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| Sunday, 24 November 2002 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Gateway International School Awards Ceremony : Confidence and peace building the need of the hour "Contribute to the process of building peace, building reconciliation, and helping your country, which is at cross roads, to develop with the full range of life skills, of living together, working together and co-existing with the people of all communities, and the major religions, in a meaningful way, you have been taught in your great school" said Stephen Evans, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Sri Lanka, at the Awards Ceremony of Gateway International School held recently at the BMICH. The High Commissioner and his wife Sharon Evans were the Chief Guests and Professor Dayantha Wijesekera was the Guest of Honour. Continuing further, he said, "I am incredibly impressed by the Awards Ceremony, by its sleekness, by its organization and above all by the contribution that is being made by the pupils of this school. We have seen the dance, we listened to the music and the singing. What the school is doing today is helping the children to develop themselves as individuals with a full range of skills from the academic to the sporting, cultural and artistic and above all teaching children to live together to work together, and co-exist in meaningful way. This is exactly the sort of life skills the children of Gateway International school have been taught. This is exactly the sort of wisdom and inspiration that you can take away when you leave. My advice to you is "At sometime in your life, after you leave school, you have to make decisions yourselves. Others cannot do that for you. No one can help you. Armed with the skills you have learned in school, you have to make decisions yourself. When you are pondering to make a decision remember the words of the great President of United States of America John F. Kennedy "Ask not what your country can give you. Ask what you can give your country." The guest of honour, Prof. Dayantha Wijesekera Vice Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa, in his keynote address said: "It is one thing to say that the youngsters should build up confidence and be able to communicate well, but what should adults do about it to help the students and children to get confidence. I would say to a great extent that it is the responsibility of the adults, the teacher and the parents. preventing the children from independent thinking is a major cause of lack of confidence building. Spoon-feeding during teaching or dictatorial parental attitude over concern, overdoing attitude are the major factors for slow confidence building. Spoon feeding when teaching is not the fault of the teachers only but of several parties including decision makers in the field of education". |
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