Thursday, January 30, 2020
Education in the United States Essay Example for Free
Education in the United States Essay India has made large strides in educating its population of more than a billion people, yet a lot remains to be done. It is commonplace now that education is both intrinsically valuable and also instrumental for economic well-being, and this is true for individuals and entire nations. No country in the world has been able to develop without the spread of mass education. An educated population is a prerequisite for take-off into high economic growth. Table 1 in the appendix shows literacy rates for India as a whole and by sex. It also shows the decadal rates of change from 1901 to the present. 2 Literacy rates have increased for both males and females, and though the latter continues to lag behind the former, there has been a narrowing of the male-female gap in literacy: from 24. 8% in 1991 to 21. 7% in 2001. In 2001, the absolute number of illiterates declined historically for the first time by nearly 32 million. In terms of state-wise performance, Kerala continues to occupy first rank as it has done historically; on the other hand, densely populated states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are yet to overcome their educational inertia. 3 The average figures for India as a whole hide a great deal of variation among states. Table 2 in the appendix provides literacy rates for states for the years 1991 and 2001, for the population as a whole, by sex and also provides the decadal rate of change. In 2001, Kerala, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh had more than 75% of their population of 7+ years literate. On the other hand, even in 2001, less than half of Bihar’s population of seven years and above was literate with female literacy rate only 33. 6%. In terms of zones, states in the South and West outperform states in the North and East. 2. Primary Education Primary education refers to the education of children between the ages 6-11 years (grades 1-5). Universalization of Primary Education (UPE) is a constitutional provision in India and there has been a steady expansion in the spread of primary education since Indian independence in 1947. The Indian educational system is the second largest in the world after China. In 2001-02, there were nearly 0. 66 million primary schools in India 1 This study has been undertaken as part of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Project. 2 Before the 1991 census, only those belonging to the age-group 0-4 years were excluded from the population in order to compute literacy rates and the basis of the computation was the entire population. From the 1991 census onward, literacy rates were computed based on the population aged 7+ years and above. 3 In Bihar, Nagaland and Manipur as well as Delhi and Chandigarh, the absolute number of illiterates has increased in the 1990s. 4 providing access to 84% of habitations with a primary school located within a distance of one kilometer. Between 1997 and 2002, the gross primary school enrolment rate4 for India was 111 for males and 92 for females. The net primary school enrolment rate5 on the other hand was only 78 for males and 64 for females. The net primary school attendance rate between 1999 and 2002 was 79 for males and 73 for females. However, of the children who entered primary school, only 68% reached grade 5 between 1995 and 1999 (UNICEF, 2004). Table 3 provides data on gross primary school enrolments by sex between 1950-51 and 2001-2002. As can be seen from the table there has been a steady increase in the numbers of boys and girls attending primary school over time. In Table 4, state-wise enrolment of boys and girls as a percentage of their age-group is provided for 1997-1998. Girls’ enrolment has been steadily increasing over time and in 2001-02, nearly 45% of girls in the age-group 6-11 were enrolled in school. These statistics are heartening because at least until the 1990s, one of the most dismal aspects of India’s education system was the large percentage of the population in the younger age groups that were out of school. Socio-economic disparities Despite the strong constitutional backing for the provision of primary education in India6 and its expansion over time, the system is characterized not only by low achievements but also by large unevenness of achievements. Huge gaps remain between rural and urban areas, and the probability of getting any education at all sharply depends on gender, caste and income. Women, scheduled castes and tribes and the poor are faced with formidable barriers when it comes to getting basic education. Of the 200 million children in the age group 6-14, it is estimated that 59 million are out of school. Of these 35 million are girls and 24 million are boys (Ministry of Human Development, GOI). Apart from socio-economic determinants, the educational infrastructure and the management and the governance of the educational system in India are far from efficient or sufficient. The government is the largest provider of education in India with only about 10% of primary schools owned by the private sector. 7 The quality of education provided by the public education system is low which translates into low educational abilities even for those who are able to complete primary education cycle. Moreover, there is a lot of ‘waste’ in the educational system with dropout rates as high as 40% for the country as a whole and in some Indian states, they are as high as 75%. Though the number of primary 4 Gross primary school enrolment rate is computed as the number of children enrolled in primary school regardless of age divided by the population of that age group. 5 Net primary school enrolment rate is computed as the number of children in that age group enrolled in primary school divided by the population of that age group. 6 In 2002, the Supreme Court of India decreed that free primary education was a constitutional right. 7 Around 3% of private schools are aided by the government, which makes government intervention in the education sector even greater. 