Post Washington Consensus Consensus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Post Washington Consensus Consensus - Essay Example primary health care, primary education, and infrastructure ;tax reform (to lower marginal rates and broaden the tax base);Interest rate liberalization ;a competitive exchange rate ;trade liberalization ;liberalization of inflows of foreign direct investment ;privatization ;deregulation (to abolish barriers to entry and exit) and secure property rights. This privatization agenda in pursuit of globalization has come under criticism as (1) says," Some of the most vociferous of today's critics of what they call the Washington Consensus, most prominently Joe Stiglitz... do not object so much to the agenda laid out above as to the neoliberalism that they interpret the term as implying. I of course never intended my term to imply policies like capital account liberalization...monetarism, supply-side economics, or a minimal state (getting the state out of welfare provision and income redistribution), which I think of as the quintessentially neoliberal ideas". In development literature it is examined and accepted that The Washington consensus emerged out of a kind of counter reaction in development economics (3) to what has been termed as rather operationally successful neoliberal revolution against Keynesianism prescriptions of the 1970s.The Washington Consensus, materialized in large and specially built Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) suggested for a substantial portion of the developing countries in the ensuing years of 1980s and 1990s.It was the outcomes of these SAPs that were not along expected lines and which resulted in external criticism of The Washington Consensus itself. Joseph Stiglitz a World Bank Economist was the most prominent insider to offer criticism of the neoliberalism inherent in The Washington Consensus and the body of criticism is now termed as post Washington consensus consensus (4) in the sense that it agrees on drawbacks and weak points of the consensus. This paper examines the critical body of arguments posed in this new consensus. 2.Post Washington Consensus Consensus (5) exemplify in detail the various outcomes of the SAPs, based on The Washington Consensus, which not fell short of mark in their prime objective of achieving economic growth through market deregulation but also created other weak spots.Amin states that SAPs resulted in ," a sharp increase in unemployment, a fall in the remuneration of work, an increase in food dependency, a grave deterioration of the environment, a deterioration in healthcare systems, a fall in admissions to educational institutions, a decline in the productive capacity of many nations, the sabotage of democratic systems, and the continued growth of external debt. "This made Stiglitz look out for an intellectual alternative t economic growth model. An alternative which was not based on sole emphasis on deregulations of all categories of markets to attain economic growth targets. Stiglitz writes about 'a new paradigm for economic development' (6).This idea of anew consensus arrived from Stiglitz when global development financial institutions had undergone a major policy shift after having witnessed the Asian crisis and analyzed its reasons that were traced to deregulated

Educational psychology Essay Example for Free

Educational psychology Essay Assessment is the process of collecting, interpreting, and synthesising information in order to make decisions about students; provide learners feedback about their progress and their strengths and weaknesses; judge instructional effectiveness and inform educational policy (American Federation of Teachers, et al. , 1990 as cited in Gage and Berliner, 1998). On the other hand, motivation is simply what moves learners from boredom to interest so that they continue learning. It arouses and directs learner’s activities towards learning over time. Assessments can motivate learners if teachers and students roles are effectively performed. For instance, the role of a teacher can be designing tasks in a way that learners can complete with reasonable amount of effort. Difficult tests should be divided into subgroups that are achievable without excessive effort. The role of the teacher even includes ability to inform learners in advance about the nature of the assessments. In this way, assessments are able to motivate student’s effort to learn. Furthermore, Nicholls (1999) as cited in Stepleton (2001) states assessments will motivate learners if they are not seen as a form of torture to the students. The teacher should ensure that students understand that assessments are only meant to assist learners towards achievement of effective learning and attainment of educational goals. If students understand this, they will value assessments and form a positive attitude towards assessments there by getting motivated to learn. Assessments, if used judicially as in grading t tests and scoring of marks, can motivate learners to learn (Gage and Berliner, 1998). Similarly, it is pointed out that given that learners are labelled on the basis of assessments and that these labels create expectations about learner’s ability, characteristics and educational competence. Teachers have to be careful in labelling students. Stepleton (2001) states that according to self-fulfilment prophecy theory, students learn to behave in line with the label or characteristic that has been applied to them. Hence, if assessments are to motivate students, teachers must avoid labelling learners as poor, dull, incompetent or failures on the basis of quantitative results of assessments in the class. If a student feels the teacher knows him or her as an underperformer, the learner may cling to that mentality. On the other hand, good labels such as excellent, good and wonderful should be encouraged and used appropriately to increase motivation on the students learning efforts.

