Indiana Department Of Education

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Madrassa education board by May if govt-cleric talks pass

KARACHI: A nationwide madrassa education board would be established by May this year if talks between the federal government and a five-member madrassa alliance prove successful, said an official Saturday.

Federal secretary for religious affairs, Wakeel Ahmed Khan, was of the opinion that the talks between the federal government and the Ittehad Tanzeematul Madaris Deeniya Pakistan (ITMDP) have been 90 percent successful. Representing the madrassas, the ITMDPs Qari Hanif Jhalandari was, however, less optimistic and said that they had been only 50 percent successful. In fact, the last meeting on the madrassa education board that took place in the last week of February, ended inconclusively according to him.

Another meeting is scheduled for the second week of March but a date has yet to be set, he said.

Searching for our lost libido

Mating in Captivity - Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss is part sociological study, part voyeurism, and elegantly, if not erotically, written. It hit the bestseller lists in the winner-takes-all self-improvement US last year and sold out in a week in curtain-twitching England. It's doing well in tactile Brazil and hits Australian shores in March.

Perel, 48, married for 25 years and a mother of two, lives in New York but grew up in Belgium. She's a heady combination of liberal European views, who speaks eight languages and has a 20-year casebook of clients with every possible permutation on the modern marriage. Her book has already been translated into 14 languages, which shows the professional classes, at least across the West, are identifying with a modern conundrum she lays bare.

Program at Leesburg High teaches ropes of life after school

LEESBURG -- Hopes and dreams may have come one step closer to reality for some students enrolled in High School/High Tech.

High School/High Tech is a nationwide program that assists students with a variety of disabilities between ages 14 and 22 make the transition from high school to work or additional education.

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Making music despite progressive hearing loss in both ears

Working toward his doctorate in musical arts at West Virginia University, Yew Choong Cheong has a few things in common with Ludwig van Beethoven.

For starters, they're both talented pianists.

Recently awarded the 2007 International Young Soloists Award by VSA arts, Cheong, 28, won a $5,000 scholarship to continue music education and an invitation to play the piano at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. VSA arts is an international, nonprofit society for people with disabilities to participate in and enjoy the arts.

Then there's the disability. Like Beethoven, Cheong makes music despite progressive hearing loss affecting both ears.

Cheong wears a hearing aid, but he cannot use the telephone, and face-to-face conversations are sometimes difficult.

Budgetary allocation for children's welfare inadequate, say activists

NEW DELHI: Child rights activists expressed unhappiness over the "inadequate" allocations for children's welfare in the Union Budget, particularly in the wake of the Nithari killings, an incident that focussed attention on the need to safeguard children's rights. Of every Rs. 100 in the Union Budget, only Rs. 4.84 was set aside for children, according to HAQ: Centre for Child Rights. The Union Finance Minister reduced the allocation for children this year as against last year, when he had allocated Rs. 4.90. Despite claims to increase the social sector allocation, particularly for education and health, the child's share reduced by 1.23 per cent, the HAQ said. `No holistic approach' Education and child protection received better allocations in the budget compared to child health and child development.

Wilkes University drops PCs, goes all Mac

Apple is continuing to make strides in the education market, despite some recent negative remarks by Apple CEO Steve Jobs regarding teachers' unions. Bolstering reports of Macs rebounding on college campuses, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Wilkes University, a higher education institution located in Pennslyvania has announced that it plans to get rid of all its Windows-based computers in the next three years and replace them with Macs. "The university has an enrollment of less than 5,000, and any student who wants to use a PC will have to bring his or her own." University officials also plan to convert its existing computing infrastructure to Macs, the report said. The Wilkes computer labs, which now house 1,700 computers of both varieties, will be made all Mac in a project that is expected to cost $1.4 million.

He wants results, not more red tape

TALLAHASSEE - Freshman Sen. Don Gaetz, the new chairman of the Senate Education Committee, raised eyebrows in the state Capitol last month when he publicly blasted a top Department of Education official over Florida's teacher-bonus plan.

Gaetz sat down recently for an interview with St.