Schoolchildren must engage in religious activities -Education Minister

by Ananda KANNANGARA

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena highlighted the importance of schoolchildren engaging in religious activities in addition to educational activities, and said the Government had taken measures to provide facilities to ensure this.

He said by engaging in religious activities, children would be able to mould their character from a tender age and called upon parents as well as teachers to encourage children to indulge in religious and social activities, as much as possible.

He said if children were taught religious values and the importance of carrying out social responsibilities, they could lead a successful life without being a burden to their parents and society.

"Living in unity in society with others and working as a team cannot be learnt from books.

Students need to be involved in social and religious activities to improve such qualities," he said.

The Minister said he stressed that point while addressing a ceremony held at Dharmapala Vidyalaya, Pannipitiya recently and urged teachers to encourage students to take part in more extra curricular and co-curricular activities along with their normal school work. The Minister had also advised students present on this occasion to get involved in sports activities as that too helped character building.

A musical evening with differently-abled girl guides

by Janani AMARASEKERA

A one of a kind event organised by the differently- abled branch of the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association will be held on April 5, at the Galle Face Hotel. The programme is scheduled to commence at 6.30 in the evening.

All of us have seen many concerts presented by students of various schools and also other institutions. This particular event is also a concert.

However, it is different from the ordinary concerts because the proud performers will be differently-abled girl guides from nine institutions and schools.They will display their talents on stage.

"This musical evening will consist of songs and dances performed by the girl guides who have visual and hearing impairments and also by the guides who suffer from Down syndrome.

All the participants are aged from 6 to 14 years," said the Director Communications, Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association, Dilmini Peiris.

The girl guides promise you an evening of splendour. The musical band of this differently -abled girl guides is sure to steal the hearts of the audience. The concert is organised with the aim of creating an awareness of differently-abled children around the world.

Many people tend to neglect and segregrate them as a useless segment of society.

The organisers hope to change this attitude of the community by organising events of this kind..

The Chairperson of the Sunera Foundation, Ms. Sunethra Bandaranaike will be the chief guest of this grand event and the Resident Representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Ferodosi Metha, will be grace the event as the guest of honour.

"Please do join us on this day. You will be amazed by the way they perform on stage," was the humble request made by Dilmini to the the readers.

'Minor Planet' to be named after IESL's JIY-2010 Winner

by Rohan MATHES

Ceres Connection, a programme of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory, is to name a 'Minor Planet' in honour of young Ganidu Nanayakkara, the winner of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) Grand Award in Computer Engineering, in San Jose USA, last year.

He was also the winner of the 'Junior Inventor of the Year-2010' (JIY-2010) competition, of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL) and the Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) 2010 competition.

This was disclosed by the Chairman of the IESL's JIY Steering Committee, Eng. Jayavilal Meegoda, when he addressed the opening ceremony of the Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair-2011, at the IESL's Wimalasurendra Auditorium recently.

The Ceres Connection , in partnership with the Society for Science and the Public (SSP), promotes science education by its identification to honour the most outstanding students from SSP's competitions. It helps to name 'Minor Planets' discovered by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) programme. This is a honour bestowed to any individual only once in a lifetime.

The Intel ISEF is the world's largest annual international pre-college science competition which provides a forum for over 1500 high school students from over 50 countries, to showcase their independent research.

It is the premier science competition in the globe, exclusively for students in grades 9 to 12.

Eng. Meegoda further said that based on the theme "Lead the World with Science and Engineering", the IESL, National Science Foundation (NSF), Intel Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Education (MoE) has already inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), for the betterment of the school-going fraternity of the land.

The Science Review Committee Chairman and Postgraduate Institute of Medicine Director Prof. Rizvi Sheriff, the chief guest, was of the view that competitions of this nature, paved the way for Motherlanka to evolve into a 'Knowledge Hub' and eventually become the 'Miracle of Asia'. " Sri Lanka is already on the map.

"This time too, we will select a project which will have a profound impact on the whole world and human kind", he said.

NSF Director Dr. Sarath Abeywardane pointed out that the country needed a new and innovative generation of school children to meet the challenges of a rapidly growing economy and a competition of this caliber was paramount.

IESL President Professor Ananda Jayawardena, Intel Sri Lanka Country Manager Indika de Soyza and Eng. Prasad Siriwardane also addressed the ceremony, prior to the evaluation of the projects.