CIS Snapshot :: essays research papers

..::CIS Snapshot::.. When I think of CIS one thing always comes to mind. My first day. No, not my first day this year. The day I’m referring to was the first time I ever came to CIS last year. Near completion of the Danish â€Å"Folke Skole† you have to choose and apply to various â€Å"Gymnasiums† much like applying for university after high school in the states. One of the schools I wanted to attend was CIS. I asked my supervisor if she couldn’t arrange a day where I could go to CIS and see what the IB programme was all about. She said she would try and the next day I got a letter from her telling me the date and time when I would have to go to CIS. When I first arrived at CIS, I was a little overwhelmed at the size. It isn’t a very big school but its layout was a little difficult and I had a hard time finding my way around until I finally ask a student where a Mrs. Richardson was. He, of course, didn’t know. After about 10 minutes of wandering around the halls I finally find the office and they tell me her office was downstairs. I find her at last and she seemed confused why I was there. Apparently she thought I wasn’t due until the week after. I was beginning to have some doubts about the organisational skills of the school. She looks around the halls and pulls the first student she can find to the side and asks if she doesn’t mind showing me around. She nods and tells me to follow her quickly as she was late for class. So my first class at CIS was art. I thought this was going to be fun as I always liked art but after the first mind numbing hour I realised that this wasn’t cut out for me. Th e class itself was fine and the teacher was a fun guy but I had nothing to do other than just watch the other students make their brilliant masterpieces of art. There was one high point and that was when the art teacher told the class that he read an article about a homicidal doctor who would stick ice picks up people’s noses. Fun. After two hours we were finally allowed to go. â€Å"Now what† I thought. Well apparently nothing.

Margaret Atwoods Surfacing Essay -- Margaret Atwood Surfacing Essays

Margaret Atwood's 'Surfacing' Throughout the book the narrator constantly intertwines the past and present as though it is side by side. Atwood shows this in the opening sentence ‘’I can’t believe I’m on this road again’’. The use of the adjective ‘again’ reveals the narrator has been in this place in an earlier life. The narrator seems to repress a lot of her past and continuously contradicts herself, which at times confuses the reader as we can not tell whether she is talking about her past or her present and whether she regards it as home as she says ‘’Now were on home ground foreign territory’’. This links in with one of the key divisions in the story between the Americans and the Canadians that is portrayed throughout the book. This paradoxical declarative reveals that the protagonist feels she should belong there but feels detached from this childhood place, suggesting she may feel alienated from this place revealing something oppressive about this home ground. Also David is the key person who emphasizes this division between the Americans and Canadians. On page three David stresses ‘’Bloody fascist pig Yanks’’, reiterating the stereotypical Canadian disliking of the Americans, using his usual hostile, aggressive language. Ironically David seems to be the fascist pig being the unpleasant chauvinistic pig. The use of the adjective ‘foreign’ links in with the division of language between French and English that we see later in the book. In chapter 2 we see that there is a clear division between the narrator and any emotions. We see that the narrator is emotionally detached from her husband and her child as she â€Å"left him in the city, that would be perfectly true, only it was different city; he... ...ust them, I can’t think of anyone else I like better, but right now I wish they weren’t here†. This shows that the narrator is showing her regrets for bringing them with her reiterating her distrust in them. We also begin to see the narrators distrust in those who are closest to her, her family. When she begins to reminisce on the past she refers to her family with the third person pronoun â€Å"they† for example when she says â€Å"they used to go over it as fast a possible† then later realizes this mistake she is making and states â€Å"that won’t work, I can’t call them ‘they’ as if they were somebody else’s family†. However the tables are turned as we the readers begin to realize that it is the protagonist that we are unable to trust. This is due to the protagonist’s constant self contradictions and self corrections as she says â€Å"my husband, my former husband†.

