tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41212157483546576092024-02-08T04:19:23.811-08:00EDUCATIONAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-77125640835605784252012-10-29T05:03:00.000-07:002012-10-30T05:03:28.387-07:00Adults Returning to Education<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Adult education gives high quality education for adults to
improve their standard in the society, and it can be continued at any
stage of their life. It helps people graduate with the help of nation's
various adult education centers and programs. It ensures people to
compete in a better way in this competitive society.<br />
There are
lots of reasons for adults to return to education after some time. Adult
education can help people who wish to continue their education, people
who look for a career change, or people who just wish to enhance their
knowledge. Adults returning to education programs offer you plenty of
choices and features to study. Many new programs and various educational
departments guide you with providing high quality education in an
interactive manner. It offers basic knowledge regarding computer
literacy, numerical ability, and correctional education. Moreover, it
allows people in developing different employment opportunities. This can
be done by returning to education with various adult education programs
which are available in different states.<br />
Many educational
providers invite adults to return to education after a formal break.
Educational centers like Adults Who Are Returning to Education (AWARE),
Center for Adults Returning to Education (CARE) are few amongst the
adult education continuing centers that are doing a fine job. Adults who
return to education would have had different backgrounds that led to
their interruption from continuing education. Instructors in these
educational centers are well trained to improve their education level
according to their ability. Careful adjustments are given for older
students during the learning process. There are various adult education
centers and programs in which adults can continue their interrupted
education.<br />
There are many foundations throughout the nation that
help adults return to education with some major features. They offer
many scholarships for the adults who return to education. Adult student
technical college scholarships, minority/female technical scholarships,
and UW-Marinette scholarships are few of the scholarships for adults who
return to education in few of the states. One can continue his/her
interrupted education at any stage through these educational centers for
adults and many other foundations.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-28300767846187364632012-10-23T05:01:00.000-07:002012-10-30T05:02:23.679-07:00Education, Learning and Thinking: What Does It All Mean?<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
"Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake." - William James<br />
Why Think?<br />
Thinking
takes place on at least three levels: autonomic, reactive and
deliberative. Each involves a specific process that the brain goes
through to effect targeted and desired outcomes. While the first two
are done without conscious effort, deliberative thinking cannot be done
without it. Any one who has tried knows how demanding and draining it
can be. It's a process that many of us have a hard time staying in long
enough to produce anything different from what we think we already
know. Often, at the beginning of the process of deliberative thinking,
we shut it down by saying to ourselves, "I already know that!" This
causes the mind to close and interest to wane. When this happens any
curiosity we may have regarding the truth about ourselves and the
universe does not stimulate us sufficiently to use our minds in the
necessary ways to obtain it.<br />
In the context of the work
environment, sometimes the work we do doesn't require us to think in
order to perform our daily tasks. We are instructed (trained) how to
perform our responsibilities and are judged simply by how well we do
them. Nothing beyond doing our jobs is requested of us.<br />
Sometimes
the work we do requires us not to think in order to do it well. We're
told that we're not paid to think, just to do our jobs the way we are
told to do them. Anything beyond that is unwelcome input.
Consequently, many people do not use their ability to think in ways that
move them into greater realms of opportunity, creativity and
productivity. If it's not going to get us anything except a reprimand
or a pink slip, why try to think more than we need to?<br />
What about
the places where we're supposed to learn how to think and the benefits
of regularly doing so? Even though most educational systems make noble
attempts to instruct students in the ways of thinking well the daily
routine and mechanics of teaching eventually overwhelms the best
intentions of educators and administrators alike. Students exit from
"the system" with some valuable information but not a very clear
understanding of how to knit it all together into a meaningful whole
that has beneficial ramifications for both the students and the
societies in which they live.<br />
Most of what we do on a daily basis
doesn't involve much in the way of our brainpower. Routine and habit
are shortcuts to action without thinking. They're what you do when
you're not thinking about what you're doing. So, why think?<br />
The Purpose of Thinking<br />
The
Seventeenth Century French Philosopher, Rene Descartes began his
exhaustive investigation into the meaning of life with what to him was
the only undeniable fact of life: the human ability to think. The
Cartesian method of philosophical inquiry was revolutionary because it
was the first to use shared concrete, everyday experiences of life, like
thinking, to construct an understanding of the meaning and significance
of human existence. Descartes' dictum, "Cogito, ergo sum," (I think,
therefore, I am) was a whole new way of thinking about life by grounding
it in thought.<br />
If Descartes is correct that because I can think I
therefore exist as a human being, then the question arises, "if I know
that I am, is this the same as knowing who I am?" The answer is no.
Just because I know I exist doesn't mean that I know much about myself.
Your ability to think gives evidence that you "are." The task of
actually thinking is to learn "who you are" and how you can "be the
Self" you were born to be.<br />
Meander, a Fourth Century BC Greek
philosopher, said that the basis of civilization was for citizens to
"know themselves," and that this meant, "to get acquainted with what you
know and what you can do." He assumes that all human beings have
within them, by virtue of their being alive, knowledge born of their
unique manifestation of life. In the Eighteenth Century AD, the
English poet, philosopher and lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, would
perfectly summarize this philosophy of knowledge when he wrote, "human
beings need to be reminded more than they need to be taught." The
activity of thinking reminds you of what you innately know but have
forgotten. Thinking is the process by which you uncover your Self and
its potential and by which you discover creative ways to apply what you
already know to being your Self within the context of your community of
life. When you spend time thinking, you afford yourself the opportunity
to get acquainted with your innate knowledge and with what you can do
with that self-knowledge.<br />
The Problem of Education<br />
The
primary purpose of employing your ability to think, therefore, is not
merely to exist but to exist in a specific, unique way. How this is
done depends on how the individual is taught to think. The German
philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), one of the foremost thinkers of
the Enlightenment, remarked, "science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is
organized life." He described his approach to education as organizing
life when he said, "the science I teach is how one might occupy his
proper place in the universe." He was undoubtedly aware of the ancient
teaching of Confusius: "Do not worry about holding high position; worry
rather about playing your proper role."<br />
The best teachers I had
throughout my formal education and beyond were those who not just caused
me to think but who helped me to learn the purpose of thinking.
Thinking was not done merely to arrive at solutions to problems and
answers to questions but was to be done to "know myself" and to learn
how to be myself in the world as a unique presence. Knowing myself
through thinking leads to acting as that unique Self and not as a mimic
of any other even though some, if not all of my actions might be similar
to others' in appearance and outcomes.<br />
John Ruskin, a Nineteenth
Century English social critic, said, "Education does not mean teaching
people to know what they do not know; it means teaching them to behave
as they do not behave." A good education teaches you how to use your
ability to think so that you can behave in the ways that emanate from
your uniqueness as a person and that consequently lead to your being a
success as that person. Thinking shapes, directs and expands the
capacity to behave in the particular ways that lead to personal
accomplishment and significance.<br />
In modern times, especially in
Western education models, students are seen as proverbial "empty
vessels" sitting at the feet of "fuller," older, wiser, learned
professional educators who empty their knowledge into those empty heads
thereby filling them with what somebody else knows. During the
socialization process of teaching children how to exist in a particular
culture, the system of education serves to provide the psychological
structures for social homogenization by imparting the "wisdom of the
ages," knowledge handed down from previous generations and that is
deemed that everyone should know. This most certainly is a vital
function of education. However, when this approach becomes the primary
emphasis of education, as it most often appears to be in academic
institutions throughout the West, it translates into teaching students
what, not how to think.<br />
The late 19th early 20th Century English
philosopher, mathematician, and writer, Bertrand Russell, was no fan of
formal educational systems and said so when he commented that education
was "one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought"
and that "men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by
education." He would agree that much of what passes for education is
nothing more than the simple transmission by others of what they believe
is important for students to be taught which often has nothing to do
with the learners. His comment suggests that he saw the main purpose of
contemporary formal education to be to mold children and young adults
into an image that conformed to and reflected the prevailing culture.
Education was the process by which people became like each other instead
of becoming their unique Selves.<br />
Russell would concur that
content often lacks context, meaning that teaching frequently doesn't
involve instructing students how to determine the veracity, viability,
worthiness and usefulness of what is learned. It winds up being mere
"data dumping" with little, if any attempt to help students "connect the
dots" among the enormous array of data being offered from multiple
sources and perspectives. Ben Hecht (1893-1964), an American author and
dramatist, described the significance of context well: "Trying to
determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like
trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock." The
education process is filled with billions of "seconds" and pieces of
information that, all being emphasized as important to know, serve more
to cloud than clarify the meaning of time and what happens within it.
It emphasizes the threads not the tapestry, the parts not the whole.<br />
John
Locke (1632-1704), the British philosopher and medical researcher,
wrote, "till a man can judge whether they be truths or not, his
understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading,
though greatly learned, but may be little knowing." If thinking is
taught to be the process by which the thinker is able to accurately
discern right from wrong, truth from falsity, authenticity from
disingenuineness, then merely learning new information is not the way
this can be done. Locke intimates how we can learn to 'judge whether
they be truths or not' when he penned, "reading furnishes the mind only
with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read
ours."<br />
Reading is an indispensable method of education. However,
as Albert Einstein observed, "reading, after a certain age, diverts the
mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and
uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." Sir
Arthur Helps (1813-1875), English writer and dean of the Monarch's
advisory council, agreed with such sentiment when he wrote, "reading is
sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought." So reading, an
essential means of education, can be a detriment to creative thinking.
