Petition Tag - primary

The Tasmanian Labor Party wishes to close down this vital part of our growing community to reclaim money that was over spent whilst being in government.

Warrane Primary School is located on Cambridge Road in spacious grounds and has a long and Proud tradition of serving the educational needs of families from Warrane, Mornington and Flagstaff Gully. The campus has long been seen as a Centre of Learning in the area with Adult Education and the University of the Third Age being co-located within the school grounds. Whilst considerably smaller now, than in past years, the current enrolment of 149 students allows for a full range of educational and social programs in a supportive and pastoral environment.

Warrane has currently undergone a refurbishment of all classrooms. This has provided the whole school with modern state of the art teaching and learning spaces. Combine this with small class numbers, an exceptionally skilled teaching staff and varied specialist programs including Music, Physical Education and Japanese, and an excellent learning environment exists at Warrane Primary. Our school community strongly believes that the teaching of Literacy and Numeracy is everyone's responsibility.

Our programs feature an emphasis on one to one student intervention in the early childhood years with programs like Reading Recovery and "Bridges". Teacher assistants and senior staff are utilised in all classes during our ""Literacy Block"" to lower the teacher-pupil ratio ensuring effective teaching and learning for all students. This has been enhanced by Warrane Primary School continued participation in the Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap state government initiative. The addition of an Assistant Principal and a specialist literacy team to the school's leadership team further enhances the school's ability to keep class sizes lower and deliver a quality educational program to all students.

Early intervention and building solid relationships with families before their children reach school age continues to be high priority. Launching into Learning activities for the 0–4 age group continue to be highly successful.

Warrane Primary continues to strive towards providing an inviting, safe and nurturing physical environment for students. The major infrastructure program include the refurbishment of both primary end early childhood playgrounds under the "Pride in our Schools" program and the Library, Music and Administration redevelopments under the "Building the Education Revolution" program. It is considered the HUB of our community located within walking distance for around 80% of our students Keep our SCHOOL OPEN and keep our community CONNECTED.

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Westbury Primary School was established in 1839. TheTasmanian Labor Party wishes to close down this vital part of our growing community to reclaim money they have over spent while being in government

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Franklin Primary School has a proud and rich history. It is the pride of the Huon and has been around for 150 years. The school is highly respected and well known for its energetic, hard-working energetic students and teachers and its famous big tree.

It has received numerous grants to upgrade its library, administration office, main entrance and foyer. The upgraded area received the People's Choice Award in the 2011 Tasmanian Architecture Awards. It has also built a large shade area in line with with the schools sun smart policy and just recently installed new play equipment. The school has established a sail training program and it won a District (Hartz) Award in 2003 "in recognition of a successful volunteer partnership between the school, the Living Boat Trust and the community."

The school has had an ongoing relationship for many years with the local aged care facility where young and old get together regularly enriching both their lives.

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The unadopted access road to Rivermead School has become a dangerous environment for the children at school opening and closing times.

Having carried out several observations of the movements of traffic and children at these times and witnessing some near misses, it is clear that for the safety of the children, that traffic should be prohibited at these times.

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Classroom Assistants and Clerical Staff were called to a meeting today with their Head teachers today (9th February 2011) and we were advised that we should be aware of the next set of job cuts to come from Fife Council. We were told to expect cuts in our hours, and a possibility of redundancies.

So once again education is being hit hard. First the playground supervisors, now lollipop men/women, classroom assistants and clerical staff but, who is it that is going to suffer? Not the powers that be at Fife Council who are making all these decisions but the children. Do the people who make these decisions have any idea how a school is run and just how much support staff are required to run the school effectively? Have they come in and shadowed a classroom assistant to see what their role entails?

Gone are the days of cleaning out paint pots. I personally feel we make a huge difference in schools. Why not ask the Head teachers and the teachers to see how they would feel if they lost the support of their classroom assistant. I also urge parents to question this decision because it's their children who will not be getting the extra support that some of them may require to keep them on task. We don't want to go back years ago when children just slipped through the net because there was not enough staff to support the needs of the school.

We work with children of all abilities including the same children that a Pupil  Support 2 works with (who are on a higher grade) but I do it because that is what the needs of my school are and at the end of the day we are there to support the teacher and the pupils. 

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Essex County Council has announced to parents that it is to make it's school bus escorts redundant from Easter 2011.

It's decision raises many safety concerns with the County's parents and we are urging them to reverse their decision.

