Parliamentarians Christmas Get Together - Delhi

Christmas Get Together & Dinner for Parliamentarians was held on 4th December 2007 at Delhi. His excellency the vice president Dr. Mohammed Hameed Ansari, the Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Sing, & the Honorable Chief Minister of Delhi Mrs. Sheila Dixit attended the function along with several members of parliament and dignitaries from various fields.

Dr. Augustine F. Pinto, the Chairman of Ryan International Group of Institutions shared the massage of Christmas. Christmas is a time of giving and a time to “Celebrate” the gift of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated all over the world irrespective of nation, race, tribe, language or class as the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gift of Christmas is open to each & every one. It is a gift of love, a promise of hope. Jesus was born in a manger, worshipped by shepherds & wise men, He brought a massage of peace for the world & so Christmas isn’t Christmas till we put Christ in the center of our lives. With these words he wished one and all a Very Happy & Joyous Christmas.

A Leap towards quality education

In an age where fierce compe tition over academic excellence is laying grounds to deteriorate the quality of ed ucation, Ryan International School, Gore gaon has proved it otherwise when it was adjudged the top ranking school in the state and 16th best in the country in a re cently released survey conducted by Ed ucation World- IMRB (Indian Market Re search Bureau).

The felicitation ceremony involved a panel discussion on 'Nurturing the Fu ture Leaders', which was addressed by Jitender Balakrishnan, deputy manag ing director, IDBI Bank Ltd, Charles As sisi, business editor, Times of India, Anil Singhvi, markets editor, CNBC Awaaz and Dilip Thakore, editor, Education World. The focus of the discussion mod erated by George Koshy, CNN-IBN re volved around several aspects concern ing upgradation and excellence of edu cation, which emphasized on the need of a synergy between the corporate, acade mia and media for an effective education system for future generation students.

The host of the programme, Ryan In ternational Group of schools, spear headed by Dr Augustine Pinto said, "It is our vision to be a premier global educa tional institution and provide all round development qualities in all our students. This ranking is a proof of our efforts in this direction."

While Thakore pointed out at the alarming statistics of education in India, he remarked, "Corporate organisations need to pitch in and interact or form train ing centres within educational institu tions to supplement teachers' training programmes and curriculum develop ment." To this, Balakrishnan responded, "We need to introspect our education sys­tem deeply and rethink on the existent policies and corresponding needs of the society. We need to have institutions that offer a professional cutting edge to our students to make them global citizens and at the same time, plan to reach out at the rural levels. "

When a parent from the audience raised her concerns on the dearth of ex perienced and well-trained teachers due to poor salaries, Thakore replied, "The only solution here is to increase our spending on education, so that we can hire qualified teachers for our students and retain them too." He also envisioned ways to take education topmost on the national agenda.

Charles Assisi opined that media can playa critical role in the overall devel opment of students and is equally re sponsible for shaping their career goals. He also responded to the reservation is sue saying, "Affirmative reservation will only help to bring the deprived sections of the society to mainstream education." While Anil Singhvi pointed out that an increasing number of parents burden their students by expecting them to ex cel in academics, he also urged them "to identify a child's potential, his/her area of interest and further encourage them to do what they are best at." Koshy rein stated that establishing a positive syner gy among corporate organizations, aca demia, media and government would leave a promising mark behind for oth ers to take the cue and follow.

Dr Augustine Pinto made a valuable point, "It is very easy to play the blame game or point a finger at what is not be ing done. Instead, each one of us should be proactive and implement the 'each one teach one' programme that we intend to take forward from this year." The thought provoking session ended on a promising note that where there is a confident will, there is a definite way.