions. Finally 600 children will be selected for the Pune Congress.
The highlight of the Congress this year is the Wiz Kids India exposition 2001 which will have pavilions like learning-media, curriculum plus career options, health and nutrition, children assessories, sports and fitness, entertainment and fun, wiz kids pavilion and social interface.
Announcing this at a press conference here yesterday, the Secretary, Department of science and Technology Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy said such events and expositions are essential for creating a knowledge-based society. Taking science and Technology to students will make them responsible citizens of tomorrow. Students from abroad will also be taking part in the Congress and this year there will be delegations from Portugal and Russia also, he said. He also spoke of holding a school-teacher science congress next year. The children congress will be inaugurated by Bharat Ratna and noted scientist Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Muslims launch new Website to “Cure” Islamaphobia
Islamiq team up with Muslim aid and Mercy Malaysia to promote Afghanistan Ramadan Appeals
This story about the Indian Schools in Oman is published by the Oman Daily Observer. We are reproducing it here with due credit. The observer has filed a number of reports about Indian schools in the Gulf.
Indian Schools reforms under way New twist to Indian School Darsait management committee
By V M Sathish
MUSCAT — Despite tremendous pressure from various quarters, the Patron of Indian Schools in Oman, the Indian Ambassador Kajor Mal Meena has revised the Board of Directors of Indian Schools retaining some members and inducting new faces.The Patron has accepted the resignation of former Chairman Kiran Asher and replaced him with R M Parakh, financial advisor of Bahwan Automotive Centre, as the new Chairman.
Other members in the revised board include A Raees, businessman and son of Kerala politician E Ahmed, Ameer Ahmed, Managing Director, Teejan Group of Companies, George Mathew, partner, George Mathew and Company, Dr Sathish Nambiar, Chairman, Indian Social Club, Ajith Kumar, General Manager, Al Bahas Trading Company, Mrs Kamal Ajay Khimji, Dr Sanjay Dalal, Jasbir Singh, Abraham Mathew, President Indian School Darsait, S N Thakkar, and P Y Venkataraman, Deputy General Manager, Oman Arab Bank.
The inclusion of Mrs. Kamal Ajay Khimji, who had resigned from the board, indicates that the patron recognises the positive role played by some members in the development of Indian schools.
The Patron also informed the promoter of the proposed school in Seeb that the new Indian school in the Seeb — Al Hail area would remain a full-fledged community school rather than a private school.
In a letter the Indian Ambassador has informed George Mathew, the private promoter with whom the former Patron had signed a Memorandum of Understanding, that the Indian community's interest would be best served if the new school remains a community school. However, the promoter is given a chance to discuss any complaints about the decision.
The Patron has informed the promoter that a community school serves ordinary community members better than private schools, which charge high fees and serve the promoters business interest.
The proposed school can accommodate about 2,000 students in the first year. The Ministry of Education has already granted final sanction for the school recently.
Now the Patron is expected to introduce serious changes in the school management committees. The president of Indian School Muscat and Indian School Al Ghubra have already resigned from their post.
In an interesting twist, Sugathan Gopalan, who claims to have documentary evidence to the effect, has been running from pillar to post to prove that he is the original founder of Indian School Darsait.
According to official communication from a former Patron, Gopalan is the founder of Indian School Darsait. According to the documents made available to the Observer, he is still a member of the school management committee but was never invited to attend the school board meetings.
Gopalan claims that the Indian School Darsait, the first school in Oman based on Kerala syllabus, was started due to his initiative. However, after the first year of operation, some people allegedly 'hijacked' the school board and kept him away.
"Even though I am still a board member, they have never invited me to attend any of the school committee meetings in the last several years. I have made several complaints to all the former Patrons of Indian schools but only the current patron has headed my grievances and hopefully he will take some action," Sugathan, who has been running a school in Kerala told the Observer. Complaints were made to the Indian authorities about what he calls the 'illegal manner' in which the school founder was kept away from school activities.
"Even though many of the board members have overstayed illegally, the original school founder is not even invited for school committee meetings," he said showing a pile of correspondence and complaints made to various Indian authorities.
To prove his point Gopalan is also carrying letters from the then Kerala Chief Minister, K Karunakaran, Ministry of External Affairs New Delhi and others recommending his proposal to start the first Kerala syllabus school in Oman.
All the Indian schools in Oman are branches of Indian Schools Muscat (ISM), the first Indian community school in Oman. Even though all other schools are started as branches of ISM, two schools have developed special privileges as ‘private schools.’
The Patron is understood to be examining how these two schools obtained such privileges and the difference in fees structure with the parent school.
"The two private Indian schools are functioning under the licence of Indian School Muscat. Even their staff labour card and visa are issued in the name of ISM," sources added.
When one of the private schools was started, students and teachers of ISM were sent to that school. The Patron has asked parents whether they preferred a community school or private school.