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In 2008 millions of voters were disenfranchised in the Republican Primary. Due to the length of the primary season, many of the candidates had dropped out leaving the voters in the states that hold their primaries later in the season, with little or no choice.

For the 2012 primary, we would like to see more debates with candidates and then hold just One Primary in which everyone can vote for their favorite candidate.

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Islamia Primary School is hoping to build a new two-storey school on part of its existing site, to provide 21st century education and learning opportunities for its pupils. The current school was built over one hundred years ago and the buildings no longer meet pupil or teacher needs. Islamia Primary is also an extremely popular and over-subscribed school, on average receiving ten applications for every place available, and it urgently needs to expand to cater for the current pupils on roll and to meet the growing demand for places across the borough.

Islamia Primary School’s site has always been used for educational purposes. The school itself was founded in 1983 by Dr Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens). In 1989, it moved to its present site at 129 Salusbury Road. Nine years later, it became the first Muslim school in England to be awarded grant maintained status, which meant that the vast majority of the school's funding came from central government. The following year it opted to become a voluntary aided school, in 2007 the school took on an additional 138 pupils, following the closure of The Avenue School in Brondesbury Park. The main site at Salusbury Road is also shared with an independent Muslim girl's secondary school, which occupies the entire first and second floor of the buildings, and parts of the ground floor. This school is not part of the re-development proposal. The rebuild is needed as the existing buildings are leaky, not energy efficient, not compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and are spread out on many different levels, with stepped access and no lift. The proposed new building will provide easy access for all pupils and adults, including those with visual and hearing impairments and those with special educational needs (SEN), including speech, language and communication difficulties, and severe learning disabilities. The proposed new school will provide these pupils with a dedicated room and space for educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and school nurses to come in and offer support. In general all the facilities at the site are inadequate for a modern school.

The new school plan is to build a new, modern and inspirational school, which will meet the needs of current and future generations of pupils. The building will reflect the school's faith and its ethos and will allow improved links with the local community, by opening its facilities at set times out of school hours. For example, by providing space for adult education, health and fitness and a canteen, which can be used by parents.

There will also be:
Fourteen new classrooms, a dedicated children's library, a specialist teaching room for SEN, an enlarged roof-top play area, a dedicated prayer area, landscaped areas and additional outdoor learning spaces for all children , a children's gym.

From September 2011 new pupils attending Islamia Primary School will have to live within the catchment area of the school, which will mean significantly less pupils travelling in from outside the borough. Currently 40 per cent of pupils come in from neighbouring boroughs.

The school is urgently fundraising for this development.

Key questions
http://www.brent.gov.uk/cfd.nsf/School%20improvement/LBB-783

Contact for questions and queries
For all questions on the proposed scheme please email info@islamia.brent.sch.uk

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Brent Council intends to grant planning permission that would lead to an 800 place complex of schools on the site of Islamia Schools, Salusbury Road NW6. However the plans are in direct contravention of policies in transport, sustainability and local amenity.

Key statutory and local bodies have not been consulted. The project is falsely presented as the building of a single 400 place primary but it in fact opens the door to an 800 place school. Transport for London guidelines on assessing traffic have been ignored, so the plans evade the impact of up to 1200 car journeys daily in an area where 1700 pupils are already at schools within a 300 m radius.

The admissions policies on which the plans will depend have not been published. It disregards the Grade II listed site beside it and has not consulted English Heritage, as is required in such cases. It grossly overdevelops a school site originally devised for around 200 pupils, and provides wholly inadquate play space for the 800 children who would be accommodated there. It has removed sport and ball-playing space for building, and not replaced it.

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This petition is to demonstrate support for the campaign for a Montessori Primary School in Lewisham. The campaign is driven by the need for more reception class places in the borough and a commitment to the right to choose the Montessori method.

A new Montessori state school would provide parents with more choice and benefit children through a distinct method of teaching that has proved hugely successful in many schools around the world for more than 100 years. To keep up to date with our campaign see our Facebook page here:
http://tinyurl.com/lmp-school

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It’s time to put the power in the hands of the voters, not the political parties. We, independent voters of Ohio, call for the enactment of a Nonpartisan Open Primary system.

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The Greek Nursery and Primary School of London was established in 1983. From its current premises, which were bought during the Andrea’s Papandreou government has operated since 1988. It is the only full time Greek school in Britain and currently operates with 62 children.

It provides education from 3.5 years old up to 12 years old. The school programme is based on the Greek Educational Curriculum of 5 periods every day and 2 periods of English based on the British Educational Curriculum.