(I hope this is not the case as you read this article!).<br />
The
problem is that formal education offers no heuristic that students might
use to organize and focus their thinking about everything they learn or
to help them discover how to practically apply what they learn to the
adventure of living. How often did I scurry between classes in college
going from biology to philosophy, physics to religious studies,
psychology to sociology knowing the content of the courses but without
understanding how they all might be mutually corroborative and
collaborative in providing a comprehensive foundation for innovative
thinking about how to better live and enjoy my life? It took at least a
couple of decades for me to even begin to appreciate the intrinsic
symbiosis of the volumes of knowledge I had acquired throughout my
higher education experience. Today, a couple of decades later still, my
thinking is consumed with and consummated by discovering the
interconnections among the pieces of information I have floating around
in my head as I attempt to purposefully link the data dots into the big
picture of my personal reality. This is more than mere "data mining,"
it is "data melding." It is this principle of information integration
that should, but often does not, guide all educational endeavors.<br />
Commenting
on the rapid profusion of information throughout the early Twentieth
Century, the American poet, e e cummings, paraphrasing a verse from
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' put it
succinctly when he wrote, "data, data everywhere but not a thought to
think." Without the context, the "big picture," the organizing
principles of how to coordinate and use what we know, whatever we know
will only take us away from ourselves by pointing to all that is outside
us as the means of finding ourselves and the purpose of our lives. Our
proper place in the universe is obscured and eludes us because we've
not been provided, or have not diligently pursued the proper context
within which all of what we know can be brought together to make our
lives sensible and centered.<br />
We cannot occupy a place we have not
recognized as ours alone to occupy. Nor can we properly occupy that
unique place until we have properly prepared ourselves with authentic,
honest, abiding self-knowledge. Formal education, by providing massive
amounts of asynchronous, external information, unwittingly becomes the
chief cause of the obfuscation and "cluttering up" of the Self.
Self-knowledge gets lost amidst the din of seemingly competing voices
and ideas. Consequently, the Self becomes disjointed, disharmonious and
disquieted for it has not found its proper place in the universe. It
becomes as a prism refracting the various inputs it receives into even
more detailed yet diffused bits of data.<br />
Being overwhelmed with
the prospect of learning what we believe we need to know and then
applying it appropriately, many of us simply give up trying to think in
the ways we could. Ironically, we have been educated out of thinking.
Ayn Rand said it perfectly, "man's basic vice, the source of all his
evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his
consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not
ignorance, but the refusal to know."<br />
Can education be directed to
actually help human beings find their proper place in the universe? How
can we connect the dots of our variegated and vast knowledge? How can
we make it all assimilate into a common core of comprehension? Is it
possible to turn the education process from an ego-driven "give and
take" (where one ego gives information and other egos esteem themselves
on how much they can take and then give back on exams) into a nobler
endeavor that edifies by elucidating the humanity with which we must
live for the brief while we are alive?<br />
The paradigm that will help
us bring it all together and coordinate our fragmented knowledge into
clear understanding is the one that guided great civilizations of the
past: know yourself first. The constituent elements of knowledge
coalesce into a unified whole only after you get acquainted with your
innate knowledge about yourself. Then all subsequent information that
you acquire will gather to weave the larger tapestry of your unique
presence within space and time. Only then will your education
experience be as a crucible into which discontinuous data is poured but
out of which holistic, useful and beneficial knowledge emerges.<br />
In
Part Two of this article you'll learn about the purpose of knowledge
and education, where thoughts come from and the best way to think.<br />
</div>
<div id="article-resource" style="text-align: justify;">
Ken Wallace, M. Div., CSL has been in the organizational
development field since 1973. He is a seasoned consultant, speaker and
executive coach with extensive business experience in multiple
industries who provides practical organizational direction and support
for business leaders. A professional member of the National Speakers
Association since 1989, he is also a member of the International
Federation for Professional Speaking and holds the Certified Seminar
Leader (CSL) professional designation awarded by the American Seminar
Leaders Association.<br />
Ken is one of only eight certified Business Systems Coaches worldwide for General Motors.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-87321033541496076202012-10-16T05:01:00.000-07:002012-10-30T05:01:25.039-07:00Online Education Degree <div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Are you kind of person who likes to work with children? Are you
loves to giving training and teaching to young people? Are you a good
communicator especially with children? If you answered yes to the
questions above, then online education degree will help you to gain the
skills and enhanced you knowledge in education field. Hence, help you to
advance your career working in education fields.<br />
The
booming education and health sector offers many jobs that involve
working with children and youths. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor,
the education and health sector is going to grow by 30.6 percent
between now and 2014-faster than any other industries. Seeing the
encouraging growth in education section, earn an online education degree
will bring you to a brighter future.<br />
In order start or advance
your career in education related fields, you need to look for a related
online degrees; there are many prestigious online colleges and
universities offer degree in education and teaching. Among the featured
online universities which offer various online education degree programs
include:<br />
<ul>
<li>Capella University Master of Science in Education focus on area in
elementary classroom teaching, secondary classroom teaching, advanced
instruction in mathematics, advanced instruction in science, teacher
leadership, and virtual school teaching.
Master of Science in Education with concentration in Curriculum and
Instruction is a specialized master degree offers to those licensed K12
teachers who looking to gain key competencies through theoretical study
and collaboration with seasoned practitioners. You will acquire tools
and techniques to help your district design instructional models and
assessments that focus on increasing student achievement.
Master of Science in Education with concentration in Leadership in
Educational Administration, offer to those K12 teachers who are looking
for education career advancement in school administration.
</li>
<li>Walden University Online master education degrees offered by Walden
University include area in education leadership, Grades K-6 Elementary
Reading & Mathematics, Grades 6-8 and K-5 mathematics which provide
you with the key skills and knowledge to success in educational field.
</li>
</ul>
<br /><ul>
<li>University of Phoenix University of Phoenix's education
master degrees are mainly focus on education leadership and
administration, education technology specialized in computer education.
</li>
</ul>
If you are interested in early childhood education, then you
should look for online education programs offer by Lehigh Valley
College, Sullivan University, Rasmussen College, Hesser College. Since
the introduction of concept "Education Start from Age 0"; the childhood
education and child care management related careers are in a booming
trend. Students who graduate with a childhood education degree usually
go to work immediately after graduation due to high demand in this
field.If you are gaga for education, opportunities for
meaningful and well-paid work abound. Some other career possibilities
include: Child Psychiatrist, Children Youth and Family Counselor, Doula,
Pediatric Rehabilitation Counselor, and Play Therapist.<br />
In short,
the statistics show that the education section is in the booming trend
and educational experts are always in demand. Online education degrees
will prepare you with the necessary skills and get you success in this
highly demand job marketplace.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-86965104678117310422012-10-09T04:59:00.000-07:002012-10-30T05:00:09.029-07:00Today's Buzzword<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Students world over are whole-heartedly accepting online
education. The advantages of online education have made it the popular
mode of education among the students of all age groups in all parts of
the world. This growing popularity of online education has led to the
emergence of a large number of educational institutions offering online
education for a wide range of subjects. The growth of educational
institutions offering relearning facilities has been significantly high
in the US, Europe and the developed nations of the world.<br />
Online Education- Changing Perception<br />
In
the past people perceived online education as an unserious and
unscrupulous way of laying hands of a fast degree and getting good
grades without much effort and hard work. People also had doubts about
the reputation of education institutes offering online education.
However, the times have changes significantly and today the majority of
educational institutions offering online education are well established.
Most of the world's leading education institutions have commenced
online programs, which vindicate the validity of online education. Most
of the online courses offer in-depth learning to the students in their
respective educational modules.<br />
Factors Contributing To The Growth of Online Education<br />
Online
education is becoming popular because most of the educational
institutions offering online courses ensure qualitative learning.
Talented professors and subject matter experts are at the helm of
affairs at almost all accredited universities and colleges offering
online courses and online degree programs. The students can be assured
of good results in such courses.<br />
Here are some factors that have contributed to the fast paced growth of online education:<br />
· Flexible schedule<br />
The
biggest advantage of online education is that the students can do
effective utilization of their time, which is the most precious
resource. People participating in online education have the freedom of
maintaining a flexible schedule, which helps them tremendously and it
has come as a boon for the people who are working and want to continue
their education.<br />
· Student-Centered Learning<br />
The students in
online education have an advantage because they are in charge of their
learning experience. The students can prioritize their schedule and
complete the assignments as per their comfort levels and convenience.
This is possible because the teachers in online mode of education are
not teaching you all the time. As an online student, you have the
liberty to select the mode of learning.<br />
· Fair Playing Field<br />
Online
education is growing in popularity because it offers a level playing
field to all the students. When you are learning online, your
performance is the only criterion that affects the decision-making and
your gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and other considerations do
not cloud the decision making process. This is one of the major factors
contributing to the growth of online education.<br />
All these
advantages of online education may prompt you to join e learning.
