Public Financing and Right to Education throughout the Life - Essay Example

Public financing and right to education throughout the life. The humans being the most intelligent creation of nature have a coherent tendency to explore and derive knowledge from everything that forms a part of its existence including healthy survival and secure development. This very nature of humans can be understood by what Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gamma did. To search for new places and routes of business they explored the sea. Hence the people and the factors that affect their life have seen dramatic influence from all quarters due to the infiltration of technology into every section of life. Some of the very important factors influencing today's modern society are economy both local and global; technology including computer and internet; informational i.e., plethora of knowledge; demographic and social surroundings; and finally political force and type of government. Everything has got transformed and the very way of how we live and how we understand has got changed. The advent of technology and computers has changed the very way the world moves. Distance is no longer a differentiating factor and a matter of concern. In physical sense this world might appear a big place with things at far off places but the world in virtual form doesn't believe in distance. Everything can be achieved within minutes if not seconds. The whole technology behind this mega change is based on computer and is termed as Information Technology. Details and information are getting transferred within few seconds. People in Shanghai and New York are just seconds away. Transferring data in electronic form is actually the fastest way to transfer things. It's not only the message transfer that has been revolutionized but also the business world. There are virtual shopping malls with website offering you a range of products ranging from computer peripherals to groceries. Companies are now providing details of their product through their website and are accepting customers' requests of information and now even orders for products are being accepted. Everything is available. Money transfer can easily be done through wire transfer techniques. People do not wait. This world is not ruled by armed soldiers or any nuclear weapon. It's the information which rules. The physical world just has to react on the outcome. Its role is just for receiving and sending. This high performing virtual world has made significant change in the performance of the actual world (Tanenbaum, 2003). Things in real world are now easier to comprehend. Outsourcing has helped in accessing low cost labor in far off Asian nations like India and China. Multinational companies like Microsoft, IBM, GM., GE etc. have offices in almost in each part of the world with performance of each of these units can be monitored from any of its offices. Their offices have been networked though LANs i.e., Local Area Network and WANs i.e., Wide Area Network. They have virtually made themselves available to their customers any time anywhere and just a click away (Tanenbaum, 2003). Right to education and need for a government initiatives As, developed nations have always the one to begin any revolutionary change in technology, education and then usage for the former in integrating the education process. The United Kingdom has been the among the most developed nation of the world right from the beginning of 20th century. Technology here is not a gadget but a lifestyle and the nation is going to have a new era when the education processes will very much be undertaken through the use of technology. The implementation phase will ensure integration of technology and education. Beginning with this integration the most important part is the high school reforms. Any such initiation should ensure the entry of meaningful steps and processes that will provide a meaningful and ambitious thrust to the career of all students in form of knowledge and skills that will help them in preparing for a better future and successful life. The 21st century skills has become an urgent issue due to rising intellectual and technical capacity of the work force outside UK especially in third world countries which includes India and China. This increasing difference has made serious impact on the competitiveness of the UK in industrial as well as technical parameters. The initiatives which need to be taken up by the departments of the U.K. government under the umbrella of Department of Education along with several non government as well as neo-political bodies have focused their attention on the introduction of state funded schools and colleges where countries technician and other educated class could improve their quality of knowledge and at the same time update themselves with the fast growing world (Zuber-Skerritt, 1992). In this globalized world, they are now facing tough competition from the work force of third world countries. The requirement of current work force is to keep themselves in tandem with the fast growing technology so that they can keep their job from getting outsourced to third world nations. The concept that is now making a buzz is the right to education for all at any age. The government must enforce state funded education schemes that should its citizen at any stage of life (Zuber-Skerritt, 1992). The partnership of various government and non government as well as political organizations has to be brought into existence with view to develop a much unified and collective vision for life long learning. The sole motive has been to strengthen the very basis of education system with a view make it comparable enough to that of international education level. The above mentioned vision has been developed after ensuring sustained, comprehensive effort applied to produce a mutually inclusive understanding and generation of common terms and language for education. The current era needs to conduct extensive research on 21st century skills