The Greek Government is proposing to get rid of a number of teachers and merge classes with less than 8 children to one class regardless of which year the pupils attend. The photograph above displays the 1st, 3rd and 5th grade of the school on its premises.

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The government bailed out many business places against the will of the people. We as Americans have been abused by congress as they go against the voices of Americans, congress has caused a great part of this recession and why should we allow these people to take our future and monies from our children especially when the congress has decided to give banks the run and say to create mortgages for the lower income people to have homes , but also have the fed banks write loans like 80/20 loans with no money down yet the loans were either compromised to go either way especially when a family wanted a thirty year fix rate they would get one but the trick was either on the regular primary note or the junior loan which was set at a high rate locked in for 30 years at 13%.

Then told with two mortgages once you were signed into it later you wouldn`t be able to refinance because you have one loan even though you have two mortgages, then they gave you a two year arm at 7.0250% nthen after two years up it went. They used language to make you feel as though you had a good mortgage fix for thirty years, but no where to be found on the primary note. The language was the killer and people trusted the lender and they took millions for the money,and now the bail out money is buying the mortgages back.

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Pupils are being taught outright in a foreign tongue (English). Students in secondary level are forbidden - being fined if they speak in their mother tongue (Iluko in Northern Luzon, Philippines) and even in Filipino - our national language! in Metro-Manila colleges & universities.) Competencies in mother tongue should be encouraged - must be legislated.

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Millions of Democrats who voted in this year's record-breaking primary season did so with inadequate and misleading information on the family history, political beliefs, affiliations, religious background, ties to criminals and terrorists, lack of understanding of rudimentary foreign policy matters, associations with racists and crackpots, failure to develop a coherent and consistent policy on any substantive matter facing the nation, lack of principles, lack of judgment, failure to admit errors, tendency to blame others for his own failings, failure to inquire and adjust his policies despite clearly changed conditions in Iraq, radicalism and anti-patriotism, ignorant promotion of economic policies opposed by virtually all economists, and routine lies, misstatements, backtracking, flip-flopping, false accusations, claims of victimhood, manipulation, selective editing and routine smearing of his opponents' statements and positions by the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party, BARACK HUSSAIN OBAMA.

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It is more and more imperative now to enfranchise the youth of today.

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The Democratic Primary Race has continued for way to long. Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama are dragging out the race and causing the Democratic Party to fracture from the inside out.

Polls are showing more and more Democrats becoming discontent with the person they do not support. McCain is rallying support from around the country and rapidly gaining ground on both Democratic candidates.

We need to end this race now.

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Gore and Carter are Considering Asking Hillary to Step Aside preventing Millions of Voices from being Heard. Carter who touts Democracy around the world wants to strong arm Hillary Clinton into quitting the race.

Former VP Gore who has raised $300 Million dollars to promote Global Warming Awareness wants to risk all this to stop Americans from Voting? The same man who saw the Presidency stolen from him by disenfranchising thousands of Floridians!

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Besthorpe Primary School is a small rural school in Nottinghamshire for children between the ages of 4-11 which is currently under threat of closure.

See http://www.besthorpeprimaryschool.ik.org/home.ikml

'Save Besthorpe Primary School Action Group’ is a small committed team comprising of; parents, teachers, school governors and community supporters determined to do everything we can to save the school from closure and ensure this school remains open for our children.

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Ron Paul had two precincts, Sutton and Greenville, that BOTH claimed to receive ZERO votes for him in the recent New Hampshire primary.

In the same ballot Rudy Giuliani received many more votes than would be expected for a candidate with no momentum from previous primaries and very low poll numbers in a state where he did not see fit to even campaign.

Barack Obama received significantly less votes than was predicted in the vast majority of polls whilst Hillary Clinton received significantly more votes than were predicted.

This coupled with the statistical analyses demonstrating that BOTH candidates potentially lost HUGE numbers of votes when comparing hand counts to machine counts (91% of the vote in New Hampshire was machine counted) should, in the interests of ensuring that a true representation of the will of the people is reflected in the results, be enough to drive any Paul or Obama supporter to sign this petition, regardless of party or candidate affiliation.

Given that both men are running for the office of President of the United States, an office that exists solely of the people, for the people and by the people, one assumes that they will both accept this request and represent the will of the people to demand this recount should enough signatures be accumulated.

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Ron Paul needs our support on all levels. Today, the very first primary, will set a tone for the whole election. If Ron Paul wins a landslide victory, then the mainstream media will be forced to give him attention.