Variation in Education between Industrial and Developing Countries

While there remain many differences between developing and industrialized nations, one particularly important area in which these differences persist is in education. This essay examines some of the many differences in education between developing and industrialized nations, including differences in access to education, quality of education received, and availability and uptake of higher education.Access to EducationOne of the major differences in education between industrial and developing nations is the level of access which children have to education. Children in developing countries tend to have far less access to education at all levels than children in industrialized nations, although the differences have been particularly well studied in relation to primary education. For example it is estimated that of the 113 million children of primary school age across the world who don’t have access to education, 94 percent live in developing nations (Glewwe & Kremer, 2006).There a re many different factors which may contribute to this, and in fact there are many subgroups within developing countries which differ in terms of access to education. For example those living in rural areas are far less likely to have access to education at any level than those living in urban areas. In addition, some groups such as females and those with disabilities may also have much lower access to education for a number of reasons, many of which may be governed by cultural beliefs and expectations and financial factors (Filmer, 2008).School Enrolment and Years in EducationEven where education is available, there are still often low enrolment rates in developing nations. This may be partially related to legislation in different countries – for example schooling is mandatory to a certain age in most industrial nations, while it is still predominantly voluntary in most developing nations. In addition, other factors in these countries may dominate the level of enrolment with in certain groups, for example in many developing nations fewer females are enrolled in schools than males due to expectations for their performing domestic duties from a young age (Lloyd et al., 2008).In fact there appear to be significant differences in the years of schooling which are typically received by school children in developing nations and industrialized countries, even where rates of enrolment may be initially quite high. It has been suggested that the mean years of schooling has increased by around 3 years across developing countries since the 1960s, but most schoolchildren in developing nations still receive many years less schooling than those in richer countries (Glewwe & Kremer, 2006).Quality of EducationThere is also suggested to be a stark contrast in the quality of education which is offered to children in developing nations when compared to industrialized countries. The evidence which is cited as indicating lower quality includes much higher rates of grade repet ition and the early leaving age of many children from school (Glewwe & Kremer, 2006). While this may to some extent indicate a lower quality of education (Hanushek et al., 2008), it must however also be considered that a lower school leaving age may also be associated with a need to engage in employment in a younger age in many developing countries (Gunnarsson et al., 2006).There are many different factors which may contribute to the lower quality education which is found in many developing nations, including a lack of funding and a lack of resources including both basic teaching materials and access to suitably qualified teaching staff (Glewwe & Kramer, 2006). Many developing nations may be in a difficult position to address these problems without outside assistance from developed countries.Higher EducationAccess to education is not only much lower in primary education in developing nations, but also higher levels of education. Higher education remains far more popular in the indus trialized countries than in developing countries, and several studies have shown there to have been a marked increase in uptake in industrialized nations since the Second World War. For example most industrialized countries now have a university enrolment rate of more than 50 percent of the 18 to 21 year age group, while some have a rate of up to 80 percent (Schofer & Meyer, 2005). This does not however necessarily reflect a difference in the level of education in the younger age groups; instead this is more likely to be related to differences in the demand for higher education qualifications and the availability of funding for these courses. For example in many developing nations there remains more of an emphasis on practical training and there may also be less financial support for higher education courses (Altbach & Knight, 2006).ConclusionsIt is clear that there remain substantial differences between many developing and industrialized nations in terms of the education which is b oth offered and received. It is recognized that the differences in the levels of access to education, the rates of enrolment and the quality of education which is delivered may be particularly important, as each of these may be directly related to the economic development of a country.

