Disabled Children Are Subject To Discrimination In The Poorer Countries

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The human rights watch (HRW) has recently revealed in a report that an estimated 500,000 children with disabilities are not enrolled for primary education in the primary schools in South Africa. It has pointed that the lack of children’s education – one of the most essential and initial human requirements – is still not present in the African continent’s most improved and advancing country.

The real picture

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Some of the countries in the continent are hopeful regarding the matter of Millennium Development Goal (MDG). The countries ascribe a positive inclination towards fulfilling this as they say that the MDG will be met by hose countries to grant the access to primary education.

But it is something different when it comes to reality. The report says “Although the government claims it has achieved the MDG of enrolling all children in primary schools by 2015, HRW found that in reality, across South Africa, many children with disabilities are not in school,”

Another problem

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It is also assumed that the country will not be able to meet even the second MDG that targets universal primary education by 2015. The reason of this is the poor rate of development in the sub-saharan areas of the continent.

Hannah Kuper, co-director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says “Many, if not most, of disabled children are not enrolled in schools in developing countries,”

The UN vs. HRW

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A controversial point has been found between the UN and the HRW. South Africa’s activities in improving the access to children’s education was much praised in 2007. It was the first country to gain the ratification of the UN’s disability rights convention. In 2001 it also revealed policies to end the exclusion of disabled children from schools.

South Africa’s minister for basic education, Angie Motshekga, said in the month of May that the country had met the MDG.

The UN said regarding this matter, “South Africa has in effect achieved the goal of universal primary education before the year 2015, and its education system can now be recognised as having attained near universal access.”

On the contrary the HRW uncovered that the country exhibits a great range of discrimination regarding disabilities when it comes to the enrolment of students.

Elin Martínez, HRW’s children’s rights researcher, said “The South African government needs to admit that it is not providing quality education to all of its children – in fact, no schooling at all to many who have disabilities.”

The proof

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Qinisela, a South African mother of an eight-year old boy who has Down’s syndrome, residing in Kwa-Ngwanase, KwaZulu-Natal, has told the researchers of the HRW

“We tried to put him in a [mainstream] school but they said they couldn’t put him in that school because he has disabilities... because of Down’s syndrome he isn’t like other children so they [said they] can’t teach him. At the therapy, they promised to phone if there’s a space in a special school. I’ve been waiting since last year.”

Other guardians and parents were interviewed the HRW from places like KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Western Cape provinces and Gauteng.

Reality of the schools

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Again the HRW also witnessed various indisciplined activities in the schools. They saw violence, abuse, negligence and even discrimination of disabled child in terms fees of the schools.

Let’s improve impartially

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Difficulties and hostile forces like disabilities in children is a very dominant factor even in the most developed countries in the world. But treating it with less importance and neglecting it can never lead to a brighter future. To get an improved and modernised society, the countries facing these problems must cooperate to improve from these situations instead of avoiding them.

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How Entrepreneurs Can Make Opportunities Out Of Obstacles ?

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Do you dream of becoming an entrepreneur? Are you gearing up to start your own business? Well it is certainly a great idea to build your career as an entrepreneur, but it is imperative that you have an iron will and strong determination that will guide you through the low phases and lead you towards success.

Let's face it, being an entrepreneur you are bound to face several obstacles throughout your career. Hence, it is important that you have the right knowledge, skills and attitude that will enable you to turn these obstacles in to opportunities for growth.

In a recent Forbes article, Chris Myers, CEO and co-founder of BodeTree.com, wrote

“Simply put, the struggles we face offer us a path to growth and success. It’s a counter-intuitive concept to be sure, but it is perhaps the single most important concept that any entrepreneur can learn: how to embrace challenges.”

Here we are going to take a look at what it actually means to turn challenges to opportunities-

Bad luck is Actually an Opportunity

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Are all your efforts getting thwarted by unforeseen and unpredictable events? Do you feel like no matter how hard you try, you just can't seem to catch a break? Do you feel like your luck has given up on you? The fact is you cannot control external factors that might have an adverse impact on your business or work. What you can control though is how you react to such situations and what you do to counter the scenario. Bad luck is nothing but an opportunity for you to prove your abilities, innovative ideas and persistence.