Today may be the most important day of our entire life. We have never had an opportunity like this to elect a president who is sparking a grassroots freedom movement which is growing daily.

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I have been told by my 7 yr old school that under no circumstances will my child, or any other child whose school has healthy schools status, be allowed to drink anything but plain water during the school day.

After explaining to the school that my son refuses to drink plain water and that he could become ill if he becomes dehydrated, i told them i would be sending him in with watered down flavoured water, with the least amount of anything added.

The head mistress replied to tell me this is completely unacceptable and said quote; ''I am deeply concerned and extremely disappointed by, the fact that, after careful consideration and thought you have decided it is acceptable to make decisions concerning your child, which contravenes schools policy, without even discussing the matter with me.'' And; ''I would strongly urge you, therefore, to reconsider the decision you have made as i cannot allow any child to drink flavoured water as it contravenes our Healthy Schools Status.'' I'm sorry but when my child's health is concerned i WILL make decisions without asking schools permission.

I have asked for her to offer an alternative to water to make sure kids are getting fluids but its water or nothing apparently due to government guidelines. I am going to try everything in my power to have this ridiculous situation reversed before someone gets ill.

Please sign this petition and get all your friends and family if you believe kids have rights and agree with the above, thanks.

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Primary Project was started at West Canada over 20 years ago to help students develope positive self images, establish appropriate social skills, and reduce behaviors that interfere with there learning.

This program is a one on one learning enviroment that enables children increase each of these goals.

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Parents concerned about decant arrangements for the new school building programme.

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Nottingham City Council are proposing to close Elms Primary & Nursery school, following a revised proposal for the reorganisation of Primary schools in the St Ann's and Mapperley areas in Nottingham.

The Local Authority is thinking of closing down our school because there are too few pupils.

We strongly believe the closing our school is wrong and will have a detrimental impact on our children and the local community.

About Elms:
72% of parents rate the Elms "very good" or better (annual survey 2006).
Recently renovated outdoor multi-use games area.
"Elms is an effetive school" - OFSTED Report 2004.
International Schools Award recipient 4 years running.

What Parents are saying:
"The Local Authority chose this school for my autistic son because of its outstanding inclusion policies"
"This school has been the best of all the schools that any of my four children have attended"
"We travel by bus 30 minutes everyday to get to the Elms because my children don't want to leave".

Please sign our petition.

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Headingley Primary School in Leeds has just been closed by the Council. The lovely old buildings are of the right size and situation to provide an excellent and much needed resource for the community.

Local residents are keen to ensure that such a resource would be developed and used in this way. Instead the council may sell the buildings to the highest bidder which would price local residents out of the market.

We are asking the council to put the interests and wishes of the community before those of developers.

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This petition is in response to the proposal for 27% reservation quota in favor of the backward classes by HRD Minister Arjun Singh.

This letter voices the strong opposition to this recent proposal, and is not by any means, must be seen as an evidence of contempt towards the SC/ST/OBC. In the form of this letter, we attempt to initiate the realization of the major flaws in the whole system.

To do so, we require to carefully examine the legal, economical and the logical aspects as to why these quota reservations could pose a major threat to the well being of our country.

Need for Reservation- Reality or Myth?
The basic motive was to give the students belonging to the SC/ST/OBC equal opportunities because of their social disadvantages and lack of resources & exposure.

We need to ask ourselves: Has this motive been accomplished by the said reservation quotas?? Ask any doctor or engineer who has graduated with the tag of 'quota' and it will be clear that the procedure has failed to achieve genuine equality, depriving us from the Fundamental Right to Equality.

Constitution and Reservation:
Where articles 15 and 16 ensure every citizen freedom and equality before law, the unpractical provisions for reservation only highlight the contradictions in the machinery of the government.

Reservations were a part of the constitution when it was released in 1950. However, that was supposed to be a temporary measure and was to last for 10 years.

Part XVI of the Constitution makes certain reservations for the SC/ ST/ OBC for their election in the Legislative Assemblies and the House of People. Article 334 expressly provides that the reservations and special representations will cease after a period of fifty years. An Amendment (79th amendment w.e.f. 25-1-2000) to the Constitution in 1999 extended this time frame of fifty years to sixty years. Is this justified? Isn't this detrimental to the interests of the general members of the country who will now consider themselves unfortunate for not being tagged as "depressed" classes.

More than 50 years later the reservations continue to exist and have only become higher with passing years. The politicians, in an attempt to woo more votes from the public, continue to reserve more and more seats for SCs/ STs/ OBCs. This makes us feel as if the government covers its vested interests and political peripherals in the large cloak of democracy.