However, before you take the plunge and enroll in an online course,
please make sure that you are familiar with the methodology of online
education.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-58501213691059679662012-10-02T04:59:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:59:29.241-07:00Online Education<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Time management is the key to success in today's fast paced
world. How one manages his or her time determines the success quotient
and this is the reason why online education id gaining immense
popularity. Since online education offers unmatched flexibility and the
students and learners can manage time in line with their other
priorities, it is becoming a very popular mode of education in almost
all parts of the world. The growing popularity of online education has
resulted in the establishment of several online educational institutions
offering online degree courses and other learning opportunities.<br />
Some
people harbored the misconception that the advantages of online
education are restricted only for those students and learners who had an
established record of past accomplishments. This also led to the
belief that online education helps only those who have access to modern
means of communication as computer and Internet. However, as the
awareness about various modes of online education is increasing the
misconceptions related to online education are giving way to more
acceptability to online education and training.<br />
Changing perception<br />
It
is a talk of the past when people considered online mode of education
as a quick way of obtaining a degree or getting good grades. In the
past, the reputed educational institutions were not offering online
education. However, with the increasing popularity of online education,
the majority of institutions offering online courses are
well-established institutes and they have a rich experience to provide
such education. It is worth mentioning, that a large number of world's
leading educational institutions are offering online education courses
on a wide range of subjects.<br />
Growth drivers<br />
Today, most of
the accredited online education courses have talented teachers and
professors of repute in their respective specialization. This ensures
qualitative learning. The students signing up with online education
courses, can be assured of guaranteed results. Moreover, online
education is more interesting and more competitive when compared to the
traditional teaching methodologies.<br />
Employers' viewpoint<br />
Undoubtedly,
many employers were and some of them are still having doubts about the
value of online education. However, with change in perception and
emerging popularity, a large number of employers have realized their
worth. Now the employers consider the online degrees from accredited and
well-established online educational institutes of repute. Moreover, the
increasing number of people who enroll for online education has changed
the employers' perception and now they readily consider the benefits of
online education.<br />
Some research reports point out that technology
oriented industries such as, communication, computers, media and
marketing have started to accept the candidates having online degree
courses from accredited and reputed institutions.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-76809819748339566902012-09-25T04:58:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:58:34.962-07:00Methodologies of Online Education<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
There were many myths and misconceived notions about online
education until recent past. Some people believed that online learning
is a good option only for students who have a good track record. It was
also believed that only those students having access to computers and
modern means of communication would benefit from online education.
However, with time such notions are giving way to an open acceptance
where people have started accepting online education as a viable
alterative for conventional education.<br />
Not
all online education options have a similar methodology and approach.
There are various modes of online education available and it would be
better if you have an understanding of different methodologies in use by
online education providers so that you can select the course with the
methodology that suits you the best. Here we are discussing the learning
methodologies for online education:<br />
Online Education Methodologies- Different Options<br />
Live:
This methodology is also known as synchronous mode of learning. In this
mode of online education, there is instant communication between the
students and teachers and at times even among different students. Herein
all the participants get access to information simultaneously. Virtual
classroom using the facility of video or audio conferencing and
real-time chat are some examples of this mode of online education.<br />
This
learning methodology has its advantages and disadvantages. This mode is
more akin to the conventional education except for the fact that the
students don't have to travel to the classrooms. The biggest advantage
of synchronous method of online education is that it allows instant
feedback for the student's performance and allows active interaction
among the students and teachers. Thus the students can get the training
and education that is tailored suit their needs. Moreover, live
education also facilitates the setting up of learning communities and
groups for a better interaction among the learners.<br />
This method has the disadvantage that the students cannot plan their schedule and they are bound by the pre-set schedule.<br />
Asynchronous:
Asynchronous mode of online education is popularly termed as store and
forward education. In this method, the communication between the student
and teacher is not instant. Self-paced courses are the examples of
asynchronous online education where the students communicate with the
teachers and amongst themselves by exchanging emails and posting
messages on online bulletin boards and discussing groups. This is the
more popular mode of online education because it offers more convenience
and flexibility to the students and they can decide the pace and
schedule for their education and training.<br />
Despite of the
advantages, this mode of online education has its disadvantages too. The
students in this mode of learning, lack discipline and motivation and
generally tend to develop a lackluster attitude towards education.<br />
The
mixed mode of learning in online education combines the advantages of
both the modes and it is a combination of personal lectures or
face-to-face interaction learning through online activities.<br />
Now
that you have a better understanding of different methodologies of
online education, you can pick up the right one for you and enhance your
skills.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-39537490838959255222012-09-18T04:57:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:57:42.720-07:00The Writing is on the Oil Well<div style="text-align: justify;">
American education has to become more competitive yesterday.<strong>As published in Discover Magazine, January 2006:</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote>
The
performance of U.S. students in middle and high schools on
international math and science exams is below the average of 38 other
countries. Even advanced American math and physics students score near
dead last among students in 20 tested countries, the panel reported.
Since 1990 the number of bachelor's degrees in engineering has declined 8
percent; in mathematics, 20 percent. While 32 percent of U.S. students
graduate with degrees in science and engineering, the figure in China is
59 percent.</blockquote>
With the American economy so dependent on oil
and oil related products it is absolutely imperative that America stop
lagging behind in education and take the lead once again.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With
countries in the Middle East like Qatar having vast oil and natural gas
deposits making a huge effort today to start the transition of their
economy from an oil based one to a knowledge based economy should be a
significant warning sign to the United States. These people have some of
the largest oil reserves in the world and they are aggressively
planning for an economy not based on oil.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As was stated in April
7, 2006 issue of the journal Science "This small Persian Gulf emirate is
preparing for life after oil and gas by pouring wealth into education
and research"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For example:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote>
In Education City
in Qatar the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute has helped Qatar to make
tremendous changes in the country's educational institutions. And Qatar
Science and Technology Park will be an incubator where private companies
can partner with government agencies and academic institutions,
developing research into commercial applications and driving Qatar and
the region toward a diversified, knowledge-based economy. </blockquote>
What American Institutions are participating?<blockquote>
Prominent
signs indicate the presence of educational heavyweights, including
Weill Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and Texas A&M. </blockquote>
It
is also noted in the journal Science that "Qatar's primary and
secondary schools, which have begun to dispense with traditional rote
learning, Al-Hajari reports, replacing it with curricula designed to
stimulate creative and independent thinking. And it extends to Qatar
University, which was founded in 1977 and is independent of Education
City."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Why should we as Americans worry about Qatar?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
fact is that America is ranked 39th world wide in math and science
education. Consider that Texas was just ranked, as a state, 24th in a
country that was just placed as 39th.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Countries like Qatar,
Singapore, China & India are readily getting some of the best
researchers that have been educated and trained in America to relocate
to their countries.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For example the Journal Science Reports that:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote>
Texas
A&M is setting up joint research with the oil industry and studies
related to clean air, while Weill Cornell will concentrate on biomedical
projects relevant to local health problems. (Diabetes Research) To
accelerate the process, (Qatar) plans to bring interested scientists
from Weill Cornell's New York base and recruit postdocs. For his part,
(Qatar) hopes to lure back expatriate Arab scientists currently
flourishing in the West. "Many diaspora researchers are interested in
going back if the infrastructure is there," says Hassan. To capitalize
on the research, the Qatar Foundation is building the Qatar Science and
Technology Park right next door to Education City.Already, big players in industrial R&D, including GE, Microsoft, and ExxonMobil, have signed up and are waiting to move in.</blockquote>
<br /><strong>What is happening? </strong>Foreigners
are coming to America and getting education and training and then
exporting that knowledge and experience out of the country.
<br />American researchers and educators are leaving America to be able to
do the research that they are either denied or do not have funding for
in the United States.
<br />The drain is affecting the quality of education and research in America.
<br />America is losing it's competitive edge in a global economy in the area of research to product development.
<br />The quality of educational facilities in the United States is
falling below that of the competitive countries, as are the salaries and
benefits which lure our leading researchers away.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
These well
funded research facilities are in countries that do not hold back
development and research in controversial areas like Stem Cell Research.
In fact they encourage it and fund it. These countries are leaving the
United States behind and will reap the financial rewards and the health
benefits of such research before the United States. They will generate
jobs and wealth. The Unite States will just lose.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In an article from February 24, 2006 in the Journal Science:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote>
"At
an elite science high school in Dallas, Texas, President George W. Bush
told the assembled students that the United States "needs a workforce
strong in engineering and science and physics" to remain the world's top
economic power. His words would seem to bode well for precollege
activities funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the only
federal agency with an explicit mission to improve science and math
education. But 3 days later, the president unveiled a 2007 budget
request that would cut--for the third straight year--a 4-year-old
program at NSF aimed at doing exactly that." "If the (Education and
Human Resources) EHR budget stays flat, there's no hope of accomplishing
what corporate America says is needed to improve the U.S. workforce,"</blockquote>
In his Sate of the union Address on January 31, 2006 President Bush Stated:<blockquote>
"And
to keep America competitive, one commitment is necessary above all: We
must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our
greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated,
hardworking, ambitious people -- and we're going to keep that edge.