Myers wrote “I was introduced to this mindset by a successful relative. In his first leadership role, he found himself routinely frustrated and discouraged by the problems that seemed to constantly pop up.”

He added “After one particularly challenging period, however, he had an epiphany. He realized that while he couldn’t control his luck, he could control how he reacted. Perhaps his bad luck wasn’t bad luck at all, but actually an opportunity to prove himself... Today, I try to practice that same spirit both at work and in my personal life.”

Locus of Control 

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If you wish to become a successful entrepreneur, then you simply cannot afford to blame others for things that things that don't work out. One of the greatest traits of successful business leaders is internal locus of control. They believe that event and outcomes are basically a result of their own efforts and actions and blame themselves for not being able to work to their fullest potential. By taking responsibility of the situation, you will be in a better position to find a solution and set it right.

Myers added “In any given business situation, the only thing that you truly have control over is yourself. As difficult as it may seem, you always have the choice to recognize the obstacle for what it is, find something positive, and work like hell to push through it.”

He further wrote “I practiced self-control and managed to stick it out long enough to gain skills that would serve me well in the future.”

The Secret of Success 

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What do you think is the secret of success? The answer is You! If you are facing numerous obstacles on your way to success then the only way to overcome and make the most of the present scenario is to develop a strong will that will get you through all challenges.

According to Myers “The challenges and problems we face in our lives and businesses are part of the road map to greatness. Whether we choose to follow that map is up to us. There is no secret formula for success. The only thing you need is the will to confront your struggles, the desire to find the joy in even the darkest times, and the determination to keep moving forward no matter what.”

To know more on the success stories click here .

Empower Yourself 

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I do realise the fact that it is easier said than done. When you are facing constant challenges and trying to keep your business afloat, it becomes really difficult to maintain a strong will and a positive attitude. However, your business knowledge and skills will enable you to identify opportunities in obstacles and capitalise them for expanding your company. Here comes the need for business education. Studying business management will help you learn the core business concepts and gain a thorough knowledge about the global market. Hence, you will be in a better position to lead your business.

However, with ever increasing tuition fees in universities and B-schools it simply does not seem feasible to pursue a traditional MBA and waste your time an money. It is for this reason that now most of the aspiring entrepreneurs are pursuing online business management courses. Studying online will not only help you save your time and money, but it will also allow you to gain quality business education and acquire essential management and leadership skills. Moreover, you can also work a full time job while you are studying and gain relevant work experience to hone your skills.

An online management diploma will empower you to gain the necessary business skills and knowledge and make the most of any scenario. You will not only be able to convert obstacles to opportunities, but expand your business and rise as a market leader.

What do you think? How do you face business challenges? Share your views and opinions with us by commenting below.

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How IBM Is Improving IT Education & Training In South Africa ?

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Information technology has become an integral part of our business, our society and our lives. Advanced technologies are helping our business leaders to reach the next level and significantly contribute towards national development. It is for this reason that currently there is a strong need for individuals with excellent IT skills and knowledge. Many institutes across Africa are taking steps to provide various information technology training programmes to aspiring learners and prepare the next generation of IT professionals.

South Africa Focuses on IT Skills

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IBM South Africa, along with the Department of Trade and Industry, recently introduced the initial phase of probably the largest EEIP (Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes) in South Africa, the R700 million IBM South Africa Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Equity Equivalent Investment Programme. Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry, launched the programme with enthusiasm in January for a duration of 10 years. It is believed the programme will develop a research hub across South Africa and promote enterprise as well as skills development.
During the launch, IBM claimed it was dedicated to facilitate education and skills development in the region, especially in the fields of technology and science. The organisation is focused on building Johannesburg as a research hub and support effective enterprise development. Mzwandile Masina, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, recently spoke at the launch of the EEIP and urged more multinationals to take active part in the programme and help in the national economic development.

