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Making rural students computer literate

The Ministry of Education is to provide lap tops to 13 schools, mostly in the rural areas, in a pilot project that will see a wide use of computer technology in our school system in the near future. The project under the title Lap Top for Every Child will be implemented in collaboration with the Colombo University.

According to our news report today 1,250 lap top computers will be distributed to students of the 13 schools. The aim of the project is to make our student population computer literate and also arm them with a knowledge of English and IT. A novelty is that the computers will be operated by solar power benefitting underprivileged schools without electricity supply.

The lap tops in addition to English is also programed for Sinhala and Tamil languages and is equipped with all the special features such as sound track and computer games that would kindle the interest of rural students who were denied such luxuries before.

Hopefully all the students will before long be computer savvy as their more privileged counterparts in the cities. Today lap tops are mostly the preserve of the affluent and privileged which poor rural students can only dream of owning.

Therefore the Ministry should be commended for giving these students the opportunity of handling lap tops and giving them exposure to a whole new world of knowledge and excitement. The need to expand IT knowledge among the young school going population cannot be overemphasized in the present context.

Besides the move would remove the drudgery of students who are being taken through a meaningless routine of textbook knowledge and infuse in them a new enthusiasm that may well reflect in their examination results which had been negative during the past few years. Combined with the program launched by the Presidential Secretariat to take IT knowledge to the backwoods the move is bound to provide the right start in creating a large computer literate population in the country which will augur well for its future.

For equipping the young with IT knowledge is vital if we are not to be left behind on the Information Super Highway and the modern trends and developments in a fast changing world. It is doubly important in the current context when the country has embarked on a new journey towards development and prosperity after seeing the back of a prolonged war.

The country should now be equipped to be considered on equal terms with the rest and for this we need to develop our knowledge base.

Exposing a wider section of the population to the new developments and frontiers that are opening up in the outside world is a first step in laying the foundation for achieving this. For, today no country can live in isolation. While imbibing the best of our culture and traditions we should seek to move forward with the rest of the world if the country is to attain any form of recognition.

Today knowledge holds the key towards advancement and there are many spheres and areas in this regard which are still hidden from a large sections of our population.

With the necessary tools now available all steps should be taken to reshape the thinking and attitudes of our people so that they may integrate with the global community. For, today Globalisation has blurred all borders and boundaries and turned the world into one unit. We too should adapt ourselves to swim with the tide.

Also with the country set to embark on a massive post war development drive it is essential that our youth be equipped with new and innovate skills to shoulder the challenging tasks ahead. In this context the steps taken by the Education Ministry to create the necessary base for this should be commended.

It would also be beneficial if our school curriculum could be suitably tailored to meet the emerging challenges in a new techno- oriented climate. Other measures should also be taken to remove inequalities in education opportunities and create the groundwork for a level playing field.

Eight years after WTC attacks:

Terrorism more dangerous than organized crime

It is eight years since terrorists attacked the New York World Trade Centre Towers, the Pentagon and attempted to attack the White House with hijacked civilian aircraft killing nearly 3,000 people in the United States of America during the George W. Bush administration.

Full Story

Duplicitous Canadians

I have refrained from writing much about Sri Lanka since the end of the war on terrorism - although there have been a number of topics on which I could have commented. I am convinced that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has things pretty much under control and that he is moving the country and its diverse populations forward toward the unity and harmony he has promised.

Full Story

The West has to help Sri Lanka instead of being critical unfairly

President Mahinda Rajapaksa tells Le Figaro:

In his first interview to a leading European journal since the victory against the LTTE in May this President Mahinda Rajapaksa has defended himself against the many attacks on him in the West for alleged negligence of human rights and has called on the West to help Sri Lanka rebuild and resettle the people affected by the 30 year long war against terror in the country, which had impacted other countries in the region, too.

Full Story

 

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