Operations to demolish and reconstruct more than 10,600 dilapidated classrooms have been launched, deputy head of the Schools Renovation, Development and Mobilization Organization for technical and supervisory affairs told Fars news agency.
“The law on reinforcement of dilapidated schools predicts that all shabby school buildings will be either pulled down and reconstructed or buttressed during a four-year period,“ Morteza Raeesi explained. “For the first year, 680 classrooms are to be reinforced, while feasibility studies on reinforcement of more than 14,000 others have started.“
According to Raeesi, close to 132,000 classrooms need to be destroyed and built anew, while another 126,000 ones should be buttressed.“
In related news, chairman of the Majlis Research and Education Commission, Ali Abbaspour Tehrani, unveiled a decision to formulate a committee that would assess the resistance of school buildings constructed by the Education Ministry.
Pointing to disagreements between the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Housing surrounding the executive bylaw on schools reinforcement, he said, “The Education Ministry insists that the schools it has built over the past decade are safe and strong, adding the so-called dilapidated buildings were constructed before the bylaw was issued.“
Abbaspour pointed to the $4 billion budget to be earmarked for school reinforcement projects and said, “Our concern is to ensure that the fund is used to build schools that have a high degree of resistance to natural disasters and could even be used as emergency and relief centers in the event of crises.
“That is why a note was added to the bylaw obligating constant supervision over the Education Ministry’s projects. However, the ministry asserts that the additional note slows down its job.“
He explained that the newly established committee would have to submit a report on the resistance of schools built by the ministry to the parliament. The report would have to be devised in collaboration with Schools Renovation, Development and Mobilization Organization, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development as well as the Engineering Registration Board.

Iran’s five-member team won the third place at the 11th International Astronomy Olympiad held in Mumbai, India on Nov. 10-19 after bagging one gold, two silver and two bronze medals, ISNA reported.
Some 80 students from 19 countries participated at the contests.
Elaheh Sadat Naqib, the team’s only female participant, was the gold medalist. Arash Delijani and Alireza Eskandari snatched silver, while Sadra Jazayeri and Seyyed Sadra Sadreddini grabbed bronze medals.
Sadat Naqib and Jazayeri also attained full observation scores, making the team stand on the third place, after India and South Korea.
The Islamic Republic’s school astronomy team which attended the 10th Olympiad last year in China won one gold, two silver and three bronzes as well as an honorary diploma.
Found by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society in 1996, the International Astronomy Olympiad is an annual scientific-educating event for students of junior high school, 14-17 years old. The style of the problems is aimed at developing imagination, creativity and independent thinking among youngsters.

Unhealthy diet of children and youngsters make the country susceptible to a rage of non-transmissible diseases over the next two decades.

Harmful dietary practices of children and youngsters in the contemporary Iranian society not only endanger their own health, but also make the country susceptible to a range of non-transmissible diseases over the next two decades, the results of a recent national research revealed, according to IRNA.
The study was jointly undertaken by the Research Center for Sports Medicine, Ministry of Health, Education and Medical Treatment, Cardiovascular Research Center affiliated to Isfahan University of Medial Sciences as well as the World Health Organization. The research was the first stage of the National Project on Prevention and Control of Non-Transmissible Diseases Among Children.
The study covered 21,111 students aged six to 18, of whom 51.4 percent were girls. Also 84.6 percent of the subjects lived in urban areas and 15.4 percent in rural districts.
The results unveiled that hydrogenated solid fat topped the list of oils consumed by children with 73.8 percent, while non-whole wheat breads comprised the major types of bread they had.
It also indicated that only 19.7 percent of the children never added salt to their meals.
The findings suggested that the average weekly consumption per person of fruits and vegetables was 16.5 times, different types of sweets and pastries 10 times, salted and oily snacks 9.4 times, and fried foods 3.98 times per week.
The researchers reiterated the essential role of pediatricians and healthcare workers in helping prevent adult diseases at an early age.

Instructors Training (Tarbiat-e Modarres) University has scored the highest rank nationwide in production of science over the past year, Fars news agency reported.
Chancellor of the university, Farhad Daneshjou, cited a report released by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology recently based on which the university stands in first place among other domestic higher education institutes in terms of production of science, the number of articles printed in creditable international journals and the number of scientific books published during Sept. 23, 2005-Sept 23, 2006.
Daneshjou further stated that the university has the highest ratio of research budget to total budget among national universities, adding, “The ministry’s report suggests that the Instructors Training University has assigned 14 percent of its total budget in direct contribution to research projects.“
The chancellor however emphasized that the university has spent 25 percent of its funds on research.
“The university had a total budget of 200 billion rials, of which 50 billion rials was expended both directly and indirectly for research purposes.“

Overseas Iranian schools need to spend 4.5 times greater per pupil compared to domestic schools, director general of the Education Ministry’s Office for Overseas Schools told IRNA.
Ayatollah Izadian explained that Iranian schools abroad have to expend in foreign exchange, not to mention that water, electricity, gas, phone, repair and maintenance charges are exorbitant in most countries.
“Despite a substantial 35-percent rise in the budget allocated for Iranian schools overseas this year, we are still short of funds,“ Izadian said, calling for financial assistance by the government, Majlis and Education and Research Commission.
“Iranian schools abroad will be able to admit more than 20,000 pupils, provided their facilities are expanded,“ he observed.
Izadian explained that presently many Iranians are paying enormous tuitions for their children’s schools, while a number of them prefer to enroll their offspring in Iranian schools.
“In countries where there are no Iranian schools, Iranian nationals can benefit from distant education courses or bilingual international schools,“ he proposed.