He said “The equity equivalent programmes are expected to contribute towards the achievement of enterprise creation and development, foreign direct investment, accelerated growth and development of black rural women and youth, sustainable growth and development, human development with focus on education and skills development, infrastructure investment with an emphasis on developing the country's research and development infrastructure.”

IBM EEIP South Africa 

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The IBM South Africa EEIP includes 3 interdependent and integrated factors, developed and promoted by IBM Research Africa, specifically Enterprise Development Programme, Academic Programme and Research Programme. The first component is primarily meant for supporting businesses owned by black natives, which will especially focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, it will also facilitate in training and educating the youth regarding communication, information and technology industry.

Rob Davies added “In terms of the company's commitment, I have granted IBM South Africa the full 20 points under the ownership element of the B-BBEE codes for their participation in the programme.” Moreover, Masina said “This is a transformation programme that supports industrialisation and entrepreneurship. It will assist in addressing the challenges of inequality, poverty and unemployment.”

Developing the Right IT Skills 

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Apart from IBM South Africa, currently many other institutes and organisations are offering IT training and education courses for aspiring learners and empowering them to contribute to the business world and overall community. These IT courses online have been specifically developed for individuals who are already working and want to acquire advanced IT skills. Moreover, it also allows aspiring students to acquire relevant work experience while they study. As online IT courses are highly affordable you can easily acquire the right IT skills without taking out any student loans.
However, if you are concerned about the quality of education & training offered by online computing diploma programmes, then you will be glad to know that most online courses follow the same curriculum and standards as their on-campus counterparts. As the contents are usually developed by in-house faculty, you can be rest assured about the quality of education. Moreover you can communicate and interact with your instructors and fellow learners easily through dedicated online forums and social networks.
Apart from gaining essential IT skills and knowledge, accredited information technology courses online will also help top boost your employability and give you an edge over others. As more and more companies and recruiters are now recognising and accepting online IT degrees, you will surely get the best non-technical and technical job opportunities, not just in the IT sector but in a wide range of industries. You will land a lucrative job in your desired field and add to the national economic development of Africa.


How do you plan to start your IT career? Feel free to share your thoughts and add to the discussion by commenting here.

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Can Science And R&D Help In Africa's Economic Growth ?

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Africa is currently suffering from a number of challenges which are affecting it's social and economic advancement and one of the prime obstacles in the path of overall development is the prevalence of diseases. As it results in high mortality and morbidity, the burden of disease is choking our economic growth. Hence, it has now become imperative that we significantly contribute in discovering effective solutions for health problems across Africa. Finding and developing new medicines for Africa by African citizens is crucial for national development. 

Why Africa needs science

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Kelly Chibale, founder and director of H3D (Drug Discovery and Development Centre) at the University of Cape Town, recently wrote on the topic

“Long-term sustainable provision of new affordable medicines in Africa can only be ensured through committed investments in research and development (R&D) through African-led local and international public-private partnerships so that risks, and not just benefits, are shared. Africa needs science, not aid. ”

This means Africa should be able to utilise and science and technology for helping it's populace create a better life. Traditionally, the capacity to identify and develop medicines was handicapped by a lack of infrastructure and expertise. There are various reasons for this but the main one include mass exodus and shortage of effective investment in research infrastructure by federal governments across the continent. As a result, scientists find it nearly impossible to apply their knowledge and find out feasible solutions. 

Facing funding challenges

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Even though research funding can be rather daunting, I believe that a shortage of funds is a good enough excuse for not investing as we need to set our priorities clearly. Instead of developing regionally relevant research projects that are aligned globally and making the most of available resources, most scientists in Africa often criticise and blame our government.

Chibale further wrote “Money will follow good infrastructure, a good project, a dedicated team with integrated skills and a good network of partners. Our University of Cape Town Drug Discovery and Development Centre, H3D, has shown that the most effective way of building local capacity is to pursue projects.”

He added “Some of the key ingredients to our success have been a good local (South African) research infrastructure, a supportive research environment within the University of Cape Town, South African government support and a network of (local and international) partnerships.”