The Lowell Mill Girls in the 19th Century

The Lowell Mill Girls in the 19th Century The Lowell Mill Girls were female workers in early 19th century America, young women employed in an innovative system of labor in textile mills centered in Lowell, Massachusetts. The employment of women in a factory was  novel to the point of being revolutionary. And the system of labor in the Lowell mills became widely admired because the young women were housed in an environment which was not only safe but reputed to be culturally advantageous. The young women were encouraged to engage in educational pursuits while not working, and they even contributed articles to a magazine, the Lowell Offering.   The Lowell System of Labor Employed Young Women Francis Cabot Lowell founded the Boston Manufacturing Company, prompted by the increased demand for cloth during the War of 1812. Utilizing the latest technology, he built a factory in Massachusetts which used water power to run machines that processed raw cotton into finished fabric. The factory needed workers, and Lowell wanted to avoid using child labor, which was commonly used in fabric mills in England. The workers did not need to be physically strong, as the work was not strenuous. However, the workers had to be fairly intelligent to master the complicated machinery. The solution was to hire young women. In New England, there were a number of girls who had some education, in that they could read and write. And working in the textile mill seemed like a step up from working on the family farm. Working at a job and earning wages was an innovation in the early decades of the 19th century, when many Americans still worked on family farms or at small family businesses. And for young women at the time, it was considered a great adventure to be able to assert some independence from their families. The company set up boardinghouses to provide safe places for the women employees to live, and also imposed a strict moral code. Instead of it being thought scandalous for women to work in a factory, the mill girls were actually considered respectable. Lowell Became the Center of Industry Francis Cabot Lowell, the founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company, died in 1817. But his colleagues continued the company  and built a larger and improved mill along the Merrimack River in a town which they renamed in Lowells honor. In the 1820s and 1830s, Lowell and its mill girls became fairly famous. In 1834, faced with increased competition in the textile business, the mill cut the workers wages, and the workers responded by forming the Factory Girls Association, an early labor union. The efforts at organized labor were not successful, however. In the late 1830s, the housing rates for the female mill workers were raised, and they attempted to hold a strike, but it did not succeed. They were back on the job within weeks. Mill Girls and Their Cultural Programs Were Famous The mill girls became known for engaging in cultural programs centered around their boardinghouses. The young women tended to read, and discussions of books were a common pursuit. The women also began publishing their own magazine, the Lowell Magazine.  The magazine was published from 1840 to 1845, and sold for six cents a copy. The content poems and autobiographical sketches, which were usually published anonymously, or with the authors identified solely by their initials. The mill owners essentially controlled what appeared in the magazine, so the articles tended to be a positive nature. Yet the magazines very existence was seen as evidence of a positive work environment.   When Charles Dickens, the great Victorian novelist, visited the United States in 1842, he was taken to Lowell to see the factory system. Dickens, who had seen the horrible conditions of British factories up close, was very impressed at the conditions of the mills in Lowell. He was also impressed by the publication issued by the mill workers. The Lowell Offering ceased publication in 1845, when tensions between the workers and the mill owners increased. Over the last year of publication the magazine had published material that was not entirely positive, such as an article which pointed out that loud machinery in the mills could damage a workers hearing. When the magazine promoted the cause of a workday shortened to ten hours, tensions between workers and management became inflamed and the magazine was shut down. Immigration Brought the End of the Lowell System of Labor In the mid-1840s, the Lowell workers organized the Female Labor Reform Association, which tried to bargain for improved wages. But the Lowell System of Labor was essentially undone by increased immigration to the United States. Instead of hiring local New England girls to work in the mills, the factory owners discovered they would hire newly arrived immigrants. The immigrants, many of whom had come from Ireland, fleeing the Great Famine, were content to find any work at all, even for relatively low wages.

smoking essays

smoking essays Cigarette smoking is still the most important preventable cause of premature death in Australia. It has been found that the use of tabacco has resulted in a loss of more than 18,000 lives in Australia each year, while costing the Australian community more than $12.7 billion per annum, which in annual economic costs in terms of lost years of life, loss of income and medical and related costs, were estimated to be at around two percent of the gross national product . Thus, reducing the prevalence of smoking rightly remains a high priority on Australia's public health agenda. In this paper, I will describe the way in which a structural functionalist approach is implicit in the area of health promotion programmes on smoke free environments. Aaron Antonovsky proposed that health is created where people live, love, learn, work and play. This ultimately results to a disproportionately prevalent use of tobacco, where it is found that smoking prevalence is inversely related to education and socioeconomic status. This complements the structuralist theory, which assumes that, what people believe and how individuals behave, is mediated through social institutions. Structural functionalists argue that social institutions like the family, the education system and health care play a role in socializing people. Social roles, derived through consensus, regulate social action, including how we behave with respect to health promotion. Parsons believe that there exists interpersonal and inter-institutional ties within the society. These ties have a compelling effect on the individual to perform and adopt a certain action. Every member of the society has his or her own obligations and responsibility to the society. There exists a social pressure on him for which he cannot disregard his roles and responsibilities to the society and his own family as well. This explains the behavior change by an individuals motivation to comply with those o...