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Sunday Dec 15, 2024
Tuesday, 1 October 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Alethea School and Alethea International School has taken the initiative to fill the mismatch of technology and the pre-existing traditional classroom education. Through the relaunch of the school, Alethea will shift its educational vision towards a technology driven educational framework that is reflected in the school’s teaching, learning process as well as the infrastructural facilities that are in par with the Gen Z educational demands. 
Alethea Group is one of the oldest privately-owned schools in Sri Lanka, with over 90 years’ history in the field of education. The school is an official Pearson–Edexcel teaching centre that is authorised to host examinations in Sri Lanka, as well as a Cambridge International School and British Council Partner School. As such, taking the next step towards becoming a leader in the local educational industry, the school announced a relaunch with a complete facelift across curriculum, extracurricular activities, as well the facilities offered to the students.
“The educational philosophy of Alethea School and Alethea International School since its inception by the founding family has been based on making the school ‘A home away from home to everyone’. As such, we have always stood progressive in our outlook while sustaining the values of our culture, traditions, and multi-religious values. However, in the era of the Gen Z, we have identified that it is crucial the education we deliver to our students replicates the positive advancements of technology.
“Alethea Group took measures to assess and evaluate the existing academic program and infrastructure, and made a decision to relaunch the entire school framework, so that our delivery matches the ever-changing demands of the world outside. Thereby, the school has introduced smart classrooms, along with many innovative turnkey digital educational elements, including five digital science labs, two music studios and art studios, a state-of-the-art computer lab, and an e-library.
“The school has also taken steps to create modernised classrooms with students’ lockers and smart interactive boards. We also took measures to include an international standard basketball court,” indicated Alethea Group of Schools Managing Director/Coordinating Principal Anitra Perera, chronicling the vision behind the relaunch of the school.
“In keeping with the technologically driven education framework, we have entered into collaborations with many global education pioneers to bring in technology embedded educational tools into our curriculum and teaching process. The collaborations include Cloud Smart School Education, developed by CodeGen, a revolutionary platform for School Management, Learning Management and Remote Learning, that has been endorsed by the Ministry of Education Sri Lanka. A program that would enable an enhanced learning experience for the students, while ensuring an effective approach in teaching.
“In addition, Alethea partnered with IgniterSpace, the largest technology and innovation education provider in Sri Lanka for Igniter Space curriculum that focuses on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. Another interesting partnership that would be available for the learners following the relaunch of the school is extra-curricular activities that are designed to help children learn coding at a young age.
“An attempt to prepare students for the future, helping them with communication, creativity, math, writing, and confidence to face a technologically advanced future than that we know of. The after-school coding activity will be initiated in partnership with Create Lab, Singapore’s leading coding, robotics and design thinking school,” added Anitra Perera.
Anitra Perera further indicated, “As we all are aware, the younger generation of today’s society is now facilitated with many smart devices for various reasons and we understand that it has become a necessity with the current competitive environment among the activities of children. Alethea has partnered with South Asian Technologies Ltd. to provide Kaspersky Safe Kids, one of the products of the Kaspersky family that provides internet safety to smart devices used by children providing them the opportunity to be open to the world of technology while being monitored by parents to ensure their kids are safe online.”
In addition to the digitalisation of the entire school, Alethea Group has also made space for the school to be an inclusive education institution that accommodates students of all calibre and different academic needs. As such, the school houses a learning resource unit and a special needs unit; both established to cater to the specific requirements of some of the students. The LRC assists students who might otherwise find a regular classroom learning session challenging. The experts in the LRC aptly support learners with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, ADHD physical impairments, etc. The special needs unit is a separate facility dedicated to helping students with severe difficulties.
Special programs are customised for each individual learner after extensive consultations and meetings with parents. One-to-one sessions, continuous observations, monitoring and assessing are rigorously applied to help such children integrate themselves into society. The school also conducts an Activity Centre at the junior school with the aim of providing young children, a comfortable, caring and safe environment while the parents are away at work.
The digitalised impact of the school is extended towards the parents of Alethea as well when it comes to school fees, Alethea has partnered with two leading banks; Nations Trust Bank and Sampath Bank to offer a range of facilities to the parents. NTB offers the following through Amex – Online payments, child’s school fee payments at Nations pay, Payments to Alethea can be easily facilitated through FriMi, irrelevant of the customer having a NTB account or any other bank account, which can easily be connected to FriMi account, and Alethea will be having an online portal enabled at premise for parents to apply for a credit card to facilitate payments on 0% interest schemes to Alethea.
To open savings accounts and also most importantly to have a free of charge financial evaluation. Sampath Vishwa online banking facility for school fee payment, in addition to the Sampath Bank Credit card facilitate for the parents of Alethea International School without a joining fee and first-year annual fee. All Sampath Cardholders can enjoy up to 12 months 0% interest instalment plans for school admissions fees and term fees.