through a list of different groups for documenting the vision, its purpose, the ways of implementation and future transformations (Zuber-Skerritt, 1992). The research process should targeted every class of educators, employers, parents, community members and students and then draft the vision. Critical Elements of Modern Education and ICT Critical Element for creating overall development of Skills are: Core subjects identifying all elementary subjects like English, Mathematics, Science, Civics, Administration, Arts, other Languages, economics, history and geography. Content depicting several significant emerging content areas which are critical to achieve success in communities and workplaces and most of the time do not fall under the category of core subjects. Some of the few subjects falling under this category are the Global awareness, financial and economic issues, civil literacy and health awareness. Learning and thinking skills are supposed to contain non academic content but are supposed to be equally important with contributions in the development of critical and analytical thought process with several inputs of creativity and innovation with emphasis of information and media literacy skills. The Information and communication technology enabled education and its smart ability so that it can be used as a technology which can contribute in learning contents and honing skills. Life skills education makes a citizen out of the child. Some of the different skills that come under the scope of this element are leadership skills, ethics, accountability and adaptability, people interaction, social responsibility and personal productivity (Punie, Zinnbauer, & Cabrera, 2006). The very first part of the education system should concentrate on building of the core subjects like English, arts, Science, foreign languages, civics and administration, natural science etc. Emphasizing learning skill is for ensuring all round development of the student. The purpose of learning skill is to keep the students well aware of exactly is going all around the world including places which are meant for production and business. This can further be analyzed in such a way that apart form the Core subjects some of the few other areas of interest are ICT i.e., Information and Communication Skill; thinking and problem solving skill and finally Interpersonal and self directional skill. The need of the hour is to enforce the practice these subjects in the school curriculum (e-skills, 2000a). Teachers have played a very important role in any the revolutionary changes that have been undertaken in the world of education will require their participation. Use of Modern technology tools will ensure up to date development of learning skills. The use of different electronic equipments will keep the development of the learning tools in accordance with the requirement of digital world in which the students are residing (Punie, Zinnbauer, & Cabrera, 2006). The very way of living in such an environment has necessitated the need to learn the different techniques of use and reuse of the tools irrespective of being analytical or digital but is essential to day to day life and to increase the workplace productivity. The digital technology and communication tools have to be used achieve all sorts of work which will cause further improvement in the tool itself. The ICT literacy will ensure proper access and information management. It will make way for integration, information evaluation; construction and then communication of new knowledge with others in order to create new waves of effective participation (e-skills, 2000b). Teaching and learning processes in will create a situation in which student of all age group will need to understand the real world for appreciating the academic content. This study of real world will require both application and experience phases being achieved both inside and outside the school. The new age teaching is for the purpose of devising techniques so that the students understand and retain most of the things that has been taught to him making the study more relevant thereby adding more to their learning (Punie, Zinnbauer, & Cabrera, 2006). The process will require better content relevancy, ensuring total engagement and meaningful research to the study process. The new philosophy of education is not just innovation in classroom but beyond that. The whole of this world is a school and the learning is a process which begins with the birth and ends with the life. Schools are just a way to make a simple human being understand the importance of his brain and its proper usage (e-skills, 2000b). Technology and learning now serves the purpose of identification of three significant areas which will in long run emerge as critical one for the success in communities and work place. The three areas are Global Awareness; Financial, economic and business literacy; and Civic literacy. These subjects are not covered in existing curriculum neither be taught in any school. Hence this is a very effective way to incorporate these contents into the teaching process ensuring refreshed infusion of knowledge and skill. It is very necessary to have a very high quality standardized test that could measure students' performance. Though these standardized tests can measure few but the most important skills but the rest of the things are being left upon the student by ensuring that after a better wave education and teaching he or she can test its capability on its own. The high quality of the standardized testing that will serve the purpose for clarity over the accountability issue and will ensure the classroom assessment for improved teaching and learning processes. All levels of the class and education process have to be tested to keep the effectiveness of the skill (Punie, Zinnbauer, & Cabrera, 2006). Organization over Integrated Technology & Education The educational leaders or Principals should always be the part of solution rather than the problem when integrating technology. The common nation is that principals without the knowledge of basic technology skills are more of an obstacle to any future technology integration. But the same person can provide efficient leadership by becoming aware of basic technology skills and some imaginative thought process (Becta, 2003). This includes creation of a vision and then sharing and implementing the vision through arrangement of proper funding. An administrator should be well versed with the following list of points. I. Leadership and Vision II. Learning and Teaching III. Productivity and Professional Practice IV. Support, Management, and Operations V. Assessment and Evaluation VI. Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues These specific information will provide ample guidance to the administrator so that his efforts in attaining basic technological skills and sufficient competency over the required knowledge base for same would result desirable result. Administrator's acquaintance with these issues and its impact of technological standards actually gives an in depth view of very basic platform over which administrators' knowledge stands (Becta, 2003). His knowledge and understanding of technology is perhaps the most important factor that determines whether the assimilation of education and technology will work in the classroom or not. Principals who are technologically sound are more comfortable with the students of today who are very much tech savvy and habitual of using hi-tech electronic equipments (Murray & Ferri, 1992). They generally work in direct contact with students thereby the exchange of ideas from both side could be achieved and hence the possibility of better result from this technology implementation would be achieved. The administrator would also convince the students in cooperating with the teachers and other important elements of the complete implementation staff. The administrator being an education professional is very much aware of facts that the effectiveness of the technology integration is a very much a variable depending on administrators' competencies (Murray & Ferri, 1992). The development of this specific and well researched competencies helps in providing proper guidelines for establishing the administrator to maintain technology leadership and hence his assistants in technology integration in schools will result far reaching results of technology literacy and enhanced student learning. The educators' perceptions of principal technology leadership competencies at the later stage is an important factor behind the successful integration of technology ensuring smooth rather flow of knowledge and information (Luckin, Coultas, & du Boulay, 2004) Industry requirement and the workforce The business and industry of today expects more from the administrators, students and every single individual work force. The 21st century is very for ensuring the demand of the industry which is always striving for better and better workforce. The current education system severely lacks the enthusiasm. Let's look into the role played by a technically inclined engineer. The person interacts more with machines than the connected workforce, since the modern construction and civil engineering works on a platform coming out of the amalgamation of technology i.e., machines and human workforce, the highly skilled engineers are concerned with automation of the involved process and execution of the steps (CEPIS, 2002). He is being supported by people of some type with common objective, so his role with the workforce is quite low. He is more of an implementer than an able policy makes. He is being shown the goal; he does not decide the goal. But manager engineers are goal setters. Their leadership and communication ability makes them as able personality to lead a group of to reach a height which can transform the state of the company as well as its workforce. He manages human. He extracts quality work from the world's most intelligent machine i.e., none other than human. The same is being expected from each and every student. The current industrial requirement places the importance of it at par with lots of other important issues and wants it to be implemented in other very important but non-engineering courses like economics, management, marketing etc (OECD, 2001). The auxiliary skills are meant for providing competitive edge and a professional posture to this engineering profession with a better understanding of other cultures and profession. The companies are now hiring those people who can be treated as a company's mouth piece. Each and every employee is now expected to possess sufficient capability to communicate and technological knowledge. The current requirement is not just centered on extraordinary technical skill but also vibrant qualities which is nothing but the ability to communicate so that the situation would compel others to raise their head and notice the person. The marketability factor also plays a very important role in the requirement of the 21st century skilled workforce for example the skill which an engineer gets from its technical institute is very much mathematical in nature and can be classified under the category of primary skill which qualifies him or her for any success in the filed of technical expertise including civil engineering. But the actual issues which affects the pay package of the person when compared with its peers is the additional skills comprising of reasoning ability, verbal ability and quantitative ability. Even when these three different issues are taken into consideration, reasoning ability is the most treasured possession. Now looking into the application of soft skills and communications skills over technical competence, the result is very much dependent on the ability of the individual to express (Feinstein & Sabates, 2007). . The 21st century skills focus on this aspect and aims to create a complete human being out of the students. This factor has its effect on persons' ability to make other notice its achievement and