5 schools in the country increased, more than 1 lakh8 habitations still do not have access to a primary school within a distance of one kilometer. Teacher-pupil ratios are inadequate: less than 2 teachers are available in rural areas to teach a class size of around 100 students. Teacher motivation and teaching incentives are also very weak. India perhaps has the highest rate of teacher truancy in the world. Poverty and Education. Empirical evidence strongly shows that, both at the level of the household as well as at the level of the country, there is a positive relationship between income (and wealth) and educational attainment. More income simply means more resources available to spend on the acquisition of education. With more than 250 million people in India living on less than a $1 a day, poverty remains a major barrier to educational access. Although education is provided ‘free’ by the government, the cost of uniforms, textbooks and transportation costs are beyond the reach of many households (Tilak, 2004). Added to these direct costs are the indirect (opportunity) costs of wage/domestic labor which children perform and the costs of acquiring education become considerable for households. Graphs 1 and 2 in the appendix show simple regressions of literacy rates for sixteen states against state poverty rates and state per capita income for 2001. As is expected, literacy rates decline with poverty and rise with per capita incomes. State per capita incomes seem to explain literacy rates better than poverty rates. Filmer and Pritchett (2001) using Demographic Health Survey data for India find that the gap in enrolment between the highest and the lowest wealth class is as much as 52 percentage points. Gupta (2003) using the 52nd round of National Sample Survey data finds that the percentage of people who have completed five years of schooling declines as one descends consumption deciles. In the lowest consumption decile, the proportion of people who have not completed the primary school cycle is greater than 80%. 9 While poverty status and income class are strong determinants of who goes to school and for how long, they do not make up the whole story. Indian states of Kerala and Himachal Pradesh even with fewer resources at their disposal have been able to achieve much better educational and health outcomes compared to rich states such as Punjab and Haryana in India. This is true even when we look at cross-country outcomes. For example, Sri Lanka and Botswana do much better in education and health terms than would be predicted based on their level of resources; the Latin American countries do much worse given their resources (Mehrotra and Jolly, 1998). 8 One lakh is equal to 100,000. 9. These graphs are meant to be illustrative of the association between resources and education and do not claim any direction of causality. The relationship between resources and educational attainment is bidirectional. The poor cannot afford schooling. With little human capital, the opportunities to escape persistent poverty are very restricted and the poor can be trapped in a low education, low income vicious cycle across generations. A large literature has analyzed both theoretically and empirically persistence of poverty inter-generationally due to lack of resources to invest in education.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act (Amendment) of 1918 Essay
Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act (Amendment) of 1918      On April 2nd 1917, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America, went before Congress and called for a declaration of war. Both the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of going to war with Germany.?# This was an act that led to much resistance among the American people. Not four months earlier the American people re-elected President Wilson, partly because of his success in keeping the United States out of this European war. However, a series of events, such as the Germans continuing submarine warfare and the attacks on five American ships, led President Wilson to sever diplomatic relations with Germany and send the United States into what would be labeled as World War I. As a result of the war the government enacted the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 which led to the suppression of anti-war documents and sentiments, as well as the prosecution of over two-thousand individuals.#           Despite earlier resistance to the war by the American people, once war was declared patriotism swept over the nation. However, patriotism rose to it?s peak and quickly turned to an intolerance for any kind of dissidence of the war.      With a general intolerance for opponents of the war the government began to repress groups advocating against the war, as did private organizations. One such organization created to suppress anti-war ideals was the Committee on Public Information (CPI). CPI was put in place to provide trustworthy information to the public, as well as stifle any misleading wartime rumors. However, the CPI ended up creating propaganda for the government to distort the views of the American people and worked to destroy and discredit all those who opposed the government?s ideology.           ?The effect of such incessant propaganda was to promote hysterical hatred of all things German.?# Any individual who had the audacity to speak against the war was assaulted either verbal or physically, and on many occasions murdered.      With the ideals of the government on the war growing in the nation, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917. After a joint session of Congress, where President Wilson reported on relations with Germany, the first of three bills that would create the Espionage Act of 1917, was introduced. The Congr... ...istory.? 2002. PageWise.      (22      November 2004). ?Espionage.? 2000-2004. The War to End All Wars. Michael      Duffy. Original Material. Primary Documents Online.      (22      November 2004). ?Clear and Present Danger? Test. 2004. Exploring      Constitutional Conflicts.      (22 November 2004). ?The U.S. Sedition Act.? 1996. World War I Document Archive.      (22 November 2004). ?The Sedition Act of 1918.? 2003. (22 November 2004). ?Espionage Act.? 2004. Education on the Internet & Teaching      History Online.      (22      November 2004). Stone, Geoffrey. Judge Learned Hand and The Espionage Act      of 1917: A Mystery Unraveled. Schenck v. United States; Baer v. United States. Essential      Documents in American History. 1919. Essential      Documents. ?The Sedition Act of 1918.? 1918. From The United States      Statues at Large.      (22 November 2004). ?Text of The Sedition Act.? 2004. Wikipedia, the Free      Encyclopedia. (22 November      2004). ?The Wilson Administration.? 2002. U.S. History.com.      (22 November      2004). Zinn, Howard. Progressive. May (2004). 16-20.      ?Opposing the War Party?.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