Tonight I announce an American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage
innovation throughout our economy, and to give our nation's children a
firm grounding in math and science."</blockquote>
However, on February
27, 2006 President Bush comes out and announces his plans for the
budget: (Washington Post By Mike Allen and Peter Baker 02/07/06)<blockquote>
"President
Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget today eliminating dozens of
politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for
education, environmental protection and business development, while
proposing significant increases for the military and international
spending, according to White House documents."</blockquote>
These problems that are highlighted above are at the heart of the problem.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now
get into the "No child Left Behind" program which has altered public
education and forced it into a rote learning model by demanding testing
performance at the sacrifice of building critical thinking skills.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According
to Wikipedia Rote Learning is defined as: a learning technique which
avoids grasping the inner complexities and inferences of the subject
that is being learned and instead focuses on memorizing the material so
that it can be recalled by the learner exactly the way it was read or
heard. In other words, it also means learning just for the test.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For a Texas school to achieve the academic acceptable rating (the lowest passing standard)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>According to the TEA's own 2005 Accountability Manual:</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Schools must have passing rates of:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
50% percent in Reading Tests</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
50% in Writing Tests</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
50% in Social Studies</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
35% percent in Math tests</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
25% percent in Science tests</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
aspects of learning that involved critical thinking and questioning
what is being taught are dieing on the vine so that we reflect an
acceptable passing rating as defined by the TAKS test standards for
Texas.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I find it horrifying that such low standards are required
of students to pass the TAKS test in order to get an academically
acceptable rating for the entire school.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No single student would
be allowed to pass a single test with a 60%, 40% or 35% grade. The
Government is telling us Schools are getting better and more schools are
meeting the acceptable rating than they were two years ago. The only
reason that is true is because they have lowered the standard and
created loop holes that specifically allow for test scores of minorities
to be excluded in the reporting.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Our schools are being forced
onto a path of intentional failure by placing the appearance of demands
and accountability without funding. The current administration in
Washington and our representatives across the United States all talk
about how important education is but their actions of undermining those
initiatives by cutting the money out of education only speak to their
real agenda of forcing public education to fail so that they can
privatize education.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This agenda is being achieved at the
sacrifice of this generation of children that are in school today. The
damage that is being done will take decades to repair. Our economy will
suffer and the quality of life for your children might actually be less
than yours for the first time in American history.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As a nation we
need to stop wasting time with foolish projects like School Vouchers and
we need to stop spending money and resources on trying to get
intelligent design into science classes. These distractions only drain
valuable resources and time from the educational system while
exasperating the problems at the expense of the education of our
children. We need to fix the problems - not create new ones.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>We need: </strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To hold elected officials accountable for sacrificing education.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Better pay for teachers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More Teachers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Better resources for education.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Properly fund "No child Left behind"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Modify "No Child Left Behind" to promote critical thinking.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Abandon the method of Rote Learning.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Increase funding for "Head Start".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More involvement of higher learning institutions through the entire educational life of a child.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To spend more money on students per year than we do on prison inmates. ($13,000 per prisoner vs. $6,000 per student)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Stimulate more research in higher education.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Open up Stem Cell research and other programs to lure the leading minds.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Restore incentives to bring the brightest and most talented researchers to America.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To be number 1 in education world wide.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For Texas to lead the United States in education as well.</div>
<div style="overflow: hidden; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-66297698900412219182012-09-11T04:56:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:56:44.848-07:00Educating Yourself to Succeed<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Question</b><br />
Education
is held by our society to be one of the keys to success. Certainly,
there are certain professions in which formal academic education is a
prerequisite not to success itself, but rather just to get into the
front door of the profession.<br />
The question we need to ask is
whether or not formal academic education as offered in the current
structure of our society is in fact a prerequisite, or even a
significant help in achieving success in general (as opposed to within a
specific profession) and what are the underlying reasons for this.<br />
<b>What is Success?</b><br />
Before
we can do this we need to decide exactly what we mean by success. It
has been defined by some as 'the progressive realisation of a worthwhile
dream, goal or ideal', and this is a good definition, but lacks some of
the specificity we need to truly determine the role of education in
achieving it.<br />
For the purposes of this article I am going to define success as the following.<br />
Achieving
a progressively improving state of making a meaningful contribution
with integrity, good health, good relationships, material abundance, and
self determination.<br />
To further explore what this actually means, what I am saying is that;<br />
To
be successful is to be making a positive difference in some way, whilst
acting in good faith, looking after your health, enjoying and building
strong meaningful relationships, being able to do all of this without
concern caused by lack of resources, but rather based on what is good
and right, and finally, to be in control of your own life and not
reduced to unwilling servitude by slavery, ignorance or an oversized
mortgage.<br />
<b>Does Formal Academic Education Teach Us to Do This?</b><br />
If
we judge by the results in our western societies, where nearly everyone
has had some education, the majority have finished High School, and a
great many have gone on to college. We have to seriously question the
true value of formal education to the success of the individual.<br />
By
the rates of suicide, drug use, depression, and hopelessness in our
society, we can infer that there are some deficiencies in our education
system in so far as teaching people to make a contribution they see as
meaningful.<br />
By both the increasing obesity, diabetes levels and
drug problems in our society we can judge that the education system is
ineffective in teaching people to be healthy.<br />
By the divorce rates
and level of violence we can make an indicative judgement as to the
effectiveness of our education system in teaching people to get along
and build strong relationships.<br />
By the level of dependence on
welfare, the levels of homelessness and the levels of relative poverty
in the richest nations in the world, we can take a good guess as to
effectiveness of our education system in teaching people to create
material abundance in their own lives.<br />
By the by the mere
existence of Blue Monday and TGIF (Thank God It's Friday), we know there
are enough people who are forced to do something at least 5 days a week
that they would rather not have to do, so we can gauge the
effectiveness of our education system to teach people self
determination.<br />
I hope this is not too harsh for you, but it is the way it seems from where I sit.<br />
<b>Why is Our Formal Education System so Ineffective?</b><br />
What
nobody tells us is that our existing formal education system is either
unable to teach us how to be successful, nor designed to teach us to
become successful.<br />
The education system as it currently exists, is
based on the needs of an industrial aged society. In the industrial age
our own personal interests were in conflict with those of the larger
society and of those in power.<br />
<b>Let's look at Relationships</b><br />
During
the early industrial age, when the current system of education took its
early froms, we lived in a predominantly patriarchal society in which
very few women ever dared to leave their husbands, and husbands
therefore didn't actually need to know how to keep their wives happy,
similarly, wives just had to be submissive and obedient and that was
enough, the marriage lasted for life.<br />
Nowadays, when we have so
much freedom to enter and leave relationships without for the most part
significant repercussions, we actually need to know how to keep the
other person happy. Yet we as a society still don't have a structured
means of educating everyone to have functional, long term, meaningful
relationships.<br />
<b>What about Material Abundance and Self Determination?</b><br />
What
our industrial age government and society needed was producing tax
payers. Society needed some entrepreneurs and business people to assume
the risks, acquire the skills, employ these workers and provide capital,
but there was still a need for the majority of people to be part of the
working underclass.<br />
To keep people going to work to produce for
the country and pay taxes to the government, it was necessary to NOT
teach them how to create financial independence, in fact it was
necessary to actively teach them to be lifelong employees and live from
paycheck to paycheck.<br />
One of the effects of encouraging people to
manage their long term financial position poorly, is the rise of the
attitudes necessary for today's consumerism, buy it now pay for it
later, keep up with the Jones's , my identity is created by what I own,
and I want it all for me!<br />
This mentality is great for keeping
people in debt, keeping people locked into jobs, stimulating the
economy, and, you guessed it, raising more taxes. It does not serve the
individual in terms of creating long term financial independence, truly
sustainable material abundance or achieving the self determination that
comes with not being up to your eyeballs in debt.<br />
<b>How about Health?</b><br />
I
don't really understand how our society can be so poorly educated about
health as to be so unhealthy, I guess our addiction to (among other
things) high fat, low nutrition fast food is tied in with our
consumeristic, I want it yesterday lifestyle and attitude.<br />
Whatever
the cause, there is obviously money in unhealthy food and where there
is money there is power to influence society, which of course means
there is yet more money in unhealthy food, and in turn more power to
influence.<br />
A bit of a vicious circle, but one that at this point
can only be broken by educating our children from a young age to
exercise and eat healthy food, something that is obviously not being
done in the current system, as evidenced by the growing problems with
childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes.<br />
just based on this simple
set of observations we can begin to see that a formal education is
simply not teaching people to be successful.<br />
<b>The Point</b><br />
The
purpose of this article is not to whine about the formal education
system, I only go down that path to make you aware of the need to take
matters into your own hands, success education is one of the few areas
of life where 'vigilante' action is a good thing.<br />
The point of all
of this is that if you are going to learn the skills, attitudes and
knowledge you need to be truly successful you are going to have to seek
that information out for yourself!<br />
The information is out there,
you just need to look for it, in biographies of successful people, in
the countless books and audio programs on the market by the many
experts in the world.<br />
<b>How do I Educate Myself to Succeed?</b><br />
<b>Reading</b><br />
Reading books (both traditional hard copy and now days electronic) is the most powerful way to educate yourself.<br />
Learning
from the experiences of others who have gone before you can help you
avoid making many of the same mistakes these pioneers have already made,
it can stimulate your own thinking and help you find creative solutiosn
to your own problems, and it can certainly broaden your thinking and
your mind.<br />
So start reading! Read a good mix of 'How to' books in
your chosen field, biographies of great people, motivation books, books
about success principles, philosophical books and make sure you read
some of the classic self help books too (they may be old books but the
principles they teach are timeless)<br />
<b>Listening</b><br />
Whilst
reading is vital, the problem with reading is that it takes dedicated,
focused time, and in our busy world, listening to audio books, seminars,
and other audio programs offers a great way to educate yourself in time
that would otherwise be largely wasted.<br />
If you have to sit in
traffic twice a day, don't just let that time be wasted time, stick a
tape/CD/MP3 program on and use the time to teach and motivate yourself.
Zig Ziglar calls this enrolling in 'automobile university'. In my time
in the military we used a principle called concurrent activity, which
essentially means deliberately accomplishing multiple outcomes
simultaneously, or "killing two birds with one stone" as the old cliche
goes.<br />
You can use this same principle by enrolling in Zigs University and making double use of your travel time.<br />
<b>Association</b><br />
One
of the greatest powers for human change is that of association.
basically we have a strong tendency to become like, assume the attitudes
of, and start to think and act like those we hang around.<br />
This is
why parents instinctively want to keep their children away from 'the
bad crowd', however we can use the exact same principle to our advantage
by deliberately hanging around the 'good crowd'.<br />
If we want to be
healthy, we are better to hang around 'health conscious' people at a
gym than 'anesthetised unconscious' people in a bar.<br />
If we want to
be wealthy, we need to make a deliberate effort to associate with
wealthy people, not because we want them to give us anything, but
because the way they think has led them to be wealthy, and we want to
learn to think like them so we too can make ourselves wealthy.<br />
Any
group of people with the values and results you want to foster are
candidates for association, however one of the best sources around are
seminars and workshops on subjects relevant to what you are trying to
accomplish.<br />
<b>Mentoring & Coaching</b><br />
Having someone
to whom you are held accountable for your performance or non
performance is a great help in disciplining yourself to do what you need
to do to get the results you want.<br />
Coaching however is much more
than that, a good coach will be able to give you ideas, encouragement
and when you need it support to get you through the journey you are on.