output. The results which have been obtained by the person are of great value when it is being described in best possible manner. Though the verbal ability skills are not as primary as reasoning ability but if in a group of persons with equivalent technical and reasoning ability, the ability to communicate becomes the deciding factor. The wide application base of verbal ability makes it the most desirable of all the extra technical abilities. The better control over verbal communications is actually the deciding factor in the selection procedure for the managerial responsibilities. The students with better communication skills are considered to be the better managers and even in case of limited technical ability are very much handy in motivating the company's workforce and getting the desired output. Even while holding some of the very important divisions it's the better speakers or presenter who is being considered as the better team player and hence is given priority when positions like team leader or group leaders are to be filled. The education system as a whole requires full fledged overhaul and hence the implementation of 21st century skills is imminent (Luckin, Coultas, & du Boulay, 2004). The educational reforms should also consider the inclusion of new developments in the field of information, World Wide Web and the advent of software dependent designing and animation works. The people in the industry are still to incorporate the change in world business. Today's workplace and business environment is totally different than the one in the major part of the last century (CEPIS, 2002). The administrators at present are basically working under either of the two categories with one being the management division of the firms concentrating on jobs that is too much management and too little engineering. They are rewarding in same way but to carry the responsibility of generating the income and system management .the other section of the industry is that of operation which requires stereotypical administrators with responsibility of the technical work throughout his career and hence they are paid accordingly (Feinstein & Sabates, 2007). On initial inspection one will find that in reality there is no problem or conflict between the two personalities but when their incomes are compared the person holding the management seat is being rewarded more than the best of the engineer from the operation division of the company. So this policy of company is very much a matter of argument because its actually the operating divisions which makes way of company's growth but still it's the administrators despite being less technically skilled are better paid now reason being given is that engineers as managers even if they are not very much technically inclined have a feel of their operating divisions and at the some time quantity and this leadership capability is one of the feature that are associated with better communication skill . The new age engineers are those who make their pocket heavy with the volume of their oral skill. The better you speak, the better you influence and finally the better you are rewarded (Feinstein & Sabates, 2007). Conclusion: The trump card of 21st century is to evolve continuously. The IT based learning skill, one with better control over his contemporary skills, ability to speak and its quality is going to be the one earn the most among a group of equally qualified people. The industry needs more and more of people processing this quality. The whole structure of the education system that produces quality workforce is now looking for a change. Communication is believed to learn essential skills to achieve personal academic and professional success. The importance of this skill can be understood by a simple statement made by M.H.Buckley which suggests "we listen to a book a day, we speak a book a week, read the equivalent of a book a month and write the equivalent of a book a year" (1992, P.623). Also, the good communication skills which fuels self confidence and enables a person to exert better control over his life as well that of those around him. The modern age administrators are expected to be equipped with the same inherent feature what they can effectively research, conceptualize, organize and present ideas argument their mastery over technical ability buffered with communication will make them a wonderful link between the top management and the work force at the inventory level. Reference: Becta (2003), "Becta ICT Research: What the research says about network technologies in teaching and learning", British Educational Communications and Technology Agency Buckley, M.H., (1992) "Focus on Research: We listen a book a day; speak a book a week: Learning from Walter Loban". Language Arts, 622-626. CEPIS (2002), 'Information Technology Practitioner Skills in Europe', Council of European Professional Informatics Societies. e-skills UK (2000a), Strategic Plan 2001-2004 http://www.e-skills.com e-skills UK (2000b), Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)http://www.eskills. com Feinstein, L & Sabates, R (2007): "The Public Value of Adult Learning: Skills and Social Productivity", National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) Luckin, R., Coultas, J. and du Boulay, B. (2004): "Learning with E's: Putting Technology in its Place", Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on the e-society, vila, Spain, pp. 903-6. Murray, M. D. and Ferri, A. (eds) (1992), Teaching mass communication: a guide to better instruction, Praeger, London. OECD (2001), 'Services: Statistics on Value Added and Employment', OECD: Paris. Punie, Y., Zinnbauer, D., & Cabrera, M. (2006) "A Review of the Impact of ICT on Learning: Working Paper prepared for DG EAC, October 2006". JRC European Commission, Tanenbaum (2003) Computer Networks 4/e, Prentice Hall. Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1992), Professional Development in Higher Education: A Theoretical Framework for Action Research, Kogan Page, London. Read More