The President’s National Drug Control Strategy
The National Drug Control Strategy was announced by the Bush administration during the first quarter of 2002. It is believed that the strategy was devised because of the perceived loss of â€Å"the national will to fight against substance abuse. †This perception resulted from a dismal situation recently occurring in the country. For instance, the findings of the â€Å"Monitoring the Future Survey†which was conducted by the University of Michigan showed that 26 out of 100 eight grade pupils admitted to trying illegal drugs at one time or another. In addition to this sad reality, it was observed that many drug dependents in the United States do not get the treatment required to help them get rid of their addiction. Faced with such a grim state of affairs, President Bush declared his belief that â€Å"the time has come to re-energize the national movement against illegal drugs †¦[by making up] lost ground in the fight against drugs by applying the lessons of our recent history – emphasizing a balance between supply and demand reduction effort†(U. S. Office of the Press Secretary, 2002). It is clear, therefore, that the President’s intention is not only to reduce the use of illegal drugs in the country by reducing the number of drug dependents, but also to trim down the supply of drugs entering the country. To achieve this twofold objective, the strategy was based on the following principles, namely: â€Å"stopping drug use before it starts; healing America’s drug users; and disrupting the mark et†(U. S. Office of the Press Secretary, 2002). The strategy maintains that in the struggle against illegal substances, every citizen has a vital role to play in â€Å"stopping drug use before it starts. †This could be undertaken through education as well as community-wide efforts. Specifically, the strategy emphasizes that everybody should be an advocate for responsible citizenship. In other words, wherever he or she is, e. g. in the home, in schools, in his or her church, or in the place where he or she works, a standard should be set to reaffirm this value. In this connection, every individual should do everything to convince everybody to reject the idea that the decision to use illegal drugs is an individual freedom. In the home, the parents are expected to instill in the minds of their children that illegal drugs is evil and would destroy them and their future. The educators should also teach the same value in schools while church authorities are counted on to preach the devastating effects of drugs (U. S. Office of the Press Secretary, 2002). To backstop the efforts of schools and the community, the Office of the President granted an additional $10 million to expand the operations of the â€Å"Drug-Free Communities Support Program†of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), aside from creating a â€Å"Parents Drug Corps†with a budget of $5 million (U. S. Office of the Press Secretary, 2002). In addition, increased funding were also provided to other ONDCP projects, namely: $25 million to the drug testing of students for the year 2003 (a whopping increase of $23 million); $145 million to the anti-drug information efforts of the â€Å"National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign†for its 2005 expansion which would â€Å"include information for teens and parents to promote early intervention against drug use. †The media campaigns are aimed at changing the beliefs prevailing among American teenagers concerning drugs. Meanwhile, the ONDCP said that the additional $10 million budget for the â€Å"Drug-Free Communities Program†would be able to finance an additional 100 community coalitions who would work for the prevention of drug abuse among young Americans, especially in depressed areas of the country (U. S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2004). The strategy also aims to â€Å"heal America’s drug users. †To accomplish this goal, the budget for the â€Å"Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)†for the year 2003 was set at $2. 35 billion, increasing it to $2. 49 billion for 2004, and $2. 4 billion for the year 2005. Of particular interest is the increase of more than $100 million in the 2005 budget of the SAMHSAâ€â€Access to Recovery (ATR) program. According to the ONDCP, this will provide financial assistance to drug dependents who wish to avail of â€Å"clinical treatment or recovery services†on a case-to-case basis (U. S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2004). Extending additional assistance to drug dependents would be complemented with the creation of â€Å"a new climate of ‘compassionate coercion’†to get drug abusers to enter the government’s treatment programs. Compassionate coercion would be carried out with the help of the criminal justice system and the circle of family and friends of the drug abusers. According to the President’s strategy, it is now time to â€Å"confront drug use – and therefore drug users – honestly and directly†and every effort should be exerted to urge abusers to â€Å"enter and remain in drug treatment†(U. S. Office of the Press Secretary, 2002). The drug courts program of the Office of Justice Programs was likewise granted an increase of $32 million from its 2004 budget, raising its 2005 funding to $70. million. According to the strategy, this funding increase would improve the chances of success of the drug court programs by widening the scope as well as increasing the quality of the services provided by drug courts. The strategy explained that the drug court programs are serving as alternative solutions to imprisonment which utilizes the â€Å"coercive power of the court to force abstinence and alter [the] behavior†of drug dependents (U. S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2004). In other words, under the strategy, the criminal justice system is interested more in treating and rehabilitating drug abusers rather than putting them behind bars. To further enhance the capability of the criminal justice system in the task of treating and rehabilitating drug abusers, the President’s National Drug Control Strategy also increased the budget of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) from $960. 