They can give you feedback from a more detached third party perspective,
helping us see past our sometimes overwhelmingly personal involvement
in a situation.<br />
Getting yourself a good coach or mentor can definitely be a big help in educating yourself to succeed.<br />
<b>Go for it (and don't quit)</b><br />
These
four things, reading, listening, association and coaching will give you
the necessary resources to educate yourself to succeed.<br />
Keep in
mind that your current 'education' has taken you many many years to
acquire, so you can't expect change to be either instant or easy.<br />
It
is however very possible, and with your persistent determined effort
definitely achievable, and when you start to see the results of your
self administered success education, it is unquestionably worth the
effort!<br />
</div>
<div style="overflow: hidden; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-32958727945867089572012-09-04T04:55:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:55:47.653-07:005 Ways to Fund Your Child's College Education<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Did you know that the cost of a 4 year degree program is around $20,000 dollars per year.<br />
The
cost of a college education is probably the most expensive item in
bringing up children today. When you take into account tuition fees,
exam fees, living expenses, accommodation, books and computers it's not
surprising that the average cost of college education is over $20,000
per year and that's before the social side of college life.<br />
Today
we live in a world where only the best educated and most prepared can
succeed. The Job market is probably the most crucial and competitive
element of our society and having a college education and degree goes a
long way towards succeeding in it.<br />
When our children are ready to
enter the world of work it will be even more difficult and a college
education will be essential to succeed. Here are 5 ways to fund your
child's college education.<br />
1. The usual method of parental funding
of college education is out of current income, that is out of your
weekly or monthly salary.<br />
Whilst this is the most common method of
funding college education it is one that only the very rich or highly
paid can afford to do with ease. Even if there are 2 salaries most
families find it difficult and will require sacrifices, even more so if
you have more than 1 child. At best most parents can only afford to
contribute part of the costs of college education out of current income.
Additional sources of income will be required.<br />
2. Your child can work his or her way through college.<br />
Many
students have to work whilst studying but many find the experience of
juggling a job, lectures and a social life very difficult. Often the
result is that students drop out of college education, fail their exams
or don't do as well as they could.<br />
3. Your child may have the opportunity to take out student loans to fund their college education.<br />
Today
the vast majority of students are forced to take out student loans to
fund all or part of their college education. Usually to subsidize
parental contributions, student loans are the most common way of
students funding their own college education. Many students however,
leave college with substantial debt and even with interest rates at
historically low levels today's students can expect to have to pay
substantial monthly repayments for many years.<br />
4. Your child may
obtain a scholarship or be entitled to grants from either federal or
local funds towards the cost of their college education.<br />
There are
many sources of student scholarships or grants and with a bit of
research most students today can find some grant funding. These sources
however cannot be guaranteed for the future. Whilst scholarships and
grants do not have to be repaid and as such are preferable to loans they
are not guaranteed or predictable and therefore relying on them for our
children is a risk.<br />
5. Take out an education savings plan to fund college education.<br />
An
education savings plan is a regular saving plan into which you and your
children can contribute. The plans are administered by colleges or
state authorities and can be taken out for any child including a newborn
babies. Because of the effects of long term compound interest the
earlier you take out your plan the easier it will be and the lower your
contributions will be. Because the funds are built up prior to going to
college students do not have to rely on scholarships, grants or loans
and they can concentrate on their studies.<br />
There are a number of
options to fund your child's college education but the only way funds
can be guaranteed is by you taking out an education savings plan. With
the education savings plan you decide what you can invest and your child
can also contribute to his or her college education. With luck
scholarships and grants will still be available as will loans to top up
if necessary. If your child does not go to college the fund can be
cashed in.<br />
Taking out an education savings plan early will give
your child the real opportunity of a college education and the best
prospects for a job when they leave college.<br />
</div>
<div style="overflow: hidden; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-46146353512441452722012-08-28T04:54:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:55:02.928-07:00Elementary Education in Orissa<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
"For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we
see ourselves as a developed nation." This is the part of the speech of
Dr Abdul Kalam in Hyderabad. Whenever we are talking about Developed
nation, suddenly education comes to picture with other major indicators
like the growth rate of the economy, birth rate, death rate, infant
mortality rate (IMR), and literacy rate. These indicators are all
interconnected with each other and the literacy rate has been the major
determinant of the rise or fall in the other indicators. There is enough
evidence even in Orissa to show that a low literacy rate correlates
with high birth rate, high IMR, and decrease in the rate of life
expectancy. The recognition of this fact has created awareness on the
need to focus upon literacy and elementary education programmes, not
simply as a matter of social justice but more to foster economic growth,
social well-being, and social stability.<br />
The
Constitution of India casts an obligation on the State to provide free
and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14. The
literacy rate in Orissa during 1951 was 15.8% against the all India
average of 18.3%, which increased to 63.6% in 2001 against the all India
average of 65.4%. While the male literacy rate of 63.1% in the State in
1991 increased to 75.9% in 2001, the female literacy rate increased
from 34.7% to 51.0%. There has been a steady improvement in the literacy
rates of the State over successive decades, which is a result of
expansion of educational infrastructure both quantitative and
qualitative.<br />
In 1950-51, there were 9,801 Primary Schools with
16,525 teachers and 3.15 lakh students. There were 501 Upper Primary
Schools with 2,569 teachers and 40,000 students. Also there were 172
High Schools with 2,247 teachers and 16,000 students. Since 1950-51,
there has been a considerable expansion in the number of educational
institutions, enrollment and number of teachers at all levels during
successive plan periods. In 2003-2004, there are 44,416 Primary Schools
with 52.54 lakh enrollment and 97 lakh teachers in the State. There is
one Primary School for every 3.5 Sq.Km area. The state government has
established 14, 233 Upper Primary Schools for each 10.94 km area in the
State.<br />
Issues of Concern<br />
Education is the key to social
& economic development of any society. It encompasses every sphere
of human life. Level of literacy has a profound bearing on the level of
human development. There are major issues, which are directly or
indirectly concerned with the education in Orissa. First, the dropout
rate in primary and upper primary schools is become a major issue of
concern. In the same time dropout rate become a major setback in the
increasing literacy rate which was at the primary stage 33.6%. But if
you compare girls dropout rate with boys, the dropout rate for girls was
35.4% and for boys 31.9%. Dropout rate at upper primary stage was 57.5%
in 2003-04. Out of them 56.5% boys dropped out in upper primary stage
while 58.6% girls dropped out in the same year. Second issue is
infrastructure of school buildings, which are in bad conditions. And the
old or unsafe school buildings of our state are inadequate to meet the
needs of school children. Many of them one-room (or even open-air)
operations with poorly paid teachers.<br />
Steps taken by the State Government<br />
Orissa
government has always made concerted efforts to provide education to
all. Some major initiatives were taken to offer quality education for a
brighter future not only for Oriyas but also for the state, at last for
the nation. Some steps were directed towards the reform and renewal of
state's education system. In the same time there has been a considerable
expansion in the number of educational institutions, enrolment and
number of teachers at all levels during successive plan periods.<br />
The
central and state governments have been expanding the provision of
primary formal and non-formal education to realise the goal of
Universilisation of Elementary Education (UEE). Elementary education is
recognised as a fundamental right of all citizens in India. The
directive principles of state policy envisage UEE as one of the major
goals to be achieved and mandated in a timeframe. As per guidelines
adopted at the national level, the State aims at providing access to
Primary Schools within one kilometer and Upper Primary Schools within
three kilometers from habitations having 300 or more and 500 or more
respectively. In order to achieve the goal of Universalisation of
Elementary Education and to improve the quality, steps have been
initiated to engage more 9,563 para teachers under State Plan.<br />
Government
of India's flagship programme 'Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan' was launched on
nation-wide scale to universalize elementary education by providing for
community ownership and monitoring of the school system. The objectives
of the programme are compulsory Education to all the Children of 6-14
years age group by 2007. Under the programme, there were 780 new primary
schools, 2,771 new upper primary schools were opened and. 25,594
Swechasevi Sikhshya Sahayaks were appointed in 2003-04. The Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan programme calls for community participation through
effective decentralisation - involvement of Village Education Committee
(VEC), Members of Panchayat Raj institutions and Womens' group. It
ensures transparency and accountability of the school system to the
community. To lesson the burden of Directorate of Higher Education, the
state government has been established three regional Directorates in
Bhubaneswar, Berhampur and Sambalpur. Regional Directors of these
Directorates have been vested with similar powers of Director of Higher
Education. Today, access to the qualitative education is reducing in
Orissa. The reason is a lack of budget, weak governance and decline of
physical infrastructure, shortage of teachers and their low salary,
obsolete teaching plans, poverty and malnutrition, and absence of
parents and society participation.<br />
Hurdles to achieve the Goal<br />
Funds
become major hurdle for every developmental programme in Orissa. In
some cases, it is surplus and government cannot utilize the fund within
the required timeframe. In the other side, it is deficit. In every step
and in every stage, we extend our hand in front of the Central
government, financial institutions for funds. How do you education keep
the education aside? The government does not have money for primary
education. Well, the fiscal deficit is surely a problem, but that could
not be excused during a downturn if it is used for opening up the way to
developed nation. The Government of Orissa fully endorses the approach
on universalisation of elementary education and the scheme 'Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan' should be given the highest priority. But when we are
heading towards success of the programme, we do not have fund to provide
the study materials to the students. With the assistance from Central
Government, the Orissa Government has been providing the study materials
every year. For a state like Orissa, the government needs 3.5 crores
books for the students up to VII class.<br />
Generally, the government
was sanctioned eight crores every year. In the current year budget, only
four crores has sanctioned, whereas approximately 30 crores required
for the printing of study materials. Now, It is become routine issue for
the government to sanction inadequate fund and demand more money at the
neck of the moment when the books should reach at the end user. This is
not only creating an obstacle in the time bound programme but also
spoil the valuable time of the students for struggling with the course
without courseware. Here I have highlighted one issue, which is
occurred in every year at the beginning of academic year. Government has
been compromising the issue without thinking the future of the small
kids.<br />
Though it is a routine issue, then why Government is not considering this issue seriously?<br />
Some
other issues like educational infrastructure and appoint good teachers
with good salary are also taken into consideration. When we are
appointing good teachers for this programme, we should think about the
other side of the coin (i.e good remuneration). The state government
appointed 40,846 Shiksha Sahayaks under several schemes including
District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarba Siksha Abhijan
(SSA). Due to deficit budget the Shiksha Sahayaks are compromising with
the situation and ready to work in less salary (i.e. Rs 1500 per month),
which is less than the wage of a bonded labour. In spite of that the
State Government is unable to provide their share at least in time to
the Shiksha Sahayaks. How would we expect quality education from a
teacher who is struggling to survive in this expensive society?