(c) Copyright Omandaily Observer
Website Launched To “Cure” Islamaphobia
keralamonitor.com
London, UK - 24 November 2001 British Muslims launched a strong
response to the rising tide of Islamaphobia in the Western world with the
launch of a dedicated website www.IslamAphobia.org.The website's creators feel the greatest challenge facing human beings
today is in following a method of critical independent thinking.Recent events have shown that it is all too easy for the public to be
swayed by heated emotion, hate and prejudice without serious study of cold
historic facts. With sophisticated tools such as propaganda and mass media
we have witnessed in modern history how western countries have horrifically
stereotyped entire races, nations and ethnic groups. After all it was
Napoleon who identified a problem when he stated "authoritarian government
required to speak is silent…but representative government required to speak
LIES with impunity."American “patriots” and many other so-called nationalists want to vent
their anger at any Muslim they come into contact with. When watching
Hollywood produced films they were always assured that their powerful state
would protect them against the terrorist menace, no matter how close it
came to home. In the disbelief that they were struck right in the centre,
they forget that violence always begets more violence.No doubt, the rise of the cynical use of propaganda in Europe in the 19th
and 20th century opened the door to the justification for colonialism,
racism and fascism. These were the vital tools that turned even a neutral
individual into an ardent supporter of what would otherwise be viewed as an
outrageous injustice or crime.The rise of a pattern of bigotry against Islam within Western Democracies
(Plutocracies) was brought to an all new high of hate and violence, even
from official quarters, with the targeting of Muslim communities and mass
arrests across the western world after 11th September 2001.Are we witnessing the rise of the latest form of western fascism? How can a
World war against terrorism be fought with no agreed definition of what
terrorism is or by attributing it to one community alone? The Christian and
Jewish world both have their own fair share of terrorist organizations most
of which have targeted western citizens.Why are western governments eroding civil liberties in light of a single
terrorist incident…can't western governments withstand terrorism without
turning into fully fledged police states?Shouldn't we be concerned that this new wave of western led prejudice and
hate against the entire Islamic community brings back memories of
"Democracies" upholding racist laws or segregating communities as witnessed
by groups such as Indian-Americans, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans?It is most disturbing to hear public displays of US extremism, that many
now believe permeates the highest levels of US officialdom. How are we
supposed to interpret the calls by American “journalists” for Nuclear
attacks on Islamic nations. Surprised? Don’t be, the only time a weapon of
mass destruction has been used against a civilian population was at the
hands of a "Democracy" (a quarter of a MILLION Japanese men, women and
children massacred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic bomb attacks to speed
up the war to lessen American Army casualties)With the spread of secular materialist philosophy from the west, secular
fanaticism has resulted in disaster for humanity with violent ideologies
such as racism, fascism, colonialism, communism, Zionism and many other
cruel secular world views based on conflict drawing strength from the
West's materialist philosophy.Darwin proposed that the 'fight for survival' also applied between human
races. According to that claim, 'favored races' were victorious in the
struggle. Favored races, in Darwin's view, were white Europeans. African or
Asian races had lagged behind in the struggle for survival. Darwin went
further, and suggested that these races would soon lose the 'struggle for
survival' entirely, and thus disappear: At some future period, not very
distant as measured by centuries, the "civilized" races of man will almost
certainly exterminate, and replace the "savage" races throughout the
world," states Darwin in his book subtitled "The Preservation of Favored
Races in the Struggle for Life.All this hate and prejudice against Islam…all this Islamaphobia…are we
looking the next crime against humanity by a western power right in the face?The words of James Madison, American President 1809-1817, ring like a fire
alarm, "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom
of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by
violent and sudden usurpations."ISLAMIQ TEAM UP WITH MUSLIM AID AND MERCY MALAYSIA TO PROMOTE AFGHANISTAN RAMADAN APPEALS
keralamonitor.com
Dubai, 24/11/2001: IslamiQ, the first online company dedicated to meeting the Islamic investment and financial needs of the global Muslim community, has joined 'MERCY Malaysia' and 'Muslim Aid' to promote their Afghanistan humanitarian campaigns, via its Zakah and Sadaqah Payment Gateway, featured on its www.IslamiQ.com site.
MERCY Malaysia chose IslamiQ to carry out its Ramadhan Charity Campaign on its online Zakah and Sadaqah Center in order to leverage IslamiQ's existing members and visitors which are largely made up of Islamic banking and finance customers, practitioners, and academicians from the Middle East, Asia, US and Europe.
Muslim Aid, which has now been featured on the Zakah Payment Gateway for over a year, is also utilising IslamiQ to highlight its £5 million Afghanistan appeal in response to the deepening humanitarian crisis in the country.
The online Ramadhan campaigns will ensure that donors who wish to contribute to the Afghanistan appeals of MERCY Malaysia and Muslim Aid, will be able to do so in a convenient and hassle free manner via the internet, thus saving them time and effort.
IslamiQ's Zakah and Sadaqah Center, at www.islamiq.com/zakah_center , was launched in November 2000, with the purpose of creating a central reference point and centre for online donations. The Center enables donors to make their donations directly to the charity of their choice. The Center also features a wide range of information on Zakah, and an online Zakah calculator, to ensure that donors are fully informed about this key pillar of Islam, and of course so that they pay the correct amount, to their chosen charity.
"We are delighted that both MERCY Malaysia and Muslim Aid are working with IslamiQ to highlight their Afghanistan appeals. Clearly the plight of the Afghan people deserves the attention of all our members and visitors, and we look forward to assisting our charity partners to help the Afghan refugees with much needed medical and humanitarian aid, Insha'Allah," commented IslamiQ's CEO, Dr. Hasnita Dato' Hashim.
