A couple of links from Dubai's
Gulf News concerning education in Dubai
and India:
- Dubai: Unique Chance to Learn About Great Leadership
Pupils in Dubai secondary schools will have an opportunity to participate in a unique educational, cultural, and scientific competition during the new academic year. The contest is about the book, My Vision: Challenges in the Race for Excellence, by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
The objective of distributing the book to all secondary schools is to create a healthy competition among pupils and to teach the new generation lessons of "great leadership", said Ahmad Al Attar, Executive Director of the "My Vision, My Future" project.
The book offers a detailed account of the vision that transformed Dubai and the UAE into international hubs for commerce and finance. His Highness holds Dubai up as an example of extraordinary development based on excellent leadership, management, teamwork and timely decision-making.
The author, whose personal involvement in the process of development served as the basis for his work, also reflects on the current state of the Arab nation, which he describes as suffering from “a crisis of leadership and management". The book will be released in English in the near future.
- India: Schools "Must Teach Core Values of Life"
Anubha Nijhawan, Principal of the Indian Public High School in Ras Al Khaimah, received the Indian national teacher's award. She said cultural values should be given a prime place in schools.
She believes that traditional values should be revived in schools to enable students to lead their lives with a conscious awareness of their culture. "So that they are able to face the challenges presented to them from all aspects," Nijhawan said.
In her view, nowadays youngsters are highly exposed to media and it could adversely affect their personalities. "The challenge is to maintain the student's personality. Education has a very significant role in teaching students the core values of life," she added. The world, she said, is changing rapidly and there is a keen need to "deepen the importance of maintaining our culture."
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Comments
Dubai has transformed its part of the Arab world. I find it refreshing to look outward to other parts of the world to discuss leadership/management examples. We must become culturally aware and worldly cognizant.
Finally, I was watching CSPAN and one of the former heads of the FCC back in the 1970's was being interviewed. The moderator asked him what led him to want to become involved with the subject of communications. He commented that it was something that another person related to him. He said something to the effect "when I was growing up there were only 3 major influeces on me as a child, my parents, my church, and school. He noted that with his kids since the 1950's, their is another major influence "the television" in my house."
Again, Media plays a massive influence so do maybe it will take all 3 of the other influences to develop counters that effect ie) by impressing values we want our kids to have. I have a saying about this for everyone. I ask myself a simple question: "Am I a better person for spending my time on this." That drives me to watch programs like CSPAN, read sites like Leadership Now, watch Lehrer News Hour, and read quality books." Also, I ask myself "do I have a discerning eye and see what is really being presented in front of me." This often causes me to change the channel from violence for violence sake. However, there are times when violence is part of the story and important "Saving Private Ryan." We need to begin to teach children to become more aware of what they are allowing to influence them, we can't just say, Oh turn that off, because they will find another way to watch it at a friends or turn to another avenue to view it that we do not know about. We just need to help people see their "choices".
Posted by: Matthew Laos | September 16, 2006 01:10 PM