EDUCATION

Students exhorted to preserve culture
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Jan 10 — Capt Kanwaljit Singh, Finance Minister, Punjab, exhorted the students to accord priority to learn and acquire moral values propounded in our ancient culture and heritage as these would enable them to fight against the social evils. The Finance Minister was addressing students of different states, who were here to participate in a regional sports tournament of Vidya Bharti schools at a cultural programme organised for them at Bharatiya Vidya Mandir last night.

He cautioned the students about the deterioration in society due to the increasing influence of the western culture as a result of which our old-age joint family culture was also being badly affected. He said that the western countries were also facing a lot of problems and their elderly people were not being properly looked after, where as, our culture provides an extremely respectful position for the elders. He said that the western people were looking towards the Indian social set up for bringing mental peace and harmony in their society.

The minister said that after Independence the first generation had worked for the resettlement and rehabilitation of the people after the partition of the country and the second generation tried their best to overcome the serious problems of scarcity of food, non-availability of infrastructure for education and health and to put the country on the path of development. Now it was the responsibility of the third generation to make all out efforts to built a strong country which could compete in the fast advancing information technology era at the global level.

He stressed that our teachers should accord top priority to inculcate values of our ancient cultural heritage among the students so that they could be made fully dedicated to the service of the suffering humanity and helping the poor and the needy in the society.

Expressing his serious concern over the fast spreading social evils including corruption, use of intoxicants and cultural erosion, the Finance Minister said that the education system through out the country should be revamped to ensure an all round development of the students to prepare them to build a strong nation. He said that our national character was declining day by day and we give preference to personal interests rather than national interests.

Emphasising the need to adopt effective measures against the rapidly increasing population, Capt Kanwaljit Singh said that the country, in coming years, would be facing a serious food problem as our farmers, in spite of producing sufficient food grains, were under a heavy burden of loans and in future they would not be in a position to enhance the food production. The developed countries, under a deep rooted hidden conspiracy, were all set to capture the Indian market by flooding their surplus food and industrial products in a big way under the garb of the WTO, which was bound to damage our agriculture and small scale industries . He said that the main objective of developed countries was first to damage our agriculture and industrial production by throwing cheaper food and other products and than completely controlling the Indian market to sell their produce at their own terms.

Advocating the earliest shift to the technical education and information technology, the minister called upon the students to give priority to get the latest knowledge and training in the information technology, so that they could explore the new avenues of trade and markets for the country in every nook and corner of the world. He said that the IT was the only field where the country was leading ahead and if earnest efforts were made in this field, the country could make wonderful achievements at the international level which could also help in creating a lot of job opportunities for our unemployed youth.

The minister announced a grant of Rs 2 lakh for the development of the school out of his discretionary funds.

Addressing the function, Mr K.N. Pathak, Vice-Chancellor, Panjab University, stressed the need to build up the moral and social values among the students, besides providing them the job oriented education. He exhorted the students to learn maximum about the Indian culture and traditional social set up.

Mr M.M. Vyas, Chairman, Improvement Trust, and Mr Dina Nath Batra, Secretary, Vidya Bharti, also addressed the function. A cultural program based on the traditional culture was also presented by students of the school.

Ethiopia seeks India’s help
By Vimal Sumbly and Surbhi Bhalla

LUDHIANA, Jan 10 — The Ethiopian government is looking forward to major tie-ups with various technical and academic institutions in India for improving agriculture and education there. A high-level delegation including the Ethiopian Vice-Minister of Education, Dr Tekleheimanot Hailesclassic, and the Vice-Minister for Agriculture, Mr Ato Delay Ejigu, visited Punjab Agricultural University here today in this regard. They met the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and some senior scientists of the university, besides visiting the College of Agriculture and various departments of the PAU.

Talking to The Tribune, the ministers said they were studying the academic and technical infrastructure of India as Ethiopia was going to revamp its technical education system. The delegation had earlier been to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University of Coimbatore, The Teachers Training Institute of Chennai, Haryana Agricultural University and several other polytechnics in the country.

They said the Ethiopian government was already in the process of finalising an agreement with the PAU for the transfer of technology and human resource. Some of the PAU scientists are already working on various projects in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government spends 16 per cent of its budget on improving its education system. The country also gets loans and aid from various agencies like the World Bank and the European Union. Most of this aid is spent on the development of infrastructure like roads.

The ministers said Ethiopia preferred to send its students to India for training because there were many similarities between the two countries. Like India, Ethiopia also received 90 per cent of its export earnings from agricultural products like coffee.

Regarding the frequent famines in the country, the Agriculture Minister of Ethiopia, Mr Ejigu, said it was unfortunate that despite the country being self-sufficient in food production, the accessibility of food was still a problem there.

