International News
UN calls for end to education gap
The UN’s Transforming Education Summit has offered an opportunity to galvanise global action to recover learning losses and rethink education systems.
With Covid-19 exposing the fault lines of education systems globally, more than 130 countries have committed to rebooting their education systems and accelerating action to end the learning crisis, said the organisers of the summit, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened, reports Xinhua news agency.
Education is in a deep crisis. Instead of being the great enabler, education is fast becoming the great divider, said Guterres in his speech to the opening of the leaders’ meeting day of the summit.
The summit was held on the sidelines of this year’s UN General Assembly high-level week.
Some 70 per cent of 10-year-olds in poor countries cannot read a basic text. Even in developed countries, education systems often entrench rather than reduce inequality, reproducing it across generations. The rich have access to the best resources, schools and universities, leading to the best jobs. At the same time, the poor, especially girls, face huge obstacles to getting the qualifications that could change their lives, said Guterres.
Displaced people and students with disabilities face the highest obstacles of all. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on learning worldwide. But the education crisis began long before, and runs much deeper, he said.
Education systems are failing students and societies. Too often, curricula are outdated and narrow. Education systems take little account of life-long learning. Teachers are under-trained, undervalued and underpaid. The digital divide penalizes poor students. The education financing gap yawns wider than ever, said Guterres.
“We will not end this crisis by simply doing more of the same, faster or better. Now is the time to transform education systems,” he said.
The UN chief called for action in five areas to transform education.
First, more work is needed to protect the right to quality education for everyone, especially girls, everywhere.
He said today’s teachers need to be facilitators in the classroom, promoting learning rather than merely transmitting answers.
“We also need to tackle the global shortage of teachers, and look at increasing their quality by raising their status and ensuring they have decent working conditions and continuous training and learning opportunities and receive adequate salaries,” he said.
Schools must also become safe, healthy spaces with no place for violence, stigma or intimidation. Education systems should promote the physical and mental health of all students, including their sexual and reproductive health, he said, adding that the digital revolution must benefit all learners.
He said that none of the above will be possible without a surge in education financing and global solidarity.
Guterres and Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for global education, launched the International Facility on Financing for Education during the summit, a first-of-its-kind tool that aims to mobilize $10 billion to help 700 million children in lower-middle-income countries to access quality education.
The tool combines direct grants and guarantees that can multiply donor resources.
It uses donor guarantees to provide a new form of quasi-equity to multilateral development banks, which can raise additional financing in capital markets and provide funding to countries for education.
Setting out a vision statement at the summit, he called on countries to revisit the purposes of education, proposing that curricula must respond to broad purposes, including learning to learn, learning to live together, learning to do and learning to be.
Tehran, Aug 31: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Monday it had launched a combined missile and drone strike on US air bases in Jordan in retaliation for the US-Israeli aerial attacks on Iran’s Larak Island Sunday night.
The Iranian military targeted “technical and maintenance infrastructure,” as well as areas where “enemy fighter jets” were stationed at the King Hussein and Al-Azraq US bases in Jordan, inflicting heavy damage, Iran’s Fars news agency reported, citing an IRGC statement.
“Aggression and crimes will not solve the enemy’s desperation in attempting to weaken the Islamic Republic’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, and every attack will be met with even more devastating responses,” the statement said.
The reported attack followed a US strike on two IRGC rocket launchers on Larak Island, an Iranian island positioned near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
US forces on Sunday struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, US Central Command spokesperson Tim Hawkins said, marking the first known US strike against Iran since late July.
“Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into Strait of Hormuz,” Hawkins said in a statement, adding that the US military was “monitoring the area closely and remains prepared to protect the free flow of commerce” through the strategic waterway.
Larak Island is a small Iranian island located off the coast of Bandar Abbas, east of Qeshm Island and south of Hormuz Island.
IRGC said multiple military personnel and civilians were killed or wounded Sunday night in a “US-Israeli” attack on Iran’s southern Larak Island in Hormozgan province, reports Xinhua news agency.
