Indian agriculture remains the economy of small and marginal farmers. These farmers remain excluded from the fruits of development and are pushed to the periphery. Their exclusion is the net result of development paradigm adopted by the Indian Government over the past six decades. This process of exclusion needs to be countered by a process of inclusion by building people’s socio-economic as well as human capital. The introduction of Lifelong Learning for farmers by Commonwealth of learning has demonstrated that a bottom-up and participatory approach to learning will not only contribute to the growth of socio-economic capital but also include them in the mainstream economy. Lifelong learning enables small and marginal farmers to negotiate with the economy of exclusion and design their destiny. This paper presents the outcome of the Life Long Learning introduced in Tamilnadu and its potentials to engage the economy of exclusion. It is an explorative study based on the secondary data available on this subject.

This article is about a study of Islamic Calligraphy paintings between Iran and Malaysia, produced in the early decades of 1950’s until recent years. The main objective to make the comparison is to look into the art educational system of both countries which tells the different art scenes. The other purpose is to analyze formally on the art works of great artists of two countries; to find the similarities and differences which create art identities of both countries.

The research aimed to study the lifestyle of Thai undergraduate students living with HIV/AIDS, particularly their behavioral patterns before contracting the HIV agent, after being diagnosed and at the present stage of their condition. We use a phenomenological technique to gather data from 19 volunteer students who were attending private and governmental universities and who had been diagnosed as having HIV/AIDS. Data were collected by in-depth interviews, on which a content analysis was performed. The results demonstrated that students’ lifestyle could be categorized into three periods of study: Before contracting the HIV agent, they were not raised by their parents but by close family relatives. They had their first sexual experience as early as at 13 years of age; hence, condoms were not used with their sex partner because of intimacy and trust. Moreover, they had at least two and more than 100 sex partners. They acceded to voluntary counseling for HIV blood testing, because of the opportunity disease’s manifestation. After being diagnosed, most mentally had no suicidal ideas, due to they received moral support from their family, lover and close friends, who had witnessed and accepted with their condition. Access to treatment, 17 cases took antiretroviral (ARV) drugs with starting drugs taking the lowest age at nine year old, but two cases did not take ARV, only practicing, self-health care. At the present time, they improved lifestyle, general health behavior, and sexual behavior, feeling of healthier and had positive relationships, especially with close family members and friends. Their future expectations were to achieving a graduate diploma with further on self-development, family and social responsibility. They intended to succeed in their studies and to have employment to secure their own future, and voluntarily assisting social development.

The main goal for all students is to gain excellence academically. One of the important factors is through teaching quality especially on teachers’ instructions. One of the factors that determine the quality of teaching is the students’ perception. The aim for this research is to identify the mathematics teachers’ quality of teaching at boarding secondary school. This study focused on students’ perception, based on genders on the quality of teaching of their teachers and, its relationship with the former’s mathematics achievement. This research was carried out in four boarding schools, involving 120 form four students as the sample of the study. The instrument employed was a set of questionaires comprising 21 items. The data obtained was analysed by using two types of statistical analysis. The descriptive statistics was used to obtain the frequency and mean for each of the dimensions of the teachers’ quality of teaching, while the inferential statistic was used to ascertain the relationship between students’ perceptions on their mathematics teachers’ quality of teaching and the students’ mathematics achievement. Finally, the t-test was used to investigate the difference in perceptions between the genders. The result showed that the students from those schools had positive perception on their teachers’ quality of teaching. There was a significant relationship between the male students’ perception on the quality of their teachers’ teaching and male students’ achievement. However, there was no significant relationship between the female students’ perception on the quality of their teachers’ teaching and the female students’ mathematics achievement. On the other hand, statistically the result also indicated that the students’ perception regardless of gender on their mathematics teachers’ quality in teaching did not influence their achievement in mathematics. The findings of this research could be used as a guideline for teachers in order to enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

The quality of teaching and learning is an important educational aspect where students in school or even at the higher level are the core groups that should be given utmost attention in order to gain excellence academically. The idea is to develop and maximize students’ understanding by some ideal teaching and learning approaches that make them easy to understand the content knowledge that is being presented to them. A module–based teaching is one of the individual teaching methods that could be of any variations. The purpose of the research is to evaluate the effectiveness of a module-based instruction which utilizes the cooperative learning for teaching higher Calculus topics for limit and continuity, derivative, and integral. The sample consists of 50 first year Masters’ students from Sultan Idris Education University. A set of test questions has been used as an instrument to collect the data. To determine whether the use of the module-based instruction could enhance students’ understanding and achievement, a quasi-experimental method was employed where pre-test and post-test were administered to both experimental and control groups. The data was analyzed using inferential statistics involving the paired sample t-test and the independent t-test. The findings of this study shows that the teaching method by using modules in learning higher calculus have positive inclination in improving students’ understanding and enhance their performance in academic assessments

This research aims to describe the practice of character functions in Indonesian contemporary movies. Using narrative as the method, this research describes the practice of character functions in 10 Indonesian contemporary movies, such as Mursala, 3600 Detik, Ketika Tuhan Jatuh Cinta, Crazy Love, Bangun Lagi Dong Lupus, Tampan Tailor, Aku Cinta Kamu, Slank Nggak Ada Matinya, Rectoverso, and Wanita Tetap Wanita. In those movies, the practice of character functions are showed by tenth characters, that is hero, villain, guider, shadow, threshold guardian, herald, partner, trickster, parents, and child. Those characters that always showed by Indonesian contemporary movies to reinforce its function as a storytelling strategy and controlling its story.

. Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim … In the name of God, the compassionate One, the One who cares. Most religions are very clear on their stance on homosexuality, especially the three monotheistic ones, yet we see an increasing global divide in the opinions regarding the subject, and it seems that most of the condemnation arises from religious beliefs. This paper looks at the psychological and anatomical aspects of sexual orientation and attempts to put forward the idea of revisiting our religious perceptions of homosexuality, to rethink and evaluate our attitudes towards the homosexual individuals of our societies. With the age old debate of whether homosexuality is “born or made”, one thing that can be stated as a fact is that one has little power in choosing their sexual orientation. This alone makes it imperative for the religious advocates to re-visit the idea of homosexuality, as stated in their religion, in order to ensure they are themselves not shunning rightful members of their religious societies. This in no way means challenging God’s Will, but challenging the human perception of The Word of God

This study explores whether differences in levels of psychological well-being exist between single mothers living in urban and rural areas in Selangor. Field studies were conducted on single mothers in both locations by using structured interviews. Psychological well-being questionnaires were modified by the researcher based on the Psychological well-being Scale (Ryff 1989). Psychological well-being was measured in terms of autonomy, control environment, personal development and positive relationship. This study involved 40 single mothers from Kota Damansara, Selangor and 40 single mothers from various villages in Sabak Bernam, Selangor. Data were analyzed with SPSS software using t-test. Result shows that the levels of psychological well-being between the two groups were not significantly different (t = 0.337, k>0.05). Future research can be improved by looking at single mothers from different state or district. Implications are also discussed