Focusing on global development 

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Paucity of continuity is another challenge in supporting sustainable R&D along with long-term funding and a continuous pipeline of new projects. You can still find sufficient gaps in fields of scientific development across Africa. The continent will keep relying on overseas partners unless we take steps to narrow the gaps. Currently, there is a strong need for discovering sustainable solutions which utilise local abilities. The field of drug & medicine development must be considered as a continuum, focusing on a single component is simply not enough. The founder of H3D wrote “H3D has demonstrated that health innovation through drug development is possible in Africa and on the road to being sustainable.” He further commented “R&D creates jobs and infrastructure, attracts foreign investment and reverses the brain drain.”

Chibale believes that R&D can provide us the support and solution we are looking for and contribute in overall development in Africa. He concluded “We have demonstrated that R&D is not a luxury. R&D provides solutions, creates jobs and infrastructure, builds capacity as well as expertise, attracts foreign direct investment, can seed an industry and contributes to reversing the brain drain. At the same time H3D has shown that it is possible to debunk the myth that Africa is not, and cannot be, a source of health innovation, and show that we can discover new medicines.”

What are your thoughts on this topic? Feel free to add to the discussion by commenting below.

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Is Digital Technology Changing The Higher Education Culture?

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Changing needs of Learners 

In the last few years, the pattern of students enrollment has changed drastically. This momentous rise in enrollments has become the cause of a prominent diversification of the student population. Now you can find a large chunk of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds pursuing higher education; and most of these learners are adults with jobs and/or part time students. In England, more than 60 per cent of higher education learners in 2002-2003 were mostly over the age of 21; this figure was merely around 21 per cent back in 1972-73. This significant rise was primarily due to the increasing numbers of part time learners.

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Era of International Students

In developed countries like UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, there has been substantial growth in international student enrollment. In Australia, around 21 per cent of the higher education enrollments in 2002 comprised of international students. According to the OBHE, we will witness over 5.8 million international students worldwide by 2020. Such type of international learners, who are adults and pursue mainly part time courses, tend to have much different beliefs and expectations from traditional learners regarding services and facilities offered by schools to facilitate learning. These students also want more convenience and flexibility in the learning and teaching process as most of them usually pursue distance and online courses.

Most of today's learners are identified as digital natives as they have been raised in a technologically inclined environment and continue to be surrounded by latest technologies in their daily lives. Hence, our students now expect that technological tools will be widely utilised in learning and teaching. As a result, now experts believe that higher education must recognise such learning differences and incorporate more multi sensory, spontaneous and technology-driven learning styles.

How our Students Learn 

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In the past decade, a substantial shift in understanding how learning needs to be facilitated in higher education was noticed, with the trend moving towards student-centred learning, instead of teacher-centered education.

Traditionally, learning is believed to be a passive activity, as knowledge is transferred from the already educated individual to the novice or aspiring learner. In this respect, learning is primarily considered as reproducing knowledge by delivering it to the learner. However, the scenario has changed in the recent past with learning now being considered as a constructive process. Now the students take active participation in the development of knowledge via authentic and situated tasks to facilitate deep comprehension of knowledge.

What do you think about the impact of technology on education? Feel free to share your thoughts and views with us by commenting below. We would love to hear from you.

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Top 7 Reasons to Study Online Business Courses

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Why study business?

A Business Management diploma offers students with a comprehensive understanding of all topics related to business, marketing, economics and finance. The key benefit in studying Business Management courses is that it provides students with all the opportunities for undertaking work placements and also professional projects. Various Management schools and colleges have now started to  offer research-based management courses as well as online business diploma courses.

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With an increasing market demand for such business diplomas, they are becoming more competitive and thus are viewed as respectable business degrees. The biggest advantage of studying business management courses is that it depends all on what the student wants to learn. Like- if a student wants to learn more about management, but is puzzled about which sector he is most interested in, then a management course is the best solution to it. On the other hand, with an online Diploma in Business management, valuable business skills are learned through the discipline of online education. Internet accessibility, effective time-management, independent study, meeting targets, initiative, and self-motivation are the skills required in any business environment. 