Recently, the State Government has decided to hike the monthly
honorarium of the Siksha Sahayaks from Rs 1500 to Rs 2000. This decision
was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by Chief Minister
Naveen Patnaik on October 20. This will cost the State Exchequer an
additional Rs 25 crore per year. Obviously, zero percent credit goes to
the State Government. Though Central Government is supporting 75
percent of the estimated expenditure, this additional hike will be added
to the aided account. If Sarba Siksha Abhijan is become a flop
programme, then the credit goes to the state government. The major
barrier is deficiency of fund.<br />
Conclusion<br />
We are
compromising in every step of our life. How many days will we live with
'compromise'? Let us stop compromising with our future and with our
future generation. At least the State Government should give up
elementary education. Education makes man a right thinker. It tells man
how to think and how to make decision. When the absolute number of
literate people in the state is steadily rising year after year, then
where are those instincts of a literate person? Where is your voice
against the backward step of the government? But moving beyond
educational programmes requires much political will and public pressure.
Unfortunately, elementary education continues to receive low priority
from those in power. While State Assembly discusses trivial issues,
issues related to elementary education gathers dust. If government will
not take any rigid step then all children of 6-14 years age group in
school by 2003, all children to complete 5 years of schooling by 2007and
all children to complete 8 years of schooling by 2010 will become a
utopian dream for us.<br />
</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-7660152353914925702012-08-21T04:52:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:53:25.706-07:00Commercialisation of Higher Education<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Introduction and Literature Review</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
South
African education policies place priority on addressing historical
education imbalances, but should also be sensitive to the demands of an
ever-increasing global knowledge-driven environment. The educational
system cannot be dominated by the needs of the domestic educational
system of South Africa ignoring the trends exerted by the global world
(OEDC Annual Report, 2004:44). Higher education in South Africa should
realize that they operate and function in a knowledge-driven global
environment in which both domestic and foreign students demand access to
the best quality education at the best reputable institutions of higher
education in the world.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In this regard, most definitions of
internationalization of higher education include the following:
"Internationalisation is a process that prepares the community for
successful participation in an increasingly interdependent world ...
The process infuse all facets of the post-secondary education system,
fostering global understanding and developing skills for effective
living and working in a diverse world" (Francis, 1993 cited by Patrick,
1997).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The position of higher education in South Africa should be
evaluated considering the re-integration of South Africa into the global
community. South Africa was rapidly re-integrated into the world
community by obtaining almost immediate membership of influential
international organisations after 1994. Kishun (1998:59) indicated that
South Africa became a member of among others the following
international institutions: United Nations; Organisation of African
Unity; Commonwealth; International Olympic Committee; Federation of
International Football Associations; and Lome Convention. Integration
of influential international institutions is a necessary but not
sufficient pre-condition for internationalization of higher education.
Sustainable internationalization should be closely aligned to the
emerging global trends and events in the education sector.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An
analysis of the basis on which internationalization of higher education
occurs is needed as well as the benefits of the internationalization
process. This research is conducted against this background.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Problem Statement</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whilst
South Africa is in a process of transition regarding higher education
to address the imbalances of the past, the question arises whether the
South African educational sector is able to compete in the global
economy which regard knowledge as a commercialised commodity.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Methodology</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A
sample size of 781 respondents from six institutions of higher
education in South Africa was selected. Senior students were randomly
selected using the convenience sampling technique. A semi-structured
questionnaire was developed to measure the perceived competitive profile
of institutions of higher education in South Africa. The questionnaire
constitutes five measuring foci, namely:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
· Section A: Institutional information regarding the location where the respondent is enrolled.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
· Section B: Biographical information in terms of gender, type of student and country of origin.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
· Section C: Decision criteria used to select an institution of higher education.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
·
Section D: Four competitive dimensions of higher education
institutions, including strategic competitiveness, institutional
competitiveness, product competitiveness, and tactical competitiveness.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
·
Section E: Open-ended questions, aimed to identify the reasons why
respondents choose a specific institution of higher education, their
opinion on the institution's competitive reputation, and the factors
that may influence the international competitiveness of the particular
institution.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The data was transformed into two opposite
categories, namely those who agreed with the statements and those who
disagreed, enabling the researchers to derive a hypothesized
agreement-disagreement distribution. Those who neither agreed nor
disagreed were allocated to the disagreement group set giving and
expected disagreement response set of 57% (p=0.57) and an agreement
response set of 43% (q=0.43). The Binomial test was employed to
determine whether the observed distribution correspond with the
hypothesized distribution using a significance test level of 0.05.
Furthermore, the level of agreement or disagreement with the selected
competitive statements and the extend of agreements between the
respondents from the different institutions on the various statements
were determined by executing four statistical procedures, namely: ANOVA
to compare the means of respondents from the different institutions;
determining how much of the perception variation could be accounted for
by the influence of the different institutions of higher education;
determining the averages for each strategic dimension to obtain an
indication of the level of agreement with the competitive statements;
and determining the standard deviations to obtain an indication of the
extend to which consensus exists within the sample.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Findings</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With
regard to the strategic competitiveness of South African institutions
of higher education to engage in a seamless network the respondents were
of the opinion that South African institutions of higher education give
low priority to attract foreign students, are not well known for
attracting foreign students, are not actively involved in exchange
programmes of students and lecturers, and do not have active engagements
or agreements with other tertiary institutions, businesses and
communities.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the issue of institutional competitiveness, the
majority of respondents were of the opinion that institutions of higher
education in South Africa have the ability to attract quality students,
does not have an international student culture, offers qualifications
that are internationally accepted, can claim international reputability
on post-graduate level, offers competitive tuition fees, deliver
research outputs that are internationally recognized, and are not easily
accessible.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In terms of product competitiveness the majority of
respondents indicated that institutions of higher education in South
Africa have active orientation programmes to familiarise foreign and
domestic students with the institutions, provide safe and secure
learning environments, provide leading information technology for
academic growth and excellence, do not easily adapt to the needs and
wants of students, and provide convenient service packages to students.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With
regard to tactical competitiveness institutions of higher education in
South Africa have the ability to compile a diploma or degree offering
that meets or exceeds international standards in terms of offering
subject content of international standard, having internationally
acclaimed staff, aggressively marketing its qualifications
internationally, claiming international acceptable through-put, and
having acceptable grant and loan schemes accessible to students.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Conclusion and Recommendations</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
majority of respondents are in agreement that institutions of higher
education in South Africa are able to compete internationally on the
four competitive dimensions (strategic, institutional, tactical and
product). Internationalisation requires that institutions of higher
education in South Africa should emphasise a somewhat loosening of the
relationship with Government, despite the paradoxical need to create new
transformational bodies to address the imbalances of the past.
