The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
To clarify whether dyslexia, a fairly-common disorder characterised by an unexpected low reading ability, involves the brain's defective processing of visual information, US-based National Center for Research Resources-funded experts studied brain activity in a visual pathway. Using a method known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, that non-invasively measures changes in …
english is perhaps the most widely understood language. Even computers can survive it without much difficulty, thanks to recent innovations like the speech recognition software packages. However, bored without anything to tease their problem-solving skills, some programmers at International Business Machines ( ibm ), usa , have taken on a …
THE southern state of Kerala has performed extraordinarily in the areas of public health, education, family welfare and adult literacy. Its success in areas other than population control are easier to understand, but its miracle in bringing down birth rate below replacement level without any significant advance in economic field …
The us will provide an additional amount of us $500,000 to support the implementation of the second phase of the plan to eliminate child labour in garment industries of Bangladesh, said Andrew James Samet, us deputy under secretary. The amount will be spent over the next two years to support …
according to a study conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (oecd), nearly half of American adults have trouble with common mental demands of life in reading newspapers, filling out job applications or balancing a chequebook. "Low literacy is a problem everywhere,' the report said. The oecd …
A US $12.5 million project that focuses on poverty alleviation, environmental protection and improving the quality of education has been launched in Pakistan. The project, instituted by the United Nations Development Programme, will create teacher training and resource centres to improve the quality of teaching and of primary and secondary …
AUTOMATIC vending machines for condoms will be available at street corners throughout the country by December. The scheme has been finalised by the Union health ministry as part of its AIDS control programme. The ministry has asked for prototypes of the machine from indigenous manufacturers, which can accommodate different types …
Children under five years of age should not be admitted into schools as it may lead to behavioural changes that are harmful in the long term. A team of researchers led by Michael Weitzman at the Rochester University, UK, examined 1,000 children aged eight months to four years. By the …
Photo on the NetSubscribers would now be able to order photographs on the Internet. Eastman Kodak, a Germany based company, has launched services that would allow paid subscribers to store their pictures on the Internet and order reprints with the click of a mouse. Initially, the company expects to attract …
A watchful eyeParents would soon be able to use the Internet to keep an eye on their children at nursery school. A new system called Kindercam can send a colour video image twice a second from a video camera in the nursery school to the Kindercam web site, where parents …
the Union government recently tabled a discussion paper for reducing subsidies. The proposals seek to make considerable savings by making substantial cuts in the cost of goods such as electricity and higher education. The white paper based on a detailed study by the National Institute of Public Finance Policy says …
A M SHARAFUDDIN BANGLADESH mohammed Zafar Mian passed his senior school certificate (ssc) examination last year and wants to be a banker after finishing his higher studies. The other members of his family are, however, illiterate. Zafar has four brothers and three sisters. Two of his brothers are rickshaw-pullers and …
Poverty, especially in rural areas, and illiteracy go hand in hand. The majority of the world's poor, about 1 billion of the world's 5.7 billion people, live in rural areas. Of those, 500 million are children. About 40,000 people die every day from hunger-related causes, most in rural areas. About …
Public understanding of science and technology lags well behind public interest in these fields in most industrialised countries, according to two new studies disclosed at the recently held Symposium on Public Understanding of Science and Technology in Tokyo. It was agreed that the purpose of boosting public understanding is not …
sunny prospects: In a bid to boost the sale of solar energy for residential purposes, Kyocera, the Japanese producer of high-performance ceramics and electronic compo-nents, has split its solar energy business to form a separate company, Kyocera Solar Corporation. This would allow the parent company to concentrate on research and …
India s education policy has only sought to alienate the students and also deepen the urban rural dividethe education system in India has faced a basic dilemma ever since its introduction by the British. The essence of the problem was summed up by Mahatma Gandhi in his historic statement at …
"WE SHALL overcome" sing the children of Chamtagora village in Bankura district at six in the morning. It may be an unlikely song to hear in a remote tribal hamlet but their choral prelude heralds each day. Chamtagora in Bankura district has become a haven for many tribal children whose …
THE World Education Report, 1995, compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recently been released. The third edition of a biennial series, the report aims at presenting a broad but concise analysis of major trends and policy issues in present day education systems in different …
A three-day training-cum- workshop for disseminating information on AIDS control was organised by Disha, an NGC, at the New Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The aim was to strengthen governmental efforts at arresting the disease and dispelling doubts and correcting half truths about it through its puppet ensemble. …