About 20,000 Basiji (volunteer forces) pupils participated in a race held from Azadi to Enqelab Square, Tehran, last Friday to commemorate Basij Week (Nov. 22-28). (Photo by Gholamreza Dadbin)

IIDCYA publishes 150 books annually.

Cultural and artistic centers affiliated to the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) need at least 1,300 libraries to approach global standards, head of IIDCYA’s Public Relations Office told IRNA.
Mehdi Baqeri noted that presently the institute runs about 700 libraries nationwide, which is insufficient compared to their 700,000 members.
He went on, “Every library has on average between 10,000 and 15,000 volumes of books including novels, storybooks and poetry as well as science and amusement books.“
The official said the major problem facing the libraries is lack of financial resources.
He noted the institute publishes 150 books annually.
Baqeri said promoting book reading among the younger generation is one of the main goals of IIDCYA, adding, “Over the past few years, we have tried to further encourage children and youngsters to read by presenting innovative styles in book layout and story production.“
According to Baqeri, experience shows that children of parents who allocate part of their income and time to books, show a stronger interest in reading.

The existing law on EgyptÕs street children marks them as being vulnerable to delinquency.

A culture where the rights of children, especially those living rough and homeless, are intrinsically protected has yet to emerge in Egypt, according to child experts and testimonies of children themselves, IRIN wrote.
A number of awareness initiatives were launched on Nov. 19 to commemorate The Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse. However, Egypt’s street children are yet to feel the impact.
Abla El-Badri, who heads the committee for street children of the government-run National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), said Egypt’s half a million street children were always vulnerable to physical attacks. “If boys find life on the streets hard, then girls, who might face more frequent sexual attacks and rape, live in near-constant fear,“ El-Badri said.
She also highlighted the critical importance of raising awareness in order to alleviate the problems faced by street children as the world marked the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse on Nov. 19. “People perceive street children as being dangerous, and that if they attack them they feel they are in fact protecting themselves. This perception obviously needs to change,“ she said.
Part of the problem is the fact that the existing law on street children marks them as being vulnerable to delinquency, said Nadra Zaki, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) project officer for child protection. “At UNICEF, we are pushing for a change in the wording of the law, to describe street children as being vulnerable to danger,“ she added, explaining that the amendment is set to be voted on soon in parliament.
However, it isn’t just children braving the streets who face physical and verbal violence. “Of course I am beaten. Are there any children who aren’t?“ said nine-year-old Sherif, who complained that his parents punish him physically for things as commonplace as dropping a glass or not finishing his food.
Sherif comes from a wealthy background, attends a private school and is therefore living proof of the fact that violence against children is not confined to the poorer echelons of Egyptian society.
Despite the existence of laws and decrees prohibiting violence against children, a lack of social awareness, collective responsibility and the appropriate monitoring mechanisms often make it well-nigh impossible to limit the physical or verbal abuse of children, said Nadra.
As the law on physical and verbal violence against children currently stands, only the testimony of an eyewitness who is willing to sign a declaration can be used in a case against a given aggressor.
In a bid to bridge the gap between affected children and a social support system, in July 2005 the NCCM launched a free 24/7 national hotline service, putting children, relatives or witnesses to violence in contact with child protection workers. “When we identify a problem, we organize sittings for the whole family with specialized health professionals and social workers,“ said Manal Shahine, director of the NCCM children’s emergency hotline.

When the governments of Mozambique and South Africa decided to revive the transport route between Maputo and Johannesburg in the mid-1990s, child slaves were not the cargo envisaged for haulage, IRIN wrote.
Yet management at the Amazing Grace Children’s Home (AGCH), a grassroots child welfare organization in Malelane, near one of the main border-crossing points to Mozambique in South Africa’s northeastern Mpumalanga province, believe child traffickers are increasingly using the highway to deliver their human merchandise to local and overseas buyers.
Every month up to 100 Mozambican and Swazi children are trafficked along the Maputo corridor to Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub, where they are sold into the local sex industry or transported to Europe, according to AGCH’s expert on child trafficking, Vusi Ndukuya.
“Around 15 new children who have either escaped or been dumped by the traffickers along the Maputo corridor are placed in our care every month. So, if that is the number falling through the cracks, then many, many more are being trafficked,“ he reasoned.
Ndukuya has been coordinating the AGCH anti-child trafficking program, launched in 2003 with funding from international child-welfare agency Terre des Hommes, for the past 18 months, and says he has learned a lot about the illegal trade and those involved in it during that time.
He alleges that the human trafficking syndicates operating along the Maputo corridor include policemen, immigration officials, truck-drivers, taxi-drivers and people connected to local communities from which the children are sourced.
“The AGCH is close to the Lebombo border post between South Africa and Mozambique, where much of the business of child trafficking goes on. It is complex and involves all sorts of people: officials to get people across the borders and drivers to transport them.
“Once the trafficked children who arrive here trust us, they open up and reveal stories that are awful in most cases,“ he explained at his Malelane office.