He said, though Ethiopia had a huge water resource with nine rivers flowing through the country, famines were common because there was no proper system for harnessing this resource. The country was planning to set up an irrigation network to exploit its water resource.

Quality education must for allround development: Badal
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Jan 10 — Each block in the state will have a modern public school, equipped with latest educational techniques and teaching aids, to impart good quality education free of cost to brilliant but poor students, who were unable to afford the exorbitant cost of education in private public schools.

This announcement was made by the Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, while presiding over the concluding function of three-day inter-region tournament of schools, being run by Vidya Bharti at Bhartiya Vidya Mandir here last evening. He said without laying main stress on quality education, no country could make substantial progress and meet the global challenges.

Emphasising the need to completely revamp the education system to make it comparable to that of developed countries, the Chief Minister observed that with enormous development in the field of information technology and free flow of ideas across the international frontiers, the whole world had shrunk to a small village. “If we fail to keep track of fast moving technology, particularly in the field of IT, the country will not be able to meet the emerging challenges on various fronts,” he said.

Mr Badal regretted that after independence, the successive governments in the Centre and states failed to realise the importance of good quality education. The system of education was not updated to keep pace with the changing times, which resulted in the entire system becoming obsolete and failing to achieve the desired purpose of imparting meaningful education. On the other hand, the developed countries accorded top priority to education of their people and were able to make tremendous allround progress.

Lauding the contribution of Vidya Bharti, which was running 17411 model schools in the country, with a combined strength of around one lakh students, Mr Badal remarked that if a few more educational organisations could put up a similar performance, the educational system in the country would be revolutionised. The gigantic task of bringing improvement in the educational standards could not be achieved by the government alone and the private educational institutions must lend their full cooperation in this direction. He asked Vidya Bharti to open such schools in remote and rural areas so that brilliant but poor students could also get good quality education, available to their counterparts in towns and cities.

The Chief Minister expressed serious concern over the erosion in moral values and the menace of other social evils like corruption, which were virtually destroying the very fibre of society. The teachers should lay stress on inculcating the moral education and nationalism in the educational system so that the younger generation could have a strong national character and could take the country ahead.

As a gesture to the participants, who had come from all over the country, braving severe cold conditions to take part in the tournament, Mr Badal announced a grant of Rs one lakh for providing a woollen sweater each to all students.

Mr Dina Nath Batra, Chairman, Vidya Bharti, and Mr Madan Mohan Vyas, Chairman, Ludhiana Improvement Trust, were among those who addressed the function. Lala Lajpat Rai, MP, Mr Jagdish Singh Garcha, Minister for Technical Education, Mr S.K. Sandhu, Deputy Commissioner, Mr Paramjit Singh Sandhu, DIG, Ludhiana Range, Mr Kuldip Singh, SSP and Mr S.R. Kler, Additional Deputy Commissioner were also present.

Bandh by private college teachers
Tribune News Service

LUDHIANA, Jan 10 — The Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers Union yesterday observed an education bandh in all the private colleges in the district to press for the acceptance of its long-pending demands. A rally was organised at Panjab University Extension Library.

The President of the PCCTU, Mr K.B.S. Sodhi, said that as many as 7,000 teachers working in 172 non-government colleges in the district were suffering allegedly due to the evasive attitude of the state government. He alleged that although some issues were resolved by the efforts of the PCCTU at the government level, yet these were jeopardised by senior bureaucrats.

He said that the Department of Higher Education was at the mercy of these bureaucrats.

The demands of the PCCTU included implementation of pension-cum-gratuity scheme, release of grants-in-aid and implementation of the UGC notification of December 24, 1998.

Fancy dress contest
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Jan 10 — Nearly 60 tiny tots of Guru Gobind Singh Public School, Model Town Extension, participated in a fancy dress competition here yesterday.

The children were divided into three groups. Group A had students from nursery, Group B from LKG and Group C from UKG and class I.

The kids were dressed like elephant, cat, Nihangs, Tipu Sultan, tree, nurse, hockey player, Miss India, watchman, Yamla Jatt and Ponga Pundit.

The judges were Ms Suman Arora, Ms Janak Trehan, both government school teachers, and Mr J.S. Bhalla, a former principal.

Mr Avtar Singh Makkar, Chairman of the school trust, announced a cash prize of Rs 51 to all the participating students.

Results of Group A — Ravjot Singh (Daler Mehndi) 1, Trishneet Kaur (domestic maid) 2 and Bhavjot Singh (soldier) 3.

Group B — Gursimran Kaur (teacher) 1, Kanwalpreet Kaur (supermarket) and Rajinder Singh (doctor) 2 and Prabhjot (clown) 3.

Group C — Ishpreet Kaur (Bhagat Singh) 1, Bhupinder Kaur (Punjaban) 2 and Tavleen Singh (saint) 3.