Minister of Education, Dr Luthfy; members and executives from Shri Educare, the Indian High Commissioner and of course all the parents or parents-to-be of Ghiyasuddin School: Good morning
It of course is a happy day for us. We have had this idea in mind for quite some time to see how we may be able to bring in more international expertise and knowledge to our children here in the Maldives – not just simply to children but also to other educators, teachers and principals – how we may be able to improve their performance and how we may be able to give our children a better education.
It is our belief that government alone cannot achieve success in educating our children. We feel that with the proper public private partnership, such as Ghiyasuddin International School, the government and the people would be able to achieve and reach much higher heights in educating our children.
In this regard, this is the first of its kind and I am certain that this school will improve and I am of course very certain that as time goes by we would be able to make whatever adjustments that is necessary, but still keep going and making sure that our children become better citizens of the future of this country.
We have a lot of connections, relationships with India. I was just asked the other day that if I can come to Trivandrum to open a school in Trivandrum. I suggested to the gentleman that, that school should also be opened here in Malé, there are enough students here. There are enough parents who would want to send their children to private schools for better academic performance.
When we started this idea of the school and as the process went on, here were a number of sceptics and there were a number of parents who were actually quite worried of what might the whole process turn up to be. Of what I am hearing now, I think parents are very aware of what it will turn in to and I am sure that it will turn to become a very successful endeavour.
I will not take more time. It is very early on a Friday. And I would want to wish everyone all the best as we, day after tomorrow, start our academic year.
This year we start with much expectations. We have been able to switch more than 101 schools to become single session schools. We want to have more extracurricular activities in schools. It is our understanding that books alone will not produce a holistic citizen but a combination of all affairs will hopefully be for us to come with a better generation of people in this country.
I again thank the Shri Education Group. We met early last year and I am surprised and I am glad that we have within such a small period of time being able to come up with opening of the first school of this kind. I hope and I believe that this is not going to be the last school. These opportunities should be made available not only in Malé. There are the outer islands and we hope that we can take these opportunities to other islands as well.
Again, thank you very much and all the best for the coming academic year.
Thank you
