EDUCATION-U.S.: Groups Push Bible on Hitherto Neutral Territory

Despite numerous court setbacks and continuing challenges from civil liberties organizations, right-wing Christian groups are stepping up efforts to introduce the Bible into public school classrooms, saying it already is used as a textbook in 300 school districts nationwide.

EDUCATION: International Recovery Effort Urged for Iraq

The United Nations is urging governments and educators worldwide to rise to the aid of Iraq's colleges and universities, saying that five out of six have been wrecked and warning that failure to rehabilitate them will set back efforts to heal the war-brutalised country.

NEPAL: New School Year Sees Private Schools Targetted by Maoists

As the new school year began this week, the latest targets in Nepal's bloody Maoist insurgency are private schools that the rebels have threatened to bomb if they defy a call to close. This prompted a strong United Nations rebuke, which stated unequivocally that an attack on education and educational institutions is an attack on the next generation of Nepalis.

CHILDREN: Educating Girls – A Wise Investment

If you truly want a significant return on your investment, first of all invest in education, and particularly invest in making sure girls obtain an education, recommends Carol Bellamy.

EDUCATION-NEPAL: Schools Still Beyond Reach for Girls

As the United Nations urged Nepal's government and Maoist rebels to leave school children out of the insurgency that has claimed over 11,000 lives since 1996, UNICEF said Monday the Himalayan kingdom would have difficulty meeting a global goal of getting an equal number of girls and boys in schools.

DEVELOPMENT: Food Aid Comes to a Small Screen Near You

You are in the cockpit of a plane circling over a drought-hit zone. Hungry thousands are waiting below. Their lives are in your hands.

PAKISTAN: Putting Pens in the Hands of Adult Women

To the dismay of her male colleagues, one day Ayesha Solangi, a local counselor decided she wanted to read and write and enrolled herself in an adult literacy programme run by a non-government organisation in her town in Sanghar, a district some 250 kilometers from Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi.

BRAZIL: Lula Promotes Closer South-South Ties on Fourth African Tour

-Promoting South-South cooperation in general, and forging closer ties with Africa, are clearly top priorities for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently on his fourth official African tour since taking office in January 2003.

HEALTH-NAMIBIA: Children Seen As Window of Hope for HIV Prevention

Namibia has identified the need to strengthen sexual health education in school curriculum in response to the threat being posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

EDUCATION-US: Gov’t Woos Tiny Pool of Arabic Students

An acute shortage of Arabic speakers is in danger of crippling U.S. efforts to counter terrorist threats, communicate with prisoners, and build bridges to the Muslim world.

SCIENCE-SOUTH AFRICA: Fair Uses Fun to Make Up for the Past, Plan for Future

For the past week, a historic university town in South Africa's Eastern Cape province has reverberated with some unlikely noises: the sound of rockets igniting, robots chirping and home-made cars racing.

EDUCATION: The Challenge of Humanising Education

From the Chilean capital, the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) launched a call to the world's governments and civil society to emphasise the humanistic side of education and culture through concrete policies that reach directly into the classroom.

BRAZIL: Bringing Deaf Children Into the Educational System

Brazilian engineer Eduardo Monte, 51, who has been deaf since childhood, is a consultant for small companies and is also active in several social projects in Rio de Janeiro.

RIGHTS-SOUTH AFRICA: The San a “Community Fast Losing Hope”

The plight of an indigenous community in South Africa, the San, was placed in the spotlight this week with the launch of a report by the South African Human Rights Commission.

EDUCATION: Fighting Illiteracy, Cuban-Style

"It was like emerging from a tunnel, towards the light," said Eugenia Tua, who learned how to read and write at the age of 65 in Venezuela, where more than 1.3 million adults have left illiteracy behind thanks to a campaign based on a teaching method designed in Cuba.

EDUCATION-LATAM: An Additional 13 Billion Dollars a Year Needed to Meet 2015 Targets

The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean would have to earmark an additional 150 billion dollars over the next 11 years to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in education, according to two United Nations agencies.

RIGHTS-US: Big Brother Thriving in High School Classrooms

While authoritarian states in much of the world routinely jail journalists and others for expressing critical opinions, a high percentage of U.S. high school students believe the government should censor the press and that constitutional protection of free speech goes "too far".

EDUCATION: Italian ‘Godparents’ Sponsor Children in Paraguay

Cristian Núñez, a young Paraguayan who has been "sponsored" by an Italian family since he was five years old, is about to see his dream come true: he will start studying at the university in Asunción, the capital of that South American country, this month, with the aim of becoming an electrical engineer.

EDUCATION-ZIMBABWE: A Dubious Report Card for Grade Zero

Hats a size too large for most of the small heads, formal school uniforms equally incongruous, they march on regardless - the vanguard in an effort to bring pre-schoolers into Zimbabwe's education system.

DEVELOPMENT: Oil-Rich Trinidad Confronts Its Darker Side

It is considered the most economically well-off country in the English-speaking Caribbean.

DEVELOPMENT-SUDAN: The South Starts Picking Up the Pieces

The roads are carpeted by thick layers of dust. Tanks, military trucks and the skeletal remains of buildings dot the landscape. Welcome to Rumbek: the newly-designated administrative capital of southern Sudan.