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Here are the top 7 Advantages of studying online business management courses for boosting your career options :-

1. Flexibility and convenience- It gives you the freedom to work at your own pace in your own time anywhere, with the total convenience of having internet access throughout the day, resulting in no fear of missing your classes.
2. Control- Take control of  what you  learn. Schedules that adapts to your lifestyle. Because online business courses work around your schedule, you don’t have to worry about rigid semester schedules and inflexible course options. In an online setting, course schedules are usually staggered so you decide when to enroll. You control the pace at which you learn.
3. Attracts more students- The convenience and flexibility of timings of taking class online helps in opening the door for all the students, thus improving the quality of education. Adding to it, a university can reach a much larger geographic audience with online learning.
   
4. Cost- Online education is much cheaper than traditional education. If you go through online education, you can save a lot of money. Be it in-town or out-of-town, the cost is always the same.
5. Expansion of Business Skills- The main benefit of studying business management is that it can equip entrepreneurs with essential business skills as well as knowledge.
6. Collaborate both Nationally and Internationally- Online business courses have representatives that can help you every step of the way. It is like being in a regular classroom where you will never feel isolated rather you wil be joined online by the students from all over the world through advanced technologies.
7. Commitment- Since online business gives you the freedom to work at your own pace in your own time anywhere with the total convenience of having internet access throughout the day, hence you have the option to commit in your work as much time as possible. This is another key advantage of online business courses., i.e., having the flexibility to achieve your academic goals when you can work it into your hectic time.
   
   

So, What do you think? Will you go for online business courses?

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Upcoming "eLearning Africa 2015" : The Continent’s leading Conference on ICT in Education

Africa, a hot destination for technology transfer from all over the world, is stepping up and ahead in making education (formal training) more inclusive of modern technological advancements. Modern technology, with its amazing and astonishing new inventions, which was even mere imagination in the near past, is now opening up with new dimensions in education. With the newly invented gadgets and accessories, like Google -Glass for remote leaning, and video conferencing facility replacing traditional classroom education, the third world countries of the world like Africa has no justification or an excuse viable, for remaining behind.

eLearning Mission in Africa 2015  

'eLearningAfrica 2015' – a conference to be held in its tenth chapter (version), in Addis Ababa, the headquarters of African Union and the capital of Ethiopia, one of the largest growing economies of Africa, investing hugely in both education and technology, and their integration is a great opportunity to exchange constructively about best learning practices that are in use in African countries, both with and without technology, that can be enhanced with the digital e-learning process.

With the futurist and visionary theme of 'Enriching Tomorrow', under the light of influential representative figures of the modern world, like : GuenterNooke, Personal Representative for Africa of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and Mark Surman (Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation), the gathering of top-most influential political leaders and businessmen of Africa, in the field of education and implementation of technology, in the conference of “eLearning 2015”, can come up with feasible, accurate solutions of problems like : 'eLearning for African journalists' and 'Successful formulation of remedies to remove digital illiteracy from Africa,' in the presence of expert educators in conference.

Participation

1200 representatives from all over the world might be participating in the 'eLearning Africa 2015' conference.

Prospect

The annual economic growth rate of many of the countries in Africa, in near about 10%. The 'eLearning Africa 2015' conference is a great opportunity to come up with an agreement firmly, in ratifying the common policy of integrating technology in education as much as possible, which is essential in providing world class training and development to keep the momentum going.

Integration of technology can build a new generation of young entrepreneurs, highly skilled technically sound professionals solving rudimentary problems in agriculture, as well as taking Africa in the level playing ground, as an equally smart and equipped player with others, in this 'Space Age.'

Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Debretson Gebremichael, said “The country took “enormous satisfaction” in welcoming eLearning Africa to Addis Ababa for the second time, the continent’s leading conference on ICT supported education and training, that promises to take benefits of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) to the doorstep of every African household. “

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