9 million in 2003 to $990. 8 million for 2004 and more than $1 billion for the year 2005. NIDA is the agency which is tasked with conducting research activities concerning the problem, specifically â€Å"on the nature of addiction, development of science-based behavior interventions, medications development, and the rapid translation of research findings into practice. †This initiative clearly spells out one of the most important roles of law enforcement in the drug policy of the president: that of treating and rehabilitating drug dependents (U. S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2004). Another, equally important role being played by law enforcement in the drug strategy of the president is that of â€Å"disrupting the market and attacking the economic basis of the drug trade,†thereby reducing, if not entirely eliminating, the supply of illegal substance available in or entering the country. For this purpose, at least six government agencies were enlisted, namely: the â€Å"Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF); the Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and the Department of State†(U. S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2004). â€Å"Disrupting the market†means that law enforcement agencies have both domestic and international missions. In the domestic scene, they are tasked not only with arresting drug suppliers and rounding up drug abusers, but also with intensifying the security of our borders to make the entry of drugs more difficult. In the international level, law enforcers are directed to seek out and destroy the supply of drugs in the countries of origin like Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other countries (U. S. Office of the Press Secretary, 2002). The strategy considers reducing or eliminating the supply to be of paramount importance because less supply would mean that the substance would become more expensive and thus less available to Americans. For this reason, law enforcement agencies has been focusing not only on the â€Å"agricultural sources†of these illegal substances but also on their organizational set-ups, the transportation systems of suppliers and distributors, their â€Å"financing mechanisms†and their processing methods. Adequate knowledge of these things would enable American law enforcement agencies to destroy the drugs at source and easily intercept those that producers are able to ship out of their bases of operations (U. S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2004). The President’s National Drug Control Strategy should be regarded with respect not only because of its awareness of the importance of treating and rehabilitating drug abusers but also because it has correctly pointed out that the complete elimination of the sources of illegal substances is one of the keys to the elimination of the drug problem in the country. The effectiveness of the strategy could be measured in terms of the reduction in the number of drug users and dependents in the country and the reduction or elimination of the supply of illegal substances in the market. Reducing the number of users without eliminating the supply of illegal substances would never be effective since new users and abusers would always crop up.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Planning A Wedding Is Not An Easy Task Essay - 1820 Words
Have you ever wondered how an Olympic Games Opening and closing Ceremony comes to life? Did you join the millions of people across the world who watched as Princess Diana said I do ? Or have you ever stood at, watched an open concert of your favorite artist? Behind all of these and more, event management professionals work tirelessly to create the best experience possible for the guests, the stars, the sponsors stakeholders, and the spectators. Event management is the co-ordination, running and planning of all the people, teams and features that come together to create every kind of event. â€Å"Many people spend more time in planning their wedding than they do in planning the marriage†Zig Zigler, one of the most successful American author once said which is 100% true in today’s context. Planning a wedding is not an easy task. You need to get every detail accurate under any circumstance and not only you but the rest of the family that will be attending the wedding will wait to see what goes wrong and where. The couple’s reputation depends on a well-organized wedding on that day. A well-executed wedding can bring joy to every one including the couple. But a flawed event can create serious trouble in both parties including their parents, family and friends. The festive aspect of a wedding makes the planning even more necessary. If you are meticulous about this, you will guard against the majority of unexpected surprises. Firstly, the atmosphere. Wedding planning should notShow MoreRelatedEssay about Wedding Project Part I1107 Words  | 5 Pages WEDDING PROJECT PART I The Wedding Project Student Name University of Phoenix The Wedding Project One of the most significant days in a persons life is her wedding day! To ensure that such a momentous event goes off without a hitch, appropriate planning is required. 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