Certain Consequence of Reservation Regime:
The following are the sure consequences in case if the reservation regime is passed inspite of major oppositions by the IITs, and IIMs:

• The caste-hatred in the country will increase, leading to aggravated tensions in the IIT and IIM class rooms.

• Youngsters will lose faith in the democratic system of the country. If vote banks are so important to our politicians then we assure them that they'd lose a considerable part of it. We will not stay unplugged.

• The benefit of reservation is always lapped up by the quota-students coming into the creamy layer, not being entitled for reservation, while candidates who may be more meritorious miss out on those seats. Such candidates might decide to go abroad, considering their encroachment of opportunities, to accomplish their further studies. This results in India losing talented people, who could have been the country's future.

• The quota system, created to facilitate the poor, ends up wrongly being utilized by children of rich people, ministers and IAS officers belonging to SC/ST/OBC. The government and the ministers need to sit and carefully analyze the possible effects on their moves.

• Quota helps students secure seat, not degree. This is a hard truth.

• Brain Drain- With the reservation regime being proposed with ease and pomp, most of the parents are pushing their children to pursue their academics from institutions abroad sans the inequality and the so called privileged treatment confined only to the "depressed" classes. This will result in a major brain drain. There will be a time when we'll have to have reservation.

• It is a well known fact that Where there is a Will, there is a way. If a certain member of the so called SC/ ST/ OBCs is really deserving and hard working then he/ she will surely rise through the ranks. There are already a lot of opportunities. People don't ask you now whether or not you are a member of SC/ ST/ OBCs if you're hard working enough. Then why should the SC/ ST/ OBCs come out and expressly mention their caste details in order to be treated in a privileged manner? Dr. Ambedkar, too, worked his way to the top in an era that was plagued with inequality and untouchability sans the reservation and quota policy. It is surprising to not to know any famous person who has reached the heights that Dr. Ambedkar himself has reached inspite of the quota tainted five decades. This is the biggest failure of the concept of Reservation.

• Most quota students are not able to meet the standards of IITs, IIMs or other Indian institutes which are now globally acknowledged. These places of learning will have to bring down their standards and compromise on quality, which will, as an end-result affect the efficient development of the nation. It remains to be seen if the politicians consider their vote banks as important or the economic development of their country and the integrity of the constitution.

• The placements of these revered institutes too bear the brunt.

Some statistics that highlight that Reservation Regime will lead nowhere:

• The majority of quota students have failed to achieve even average performance:
o At IIM-Lucknow in 2004-05, large number of quota students failed to clear PG prog-I
o At GSVM Medical College, Kanpur, 50%admitted under quota flunk this year,35% get grace marks.
o 60% students fail to clear BSc exam,50% BCom and 40% BA under Allahabad University.

• The government might be pushing for reservations for OBCs, but as things stand on the ground, even the 22.5% quota (SC/ST) in higher educations remains unfilled.

• DATA collected by HRD Ministry for 2003-04 (latest figures available) show that the total number of students in higher educational institutes-a little over one crore-only 16% are SCs/ST. Which clearly means even with the existing quota, 6.5% of reserved seats are going vacant.

• The ministry's data on admission says:
o In classes 1 to 5, as many as 27% of students are from SC/ST category.
o In higher classes, heir number reduces - so that only 24% SC/ST students remain in class 5 to 8, and just 19.1% in class 12.
o Of the 1489 seats in IIMs, 16.4% are filled up by SC/ST students.
o In IITs,it is about 18%.

• Even now more than 60% of the students, whose performance are discussed in the Student Review Committee meetings of IIT Delhi, belong to the reserved categories.

o The cumulative grade point average of these students hovers in 5-6.5 range.
o This despite the fact that a one year preparatory course in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics is conducted for them.

• Moreover, its not just academics that suffer in the hands of reservation. We feel that government is dragging down the level of premier institutions instead of trying to bring them up to international levels.

Alternative solutions to the hike in quota:

• The number of seats in premier institutes may be increased, but then the quality of education should not be hampered, to attain which, it will be necessary to increase the teaching faculty as well along with the infrastructure.

• The unavailability of seats is not as big a problem to the SC/ST/OBC as their financial crunch is. Assistance may be provided in the forms of scholarships.

• The expenditure on higher and technical education is 0.4% and 0.1% of GDP, respectively. This should be raised.

• Progeny of those who have got a position through quota should be denied the same privilege. One 'quota-case' in every family is sufficient.