Internationalisation of higher education implies that internationalised
institutions operate on new super ordinate levels which has its own
legal, administrative and revenue-raising powers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In terms of
strategic direction institutions of higher education might consider at
least one of the following internationalization approaches:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
·
"Would-be internationalization": Applies to academics and institutions
wanting to be involved in internationalization but facing problems in
being considered on equal terms.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
· "Life or death
internationalization": Countries, their academics and institutions,
which view internationalization cooperation as indispensable for their
status and role in the global world.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
· "Two areas": Academics and
institutions have the option of striving for either more national or
more international status and orientation. The academic field in which
one is operating often determines this.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
· "Internationalisation by
import": Countries and institutions that treat internationalization
only as coming from outside, by hosting foreign students and publishing
research. It should not represent a separate strategy towards
internationalisation.</div>
<div style="overflow: hidden; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-84558065934274311362012-08-14T04:52:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:52:25.238-07:00Higher Education as Service Trade Exporter In South Africa<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Introduction<br />
Whilst
it is recognized that South Africa is still in a process of transition
regarding higher education to address the imbalances of the past, it
should also be emphasized that Institutions of Higher Education in large
are still underplaying the importance of higher education as
commercialized commodity in the global world. This resulted in a low
commercial higher education presence in the global world, a limited
capability to attract quality students from foreign countries and a
national oriented education approach. Even the school law that will
soon be introduced in South Africa to address the imbalances of the past
may have a negative effect of institutions of higher education to play a
significant role in the commercialized educational world. The proposed
new law emphasized adherence to the principles of equitability,
rectification and representativeness above competence in the appointment
of teachers. This may undermine the quality of education firstly, in
schools and later in institutions of higher education in South Africa.<br />
This
is in sharp contrast with international trends signaling that the
international higher education market is becoming more competitive as
education competes as export and import commodity. Figures available
indicate that higher education export represents on average around 6.6%
of total student enrollments in 2000. This figure can still not be
matched b South African Institutions 5 years later. In countries like
Switzerland, Australia and Austria these figures were above 11% in 2000
making these countries the highest internationalized higher education
countries in the world. Similarly, educational services in Australia,
New Zealand and the United States of America respectively represent the
third, fourth and fifth largest service export sectors. This clearly
provides evidence that these countries realize the significance of
higher education to transfer intellectual capital and enhance the
economic competitiveness of nations.<br />
Interventions required<br />
It
is important that Institutions of Higher Education in South Africa
position themselves as nodes in an increasingly seamless knowledge base
in the global world, which could have a greater interface with the
knowledge-driven global economy. Therefore, Institutions of higher
education in South Africa should given even more attention to integrate
with influential international institutions that will enable them to
internationalize higher education.<br />
Currently, internationalization
of higher education in South Africa happens more by incident rather
than through thoroughly planned and organized approaches. If
institutions of higher education in South Africa intend to consider
higher education as a commercial trade commodity, serious emphasis
should be place upon:<br />
· Introducing purposeful policies and
strategies that clearly indicate the road forward with regard to
internationalization intentions and the specific areas that would need
priority attention. However, this should not be developed as separate
internationalization strategies, but should e seen as a natural element
of the overall strategy of the institute.<br />
· Implementing induction and course programmes that will attract quality foreign students to the institutions.<br />
· Supporting academics to participate in conferences as well as in reputable academic journals to publish research results.<br />
·
Ensuring that all course offerings meet international accepted criteria
as defined by the leading institutions of higher education in the
developed world.<br />
· Creating conducive learning environments equipped with the latest learning technologies.<br />
Internationalization
requires that institutions of higher education in South Africa should
emphasize a somewhat loosening of the relationship with Government to
create new transformational bodies to address the imbalances of the
past, but also to broaden this mission to play a more active role in
regional economic development. This can be achieved by establishing
strong horizontal links with other universities research institutions
and industry in the Southern African Development Community. If this can
be achieved, the activities of institutions of higher education will no
longer be isolated from the marketplace and its outputs could become
merchandise products as well. Loosening the relationship with
government will not only provide for more freedom to autonomously decide
what educational and research outputs to create, but will also increase
the pressure on institutions of higher education to perform better as
they take up the responsibility to raise funds for projects and
salaries.<br />
It is imperative that higher education in South Africa
can no longer take the disposition that placed research and development
in contrast to one another. Rather, it should take the stand that the
outputs of institutions should have a strong:<br />
· Social development
and application in which the simultaneous promotion and integration of
education, scientific research and production occurs;<br />
· Science
and Technology Financial Management Support System in place in order to
create a safe and secure research environment for academics; and<br />
·
Set of " Key State Laboratories" where research and education of
strategic importance to the development and well-being of the country
can be carried out.<br />
Conclusion<br />
South Africa institutions of
higher education currently rated only among the top 40 of the world's
host countries. An urgent need exist to rethink and reformulate the
educational thinking models of institutions of higher education in South
Africa. Because of the changing political situation accompanied by a
changing global economy, many traditional ways in which institutions of
higher education were previously governed will change. Unless
institutions of higher education in South Africa succeed to
internationalize successfully, huge opportunities to earn foreign
currencies using higher education as a trade commodity will be lost.<br />
</div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-35238312112562580852012-08-07T04:51:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:51:27.281-07:00Whither Education <div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
Even after half-a-century of Indian Independence, the fate of
education, educators and students has hardly improved. The apathy of the
power that be, including a large section of society, has not changed
when it comes to human resource development and education. Even now
there are more than four crore educated unemployed youths in India.<br />
India
boasts of being world's third knowledge power but effectively this is
the lowest when judged against per thousand-population base. Societal
degradation, inflicted by political might, is reflected in educational
institutions across India. Aberrations have become the rule on campuses
that are infested with self-seekers and politicians.<br />
Democratization
of higher educational institutions, though a noble concept, has in the
past 20 years turned campuses into a cauldron of stinking filth. These
are managed by affiliations charged with little regard for excellence,
honesty and intellectual probity. Unethical and politically-motivated
decisions serve a few and are reflections of societal catharsis.<br />
Geographic
India consolidated into a polity by the British has muted into
conglomerations of politically charged, disjointed entities and
facsimiles of democratic degradation. The classic conservative yearning
for an ordered polity and commensurate pursuit of knowledge on the
campuses are missing. Whichever brand rules the country, this section of
society commands no respect now. May it be students or teachers they
don't have a voice, they don't constitute an essential service and
education is not a national necessity. Being a state subject,
educational policies suffer from innumerable deformities.<br />
Though
it is a constitutional obligation, the non-availability of funds and
vested administrative setup have led to the mushrooming of universities,
fake campuses, private enterprises and numerous makeshift centers of
education as also fly-by-air foreign campuses. It has proved to be a
great financial endeavor with hardly any risk involved because it does
not come under VAT or any other financial constraints. India has by now
more institutions of such type than colleges, an excellent opportunity
to rope in knowledge seeking youth and those who desire to fly off to
greener pastures.<br />
When it comes to the formulation of policies
about higher education, structuring the system, financial assistance,
grants and salary, the statutory body-University Grants Commission-is
mentioned like a sacred cow worshipped as well as butchered in the
streets. How far the UGC is autonomous is a common knowledge. It has
become a post office, a government organization, disbursing petty
grants, sanctioned by the Central Government, among universities or
institutions with a number of tags attached to them depending upon the
status of the recipient institutions, state, Central, autonomous or
deemed universities. There is a perpetual complaint about the
non-availability of funds. The administration should appreciate that the
jumbo cabinet and expenditure on legislatures could be cut down to feed
and educate a few villages. The teacher wants to be a ladder upon which
students could climb and scale new heights.<br />
The Central and state
governments invoke ESMA to curb the voice of agitating people, but it
takes no time to give benefits to politicians and bureaucrats. It is
essential to please them so that a symbiotic balance is maintained as
also to oblige a few of them. The government has failed to take
effective steps to curb industrialization of education. Within hours the
doles given in Parliament and honorarium were doubled but the 6 per
cent expenditure of the GDP on education has proved to be dogma
persisting right from the Kothari Commission recommendations for over
four decades now.<br />
Students of various educational institutes go on
strike, almost yearly, demanding withdrawal of excessive fee hike. The
tuition fees make up only about 13 per cent of annual expenditure in the
present university education. It is now a formidable industry and the
aim is to make money. Poor students, however, intelligent they may be,
cannot afford to join colleges, professional institutions or courses.
They may join such courses by putting their families under heavy debt of
banks or financial institutions. Even in the USA, tuition fees
contribute to about 15 per cent of the total annual expenditure on
higher education. Nehru said: "If all is well with universities, it will
be well with the nation." Whereas Rabindranath Tagore once compared
educated classes in India to "A second storey in an old building that
was added in, but unfortunately the architect forgot to build a
staircase between them."<br />
Teaching profession is devalued in the
country because the teachers can't compete in our society, have no
muscle power, are educated and hence behave differently. Neither do they
have guts of creamy bureaucrats nor institutional support of any kind. A
teacher can entertain you with a pale smile on hearing that this is the
profession of nation builders, the cream of society and a noble
profession. The next moment teacher will be branded as cancers in
societal marrow, getting salary for no work, craving for power, equality
in salary and status with the Class A government servants. The teacher
was the consultant and conscience keeper of society till mid-century.
One could identify him by his tattered clothes, emaciated pale face,
soft voice and meek behavior. He was the guru. That guru, comparatively
having a better outfit now, has metamorphosed to a present teacher.<br />
Newspaper
reports are replete with his shortcomings; his misconduct in preaching
indiscipline, enough is paid to him for no work, as he has to teach only
for 181 days in a year. How could he dream of the parity with his
bosses in the secretariat, his class dropouts in Parliament and the
government. In order to save our hard-earned "democracy" which is being
strengthened by a few hooligans, politicians and administrators, the
government has to suppress the genuine demands so that education does
not progress to the detriment of "illiterate democrats". A handful of
teachers adopts unethical means to become rich just like any other
segments that are designated scamsters today. Exceptions, however, do
not make the rule.<br />
Most of our Presidents, many of our
bureaucrats, including ministers, parliamentarians and others, had been
in this profession. Did they not do any good work for the betterment of
society before their elevation to these posts of governance and
reverence? Can't the authorities assess the strength of the demand
vis-à-vis the qualification, age at the time of being recruited as a
teacher, lack of promotional avenues, stagnation and competency in terms
of hiatus in the inflated societal values, urge and necessity to
improve qualification and experience to remain in the fray. Education
for teachers is a continuous process unlike
"one-time-degree-obtaining-education" for others. Evaluation is
paramount in this profession for every promotion. Classroom education
has become drudgery afflicted by societal unrest, absolute lack of
infrastructure, fear psychosis gripping the powerless parents and
absences of administration.<br />
My perception is that politicians take
less interest in improving the standard of education and living because
they know that once the poor comes to know about their corrupt practice
they would neither listen nor elect them. Political parties make
promises in their election manifestos to reduce employment, poverty and
corruption. But this can't be achieved without education. To me,
education comes as a discipline, which is all-pervasive. Enshrined in
our directive principles and ensuring our countrymen,
"right-to-education" makes me feel that we possess the right to
educate".<br />
Even when we have ushered in the new millennium,
education remains a password to of those who make an arrogant assertion
that they know best and are serving the public interest-an interest,
which of course, is determined by them. By the perception entrenched
with the British subjugation of our people elitist education occupied
the center stage to produce Macaulay's clones who were Indians muted to
be "English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect". "Educated
slaves became strong props to sustain the British rule." Lord Curzon
favored bureaucratization of education since he opined that educational
institutions have become factors for the production of political
revolutionaries. By the Act of 1919 education was transferred to the
province.<br />
When we educate we are involved in politics. Educators
often think of education being disjointed from politics. In fact,
education is perhaps the most political activity in the community. The
state has always influenced what is taught in educational institutions.
