Sunday, June 21, 2009

Inside Britain's first Hindu state-funded faith school - Education News, Education - The Independent

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    • The pupils do yoga, eat vegetarian food and are calm and alert. But critics say the rise in religious education is divisive and wrong
    • Pupils arrive at the Krishna-Avanti Primary School in north London, where their daily routine includes yoga and healthy snacks of fresh fruit and veg
    • Abbie Trayler-Smith

      Pupils arrive at the Krishna-Avanti Primary School in north London, where their daily routine includes yoga and healthy snacks of fresh fruit and veg

    • the Krishna-Avanti Primary School in Harrow, Britain's first state-funded Hindu faith school, which opened its doors last September.
    • It is one of the latest in a growing number of non-Christian faith schools. And its opening coincides with unprecedented levels of government funding for faith-based education, despite polls suggesting that public support for state-funded faith education is dwindling.
    • Since Labour came to power, faith schools have broadened from being almost exclusively Christian to include Muslim, Sikh and now Hindu institutions.
    • Staff at the Krishna-Avanti stressed that indoctrination is not the school's aim. Naina Parmar, the headmistress, said: "We're certainly not here to proselytise the Hindu faith" – despite morning prayers and yoga being followed by a reading of the Bhagavad Gita.
    • The children here have a vegetarian diet with plenty of yoga and outdoor play. The mid-morning snack is a piece of fruit or raw vegetable – in fact, this may well be the healthiest class in Britain. The effect is impressive: all of the children seem calm and alert beyond their years, listening intently to their teacher.
    • Officially, applications are open to all but priority is given to vegetarians and Hindus; there are currently no non-Hindus on the register.

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Roll back Devaswom Bill, says NSS

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    • CHANGANASSERY: The budget session of the Nair Service Society (NSS) reiterated its demand for a rollback of the proposed Travancore-Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions (Amendment) Bill, 2009.
    • When no such meddling was happening with institutions or worship centres of other religions, it was improper for a government to gain control of Hindu worship centres and institutions alone, and also violated the provisions of Article 26 of the Constitution, it was pointed out.

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Jews and Muslims « Hindu focus

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    • So, why are Jews so powerful?

      Answer: Education.

       

      Why are Muslims so powerless?

    • Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’ , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.
    • So, why are Muslims so powerless?

      Answer: Lack of education.


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