Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
City & Guilds Training Course
March 10th, 2010 | 
Author: Last year my boss sent me on a City and Guilds training course as part of my ‘development’. I just kind of took it as a given that I was going and almost thought it would be an escape from work. The thing is, it turned out to be really focussed in improving your knowledge and developing your skills, almost to the point where I was learning things I hadn’t even thought of in relation to my job before. I felt my improvement in the workplace as well and to be honest, I think my colleagues did as well. It felt really good to be a useful asset to my company rather than just one of the many cogs in the wheel. It also kinda opened my eyes to how bored I had been prior to doing the course and getting my city and guilds qualification. I think the staff at City and Guilds do a fantastic job in motivating learners and the impact has had in my career is phenomenal. I am also lucky to have been given this opportunity from my boss. I think studying for a city and guilds qualification is well worth it.
Posted in Colleges and Universities, Distance Learning, Education, Training Course | 
Tags: Education, Learning Education, Training Course | 
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Womens Higher Education in India
HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN :-
Higher education is defined as the education attained after the completion of 12 years of schooling. Higher education for women has gained a wider role and responsibility all over the world. Today, in the 21st century, we cannot afford to ignore the importance of higher education for women any longer. The reason for its need and urgency is that there is no biological difference in the systems of males and females. Unfortunately, this important task of higher education of women has remain neglected for centuries. Need for higher education among women assumes all the more importance or the 3rd world countries, where colonialism has remained a great force hindering education for the general masses and for the women in particular.
OBJECTIVES OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN:-
To provide society with competent men and women trained in agriculture, arts, medicine, science and technology and various other professions, who will also be cultivated individuals in built with a sense of social purpose.
To strive to promote equality an social justice and to reduce social and cultural differences through diffusion of education.
NEED FOR HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN : MALE AND FEMALE :-
Higher Education may also be viewed in terms of the needs of its consumers. The term consumer is very wide and heterogeneous. It includes young and old of both sexes. Theoretically the need for Higher Education for both males and females is the same. But its sometime argued that males and females are different in their social and cultural needs.
The basic argument which is given for women Higher Education is not that Higher Education for women is different from that of men. Our main thrust is that in the field of Higher Education, women should also be equal partners. Our past experience shows that so far Higher Education has remained restricted only to men. It should now widen its horizon and include women also. The commission on the Higher Education for women, University of Madras in 1979 rightly observed: “for Women and men college education is necessary for character formation, ability to earn, creative self expression and personal development”.
MAIN FACTORS INFLUENCING WOMEN’S SUCCESS / FAILURE IN COMPLETING HIGHER EDUCATION :-
Success :
a) Women are strongly motivated to succeed in the education stream.
b) The merit basis of the education system permits females to excel.
c) Prejudice against women’s education has been reduced. Higher Education has come to be considered equivalent to a bride’s “dowry”.
d) Women’s universities promote women’s Higher Education.
e) Women’s expectations for education based employment are high.
f) Some Higher Education courses provide scholarship facilities for women.
g) Female students have been provided with residential facilities in some areas.
Failure :
a) Female students have difficulties in access to transport facilities in general.
b) Sexual harassment as well as occasional student violence hinder female students completion of higher education.
c) Marriage in many cases leads to early withdraw.
d) Gender stereotyping inhibits completion of studies.
e) Financial constraints can cause withdrawal from the education stream.
f) Part-time work to earn living interferes with studies.
SIGNIFICANCE OF PRESENT STUDY :-
The objective of the Indian Society as has been laid down in the constitution is to achieve a democratic, socialistic and egalitarian society. In such a society women are supposed to perform their roles at par with men. Their status structurally needs to be equal with men.
Broadly speaking, knowledge which is imparted through Higher Education provides skills to its practitioners. Our understanding is that by acquiring skills the women raise their status in comparison with men and also the status of the group to which they belong.
In order to understand the status of women, or for that matter to understand any social issues, it is necessary to combine at least 3 perspectives viz. the perspective from policy, the perspective from statistics and the perspective from culture.
· The present study is aimed at finding the various reasons for women seeking entry into higher education.
· It aims at looking at the reasons for seeking entry into higher education by women from the perspective of men, teachers, parents and the women themselves.
· It bring about an awareness among women as to the various avenues open to them in Higher Education and thus mark the beginning of a major process of empowering women.
· To find out the problems hindering the pursuit of Higher Education by women.
· Make suggestions for finding solutions to the above problems in a rational and free manner.
· To suggest ways of enhancing women’s entry into colleges, including professional course.
· To explore areas of Higher Education where women have not yet stepped in or are a monopoly of men.
· To suggest suitable measures to make higher education for women universal i.e. free of cost, time and distance effective.