In a statement published by its official news outlet, Sepah News, the IRGC vowed that the attack would be met with “punishment for the aggressor.”
Citing unofficial reports, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said that at least two people were killed and two others injured in what it described as a US “drone attack” on the island.
Kathmandu, Aug 31: An Indian tunnel rescue team is continuing its search and rescue operations to save the lives of people trapped inside tunnels of different hydropower projects following the devastating floods in the Bhote Koshi River last week, the Indian Embassy said on Monday.
“The tunnel rescue team from India worked with the Nepali Army’s team to conduct search and rescue operations at hydropower tunnel sites in the Chilime and Langtang areas today,” the embassy said, adding that the team would continue search and rescue operations in close coordination with the Nepali Army.
According to the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN), a representative association of private-sector power developers, a total of 897 people employed at 11 hydropower projects in the flood-affected districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot have been out of contact.
According to Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), seven Indian and 15 Chinese nationals who were trapped in hydropower projects were rescued on Sunday.
At the request of the Nepali government, Indian and Chinese tunnel technicians arrived in Nepal and have been engaged in rescue efforts to evacuate people trapped inside hydropower tunnels.
On Sunday, the Indian team was involved in rescue efforts at different hydropower projects, according to statements from Nepali government authorities and IPPAN.
The Secretariat of the Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation said that the Indian team that arrived to assist with the rescue operation conducted an initial aerial reconnaissance of the Chilime and Langtang areas by helicopter and plans to undertake further rescue operations as required.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah said in a Facebook post late Sunday evening that an Indian team conducted reconnaissance at the Chilime Hydropower Project (22MW) in Rasuwa in coordination with the Nepal Army and carried out rescue efforts after taking pumps and excavators to the site.
However, the rescue operation at the Chilime project on Sunday was halted after another flood swept away structures that had survived the previous flood in the dam area, according to IPPAN.
“At the Langtang Khola Hydropower Project in Rasuwa, the Nepal Army conducted search-and-rescue patrols,” the Prime Minister said. “An Indian team has also conducted reconnaissance in coordination with the Nepal Army and has begun additional work after bringing pumps and excavators to the site.”
International News
In special gesture, Uzbekistan President Mirziyoyev receives PM Modi at Tashkent airport
Tashkent, Aug 29: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tashkent Saturday evening, kicking off his two-day State Visit to the Central Asian nation. In a special gesture, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev received PM Modi at the airport, highlighting the friendship between both countries that has grown immensely over the last 12 years.
During his visit, PM Modi will hold delegation-level talks with President Mirziyoyev, advancing the shared developmental visions of Viksit Bharat 2047 and Uzbekistan-2030.
“In recent years, India-Uzbekistan Strategic Partnership has seen significant advancement. I look forward to my discussions with President Mirziyoyev on further deepening our cooperation in trade and investment, digital connectivity, defence, energy, and on advancing our shared visions of Viksit Bharat and Yangi Uzbekistan,” PM Modi said in his departure statement.
Prime Minister Modi said that he will also visit the Shastri Memorial and the Mahatma Gandhi Centre at the Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies, which he called “a tribute to the close cultural and people-to-people ties” that bind India and Uzbekistan together.
People of Uzbekistan have been eagerly looking forward to welcoming PM Modi in Tashkent and hope that his visit will add new momentum to the friendly ties between both countries.
“Welcome Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. We Uzbek people are very happy to hear the news of your arrival. We wish that the friendly ties between the two countries keep on growing…..Jai Hind, Jai Bharat, Jai Uzbekistan,” an Uzbek woman said ahead of PM Modi’s arrival.
This will be PM Modi’s fourth visit to Uzbekistan. He had earlier visited Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries in 2015, followed by visits in 2016 and 2022 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summits.
India and Uzbekistan have maintained extensive and fruitful engagements both in bilateral and multilateral formats over the past many years. The Uzbek President visited India for a State Visit in 2018, and he also participated in the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in 2019.
From Tashkent, PM Modi will travel to Bishkek at the invitation of Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Zhaparov to participate in the 26th SCO Summit, marking 25 years of the organisation.
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