The socio-political (and in some cases religious) ideology colors the
content of learning and the emphasis on various aspects. In fact, based
on where the child was educated within India-whether it was a large city
or a village, whether the school used English or a regional language as
a medium of education, among other factors- the child will have a
different world view. However, education, based on the syllabus, in
India has largely strived towards imparting a temperament of religious,
political and social tolerance. The social mores and hierarchies often
seep into the arena of learning and color education.<br />
Given the
political potential of education, there have been numerous attempts to
use education as a way of indoctrination. Sometimes it is covert, at
other times it is overt. Sometimes it is subliminal, other times it is
deliberate. However, political forces have always used education to
further certain world views. Today, numerous educationists and political
thinkers in India are afraid that a deliberate attempt to use education
as a way of social-religious indoctrination might be the agenda of the
new education policy.<br />
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "Not gold, but
only teachers can make people great and strong-the persons who for truth
and honor; sake stand fast and suffers long. It is they who build a
nation's pillar deep and lift them to the sky". Teaching profession is a
bed of roses. A good teacher is always his/her student's guide, friend
and philosopher. A boy looked at the sticker on a car, which said,
"Trees are friends". He challenged this statement, started cutting
trees, saying that, "Trees are not our friends, but our enemies". When
asked why he thought so. He said in his science textbooks it was stated
"trees bring rain". Since his village gets flooded in every rainy
season, so he thought that "all trees must be cut down". Confucius
wrote, "If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for 10 years, plant a
tree. If 100 years, teach the people." Literacy is not enough. It is
good to have a population, which is able to read, but infinitely better
to have people able to distinguish what is worth reading. With
overcrowded classrooms and ill-paid teachers,coaching classes are the
commercial fallout of a system bursting out of the seams. How can
idealism be expected from someone as concerned about the quality of life
as you and me?<br />
We have grown up with cherished memories of
special teachers who made us love a subject we could actually have been
frightened of and who we respected unconditionally. I have come across
many persons whose mediocrity is reflected when they project themselves
as the best whereas the fact speaks otherwise and those who criticize
their alma mater forgetting that they passed out from the same from
which they graduated. Education can have a great role to play in
decreasing social disparities between groups and in promoting social
mobility. For instance, the tremendous expansion of the middle class in
India can confidently be attributed to the investment in education,
especially in higher education.<br />
Universities are struggling to
survive on shrinking governmental grants. In the wake of this it takes
shortsighted decisions to cut expenses and increase revenue by
increasing fees, which may not be in the long-term interest of the
universities. Thus universities end up being run as business
enterprises. Education cess is now on considered to partially meet funds
for primary education and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. Open our universities
to foreign students. Foreign campuses may prove to be of hardly any use
in generating funds for Indian education. Trading in education may be
another jeopardy.<br />
Collaborations could be in specialized fields
with foreign campuses like in the past. Even in the USA, private and
government ratio in higher educational system does not exceed 80/20.
China is experiencing two-way international student traffic with a large
number of them from the USA in preference to India. This could be
reversed if we build proper infrastructure and achieve proficiency in
imparting education of world standard. A realistic education cannot be
separated from the realities of the students' environment, which
surrounds him, his aspirations, society, the local cultural factors,
conditions varying in his own country and global effects. Education,
therefore, should be in consonance with the day-to-day living. Till date
education does not define our resurgent polity and democracy.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04877649097091330702noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4121215748354657609.post-73073840236629701112012-07-31T04:49:00.000-07:002012-10-30T04:50:11.208-07:00Education and Real Life Challenges<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
In contemporary times, almost as a cultural practice, education
has been elevated to the level of an initiation rite into the modern
world. With the aid of formal educational training, people acquire the
skills of reading and writing. It is obvious that literacy, the ability
to read and write, has become a requisite for coping with numerous
challenges of modern times. As a strategy for ensuring that no child is
denied the opportunity of acquiring formal education, not sending a
child to school is a criminal offence in some parts of the world,
especially in the West. In addition, some governments assist their
citizens to acquire formal education by either subsidising the cost or
making it available at no cost (at the basic level, at least).<br />
It
is impossible to fit into the modern times if one does not go to
school. Consequently, education is a necessity, not a luxury. People's
attitude to education in contemporary time appears to suggest, in
fidelity to Platonism, that it is better to be unborn than to be
uneducated. The demand for education in different parts of the world is
unarguably on daily increase. People make numerous sacrifices to acquire
education. Parents are willing to give all they have in order to see
their children through school. Some people travel to foreign countries
in order to acquire quality educational training. Acquiring formal
education has become one of the greatest priorities in life today.<br />
However,
despite the wide acceptance formal education has gained all over the
world, one of the most significant questions about education that is
often not asked is, "What is the relevance of education to practical
life?' In other words, to what extent is education helpful in addressing
practical life challenges? This question needs to be asked because the
expected impacts of education are absent is the life of many educated
people. One of the factors that speak very eloquently on this is that
education has continuously remained unable to improve the standard of
living of numerous graduates.<br />
It is imperative to remark that
education is a means to an end, but not an end in itself. The
implication of this is that education is a process that leads to the
making of a product. The process is incomplete without the product. It
is the product that gives value to the means. The quality of the process
can be inferred from the quality of the product. As a means, education
is incomplete without the end of the process. This end is the purpose it
(education) is designed to serve (under ideal situation). Let us
justify our claim that the expected impacts of education are absent is
the life of many educated people by examining a very sensitive aspect of
life of educated people, their finances.<br />
How many educated people
are truly financially successful? Most graduates struggle all through
life to make ends meet, but to no avail. There are numerous people who
graduated from tertiary institutions (even at the top of the class), but
who are far below many people with lower educational training (academic
intelligence and scholarly ability) than theirs in the ladder of
financial success. Perhaps, financial struggles and crises are worse
among educated people. Most educated people struggle all through their
working years merely to make ends meet, but to no avail, and end as
liabilities during their retirement.<br />
The inability of education to
assist graduates in managing real life challenges is rooted in the fact
that most people are ignorant of the purpose of education. Why do we go
to school? Why should people go to school? What is the purpose of
education? What is the rationale of education? What are the objectives
of education? Why should parents send their children to school?
Education is one of the most abused or, rather, misunderstood human
experiences. Unless the purpose of education is understood and
clarified, the continuity of its abuse (by most people) will remain
inevitable. Many people go to school for the wrong reasons. In addition,
most parents send their children to school for the wrong reasons. Most
people have erroneous conceptions about the objectives of education.<br />
It
is imperative to remark that this problem is rooted in the fact that
the major incentive for going to school in the earliest days of its
inception in different parts of the world was that it was a ticket to
prosperity. This was possible then because employment opportunities
abound for educated people then. But things have changed, and very
significantly. In most parts of the world today, there is high level of
unemployment among educated people. Thus, education does not guarantee
financial success anymore. In fact, education has become a major cause
of poverty, considering the fact that it has no provision for instilling
the knowledge of wealth creation principles in students.<br />
It is
high time the purpose of education is reconsidered. The idea of going to
school in order to acquire certificate should be denounced, if the
training will improve the life of educated people. The idea of going to
school in order to prepare for gainful employment should also be
denounced because there are limited employment opportunities for
unlimited graduates. If school prepares graduates for employment, but
there are limited employment opportunities for unlimited graduates, it
means that school prepares students for unemployment. This is why the
conception that school merely prepares students for gainful employment
is unacceptable.<br />
The ideal purpose of education is to facilitate
an integral development of the human person - the intellectual, moral,
physical, social, spiritual, psychical and psychological dimensions of
man. Going to school should facilitate the optimum development of all
the aspects of the human person. An ideal educational system should not
isolate any aspect of man in the training process, nor consider some
aspects more important than others. Anything short of this is an
aberration, and is unacceptable.<br />
Every educational process should
be able to assist students to develop their latent potential. Any
educational process that does not fulfill this objective is useless.
When the mind is developed, it is able to identify and solve problems
for humanity and, consequently, be compensated with reward. Money is
merely the reward for solving problems. Any graduate who cannot solve
problems in the society lacks the capacity for wealth creation. This is a
fact most graduates are ignorant of.<br />
Education will assist
graduates to become happy and fulfilled in life if it is structured to
facilitate the optimum development of their minds. If this is done,
education will equip graduates with the requisite skills to survive the
economic battles and challenges of real life. It is very painful to
remark that education has remained unable to serve practical purpose
because most of the things the school system teach students are things
they do not need to survive in the real life. In other words, most
students spend years in school learning things that will not be useful
to them when school days are over. The crux of this deficiency in the
educational system is that the people who are most concerned in the
educational sector are ignorant of its existence.<br />
One of the key
objectives of education is empowerment. If the educational system is
restructured to achieve this purpose, graduates will become assets, but
not liabilities, no matter the circumstances. Such an educational
process will assist students to create jobs if they are unable to get
jobs when they become graduates. As earlier remarked, education is a
process, and every process is incomplete without a product. The quality
of a product is the most reliable standard for ascertaining the quality
of the process that produced it. There is urgent need to restructure the
educational system to ensure that that the training it instills in
students adequately empowers them to effectively confront life
challenges, especially when school days are over.<br />
Despite the fact
that the consequences of the deficiencies of the educational system in
its present form accounts for the ugly experiences of most graduates in
the real life, the government has continuously demonstrated increasing
incompetence in addressing this challenge. Consequently, it has become
obvious that graduates who conscientiously desire a bright, refreshing
and happy life must acquire Supplementary Education on their own before
their school training will have the desired effect in their life. It
also implies that students should also go beyond what they are taught in
the class if they are sincerely passionate about happy in the real
world (i.e life after school).<br />
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