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 Too often, curricula are outdated and narrow.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.
JERUSALEM: The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, Mohammad Hussein, declared that Thursday, March 23, will be the first day of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
RIYADH: The crescent moon was not sighted on Tuesday evening in Saudi Arabia and Thursday, March 23, will be the start of the holy month of Ramadan, the Kingdom’s Supreme Court has said.
The court called on all Muslims in the Kingdom to look for the Ramadan crescent on Tuesday evening that corresponds to Shaban 29, 1444.
The Ministry of Justice announced it has launched an electronic system for crescent sighting “with the aim of automating and governing the moon sighting processes, and unifying work procedures between the courts of first instance and the Supreme Court.”
The service aims to unify the data source of the observatory through a robust electronic system that provides speed and integration with the relevant authorities, raising the quality of the observatory operations, and speeding up the issuance of the Supreme Court’s decision regarding new moon sightings.
More than 1.9 billion Muslims around the world will mark the holy month, during which believers abstain from eating, drinking and smoking from dawn until sunset.
International News
Indian flag pulled down by pro-Khalistani protesters at London mission; MEA summons UK diplomat
The tricolour flying atop the Indian High Commission in London was pulled down by a group of protesters waving Khalistani flags and chanting pro-Khalistani slogans on Sunday evening.
Scotland Yard, headquarters of Metropolitan Police, said it was “aware” of an incident in the area but is yet to issue an official statement.
India has, meanwhile, registered its strong protest with the British government over the safety of its diplomatic mission and questioned the lack of sufficient security at the premises.
Images of shattered windows and men climbing the India House building were circulating on social media and videos from the scene show an Indian official grabbing the flag from a protester through the first-floor window of the mission, while the protester is seen waving a Khalistan flag hanging off its ledge.
MEA summons UK diplomat
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the senior-most UK diplomat in New Delhi was summoned late evening on Sunday to convey India’s “strong protest” at the actions taken by separatist and extremist elements against the Indian High Commission in London.
“An explanation was demanded for the complete absence of the British security that allowed these elements to enter the High Commission premises. She was reminded in this regard of the basic obligations of the UK Government under the Vienna Convention,” the MEA said in a statement.
“India finds unacceptable the indifference of the UK government to the security of Indian diplomatic premises and personnel in the UK. It is expected that the UK Government would take immediate steps to identify, arrest and prosecute each one of those involved in today’s incident, and put in place stringent measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents,” it said.
The banned terrorist organisation, Sikhs For Justice, is conducting a so-called “Referendum 2020” amid a crackdown on pro-Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh in Punjab.
As the Muslim holy month of Ramzan is approaching, Hamas has warned Israel against any change in the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, saying any change “would turn the area into an earthquake”.
Marwan Issa, deputy chief of staff of Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, made the remarks amid warnings of increased tensions between Israel and Palestine, especially in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, reports Xinhua news agency.
“There is no political process, and the enemy (Israel) has annulled Oslo treaties (signed between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993), so that the coming days will be full of events and incidents,” Issa said.
He called for “igniting and supporting resistance action in all Palestine, mainly in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” adding: “We will defend the Palestinian people with all force when direct intervention is required.”
In April 2022, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound witnessed violent clashes between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli police forces when Jews visited the holy s
ite. Dozens of Palestinian worshipers were injured.
The Hamas threats also came amid escalating tensions in the West Bank which flared up in January.
Since January, 84 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have been killed in the ensuing violence.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the most sacred site, is regarded by Muslims as their third holiest site.
The holy site has been administered by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a Jordanian body, since 1948.
Under a 1967 agreement between Israel and Jordan, non-Muslim worshippers can visit the compound but are prohibited from praying there.
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