• The misuse of the quota by the powerful and the rich should be taken care of. Proper investigations and checks must be undertaken by the ministers who so loudly advocate the reservation regime.

• The level of primary and secondary education must be boosted. All the problems start from primary level itself, if a student does not have a strong base, then he cannot complete higher education successfully.

• The government should make efforts to uplift backward classes by strengthening the educational base of these classes at the primary level. Caste does not define how intelligent a person is. Rather it is differences in resources and exposure.

• The government should start some campaigns to ensure that students from all sections of society are encouraged to pursue studies atleast till 12th standard.

• Reservations in premier institutes are of no use unless creamy layer of students is kept out of it.

Merit V/s Quota
* FICCI president Y K Modi on September 4, 2004: "No where in the world is there reservation in the private sector".

* CII president Anand Mahindra on May 31, 2004: "The concept of reservation without reference to merit could have a distorting effect on the operations of the private sector".

* Ratan Tata: "Though I do not want to comment on it (reservation), it is bad in some way, it will tend to divide the country into different groups." " While uplift of socially backward classes is important, merit is an important aspect and should not be compromised"

* Assocham president K Sanghi on June 14, 2004: "It will have a far reaching impact on the industry as it may completely destroy the meritocracy in such units and bring inefficiency".

* FICCI president Y K Modi on September 04, 2004: "We oppose it as the move is against industrialisation and will lead to job reduction".

* NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik on May 31, 2004: "It will completely destroy the meritocracy in the private sector".

* Pune-based Alfa Laval India's MD Satish Tondon on August 08, 2004: "If I employ 1,000 staff, 5 per cent reservation would mean I have to recruit 50 people I may not need".

In the end we'd like to mention that the upliftment of socially backward classes is important, merit is an important aspect and should not be compromised. If the quota system has failed to serve the purpose till now, how is it going to help by increasing it?

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In Irish schools eating disorders are rampant and nothing is being done about it.

Children at primary school age are falling prey to the sick perversion of the media and society in genaral which projects an image of thinness on the verge of emaciation and associates it with success and beauty. Weight loss is always rewarded and plastic surgery is a regular occurance.

We live in an image obsessed culture and its gonna be the children of the future that'll pay for it. I myself am a 14 year old Irish student who suffers from an eating disorder and have many friends with eating disorders. A friend of mine was in fact bulimic when we were in 4th, 5th and 6th class in primary.

Eating Disorders are deadly awful diseases and awareness needs to be raised to help school children to understand and prevent them. Thank you for your time and please sign.

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Monash Primary School is a small state school located adjacent to Monash University on Samada street in Notting Hill, Melbourne. It has a warm atmosphere and country feel.

In May 2005 Monash Primary School consulted with parents on a decision to close the school due to low enrolments. There has been no community consultation or information sharing! Closing the school will affect the future of the local children, the character of the suburb, the residents that use its open space and their land values if there is a shift in demographics.

The decision as to whether or not to close Monash Primary should not solely be in the hands of the school's council. A petition has been generated to draw the attention of the Education Department to the lack of consultation from the community.

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"The world rests on three things: on justice, on truth, and on peace. And all three are one, for where there is justice, there is also truth, and there is peace."

-Talmud, Ta'anit, 4:2

Cynthia McKinney paid a price for speaking the truth. As a Representative of the United States Congress, she had the conviction and courage to state what so many of her colleagues think privately but are hesitant to say publicly: Israel's 37-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem is wrong and that ending this occupation is a prerequisite for there to be peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Like the rabbis of the Talmud, Ms. McKinney understands that the strands which bind together peace and justice are inseparable. Israelis cannot expect to live in peace and security while their government is engaged in a land grab and degrading military occupation that denies their neighbors, the Palestinians, their individual human rights and their collective right of self-determination.

Ms. McKinney's willingness in Congress to question Israel's military occupation of the Palestinians earned her the ire of some Jewish American organizations. These institutions demonized Ms. McKinney both before and during her 2002 Democratic primary race and political action committees aligned with them pumped substantial funds into the election campaign of her challenger, Denise Majette. Flush with funds and the support of Republicans who "crossed over" and voted for her in the Georgia primary to punish Ms. McKinney for her critical analysis of the Bush Administration's "war on terror", Ms. Majette won her primary election and one of Congress' most important voices was stilled temporarily. However, Ms. McKinney is undaunted by this defeat and is seeking to reclaim her seat in the House of Representatives in 2004.

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