PROMOTING HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN
The social context of educational policy has to be improved.
Family and personal counseling at the secondary education stage can be provided.
Higher education can be made skill oriented.
Nontraditional curricula for women can be established.
Recent declines in state support for non-traditional higher education has to be reversed.
Institutions can be made physically accessible i.e. Locate them near the potential clientele, improve transport system etc.
Higher Education Institutions have to be made more women-friendly i.e. Physical Changes, curricula changes, social changes.
Women’s representation on institutions decision-making bodies can be increased.
Equal opportunity commissions for higher education institutions should be established.
The number of women teachers in co-educational institutions of higher education should be increased.
Stipends, Scholarships and fellowships can be linked to affirmative action programmes.
Women need to be recruited into administrative training programmes for institutions of higher education.
A large role for women’s study centres can be provided.
Institutions of higher education should provide placement services.
Barriers to women’s career entry should be removed, example: employers should be sensitized to the value of flexitime, day-care centres etc.
Sexual harassment in the educational environment should be addressed.
A large number of female secondary education graduates usually are not able to enter university. To accommodate that population it would be benefited to strengthen the role of vocational training institutions. Post secondary vocational training institutions should take action to promote entry of women into vocational training lines traditionally considered male preserves.
Affirmative action quotas has to be provided to promote women’s admission into higher institutions, where such quotas exist, should be reviewed periodically to ensure their continuing relevance.
Where quotas are provides for specific disadvantaged groups like disabled persons, people from remote or rural areas, members of indigenous minorities, a minimum share should be reserved for female members of those groups.
Distance education and open learning institutions and techniques should be promoted, particularly to extend higher education opportunities to women in rural and remote areas, which will take into account their needs.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH :-
The present study is limited only to women students seeking higher education up to undergraduate level in a few professional and non-professional colleges of Chennai city. The following suggestions are given for further investigation.
1. A similar study may be conducted among the postgraduate level or research level students.
2. A similar study may be undertaken throughout Tamil Nadu State.
3. A comparative study of factors influencing entry of women in higher education can be made between a developing and developed country.
4. A similar study may be attempted for various issues relating higher education of women.
Landmark Education on Communication
Everyone at some point has experienced an impasse in communication; those frustrating occasions when it all breaks down and people want to get up and walk out. Just look at a sample of recent headlines: “Peace Talks Breakdown” or “Labor Negotiations at a Stalemate” or “Negotiations Fail to Result in an Accord”. When the stakes are high and people are afraid they have something to loose communication becomes strained and people stop listening to one another. Usually this is while claiming that the people on the other side of the table are actually the ones who are not doing the listening. We get so concerned and fearful about getting other people to hear what we have to say, we become unwilling to hear what they have to say.
Indeed, listening seems sometimes as if it is a rare happening among human beings. We can’t really listen to another person speaking if we’re preoccupied, or if we’re trying to decide what we’re going to say when the other stops talking, or if we’re debating about whether what is being spoken is true or relevant or agreeable. Listening, in other words, is being accessible and open to what is being said.
At Landmark Education we contend that listening has an amazing power. It gives life to what is being spoken. You might even say it is with the listener that both the speaker and what is spoken exist and come alive. Think of how inspired and enlivened the elderly can become when you sit down and have an extended conversation with them. Think about what happens when someone is really listening to you. Ever notice that you become funnier and more playful when someone laughs at your jokes? What about when a child recognizes that adults are actually listening to them? Their whole demeanor shifts. In the programs of Landmark Education, you find yourself with a new ability to listen to others. You find yourself inspired by the people you have in your life. When you truly listen to people you discover the best of what they have to offer.
Speaking, meanwhile, can be something more than talking, more than the exchange of symbols or information, more than saying what you really think. In speaking we can share ourselves; we can evoke experience in others. Speaking is where our ideas become clear and possible. It is where others are expanded by our time spent with them. It allows for the futures we create. Speaking lives in poetry, in the appreciation of another, in idle conversations that pass the time, in great theories and books that give rise to wonder and thought.
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Speaking allows for “who” and “how” we “are” in the world. It is what gives voice to all that is possible in being human. In our ability to speak and share we have the ability to shape the world we live in.
In the courses of Landmark Education you find that true communication is creation. It has the power to shape, determine, and alter the course and quality of our lives. It moves people. It generates experience in others. It not only delivers information to others, it actually transforms their ability to hear. True communication transforms both the speaker and listener.
The Landmark Forum suggests that what it is to be human has its own domain and that domain is one of language—of communication, of conversation. Through communication —the realm of language, of conversation—each of us has complete access to ourselves, to others, to the very essence and possibility of what it means to be human.
This is the essence of what Landmark Education is about and what The Landmark Forum provides.