Amen. Actions and Consequences

Costa-Gavra’s â€Å"Amen. † is a thought-provoking film that combines political thriller, suspense and expose. â€Å"Amen†, translated in Hebrew as â€Å"So be it†, deals with three significant characters, both real and fictional, who act out different moral or ethical principles. These characters, Father Riccardo Fontana, Kurt Gerstein and Pope Pius XII, provide the audience with different perspectives on the dilemma about the genocide of millions of Jews during World War II, commonly known as â€Å"the Holocaust†.By reflecting on the lives, actions or personalities of these three characters, we would understand the ethical challenges, ethical principles and actions they have faced, considered and performed. Body Father Riccardo Fontana, played by Mathleu Kassovitz, is a junior diplomat and an idealistic Jesuit priest. Father Riccardo Fontana learned the life and sufferings of the Jews in the Nazi concentration camps (through the help of Kurt Gerst ein). He also learned that the American government inquired about the genocide of Jews through a letter addressed at the Vatican.He endeavoured or tried his best to alert the Vatican about the genocide of Jews in the Nazi concentration camps. He thought that his familial connections with the local priests and at the Vatican would bring in results or considerations from the Pope. He also thought that by directly stating the problems at the Nazi concentration camps to the Pope, he would be able to bring light to the problem and have the Pope do his part by making a public statement condemning the actions of the Nazis.However, in the end, he was not able to have the support of the Vatican. He lost his life; Father Riccardo Fontana died a martyr. Father Riccardo Fontana is a fictional character in the movie; however, I believe that he symbolizes the early life of Pope Pius XII. As a morally righteous priest, I believe that he wanted to ease the pain or sufferings of the Jews. As a diplo mat, I believe that he wanted to do things in a peaceful and legal manner. I also think Father Riccardo Fontana believes on deontological ethics.Deontological ethics or deontology refers to the method of applying ethics by focusing on what actions are right or wrong, regardless whether the consequences would right or not. This ethical principle is sometimes referred to as â€Å"obligation† or â€Å"duty† ethics. These are the reasons why I believe, Father Riccardo Fontana tried his best to alert the Pope, make a difference or bring the Jews help from the Vatican even if it means to sacrificing his own life for the sake of duty. If I were Father Riccardo Fontana, I would also inform or alert the Vatican, particularly the Pope.I would seek his assistance regarding the genocide of Jews and strongly emphasize my point that it is wrong and immoral. I would let them see that as priests, we should do our best to preserve life and peace all throughout the world, despite the di fferences in race or ethnicity. I would stand for the right of my fellow Jews, especially for their right to live. However, unlike Father Riccardo Fontana, I would seek or provide other kinds of help if all of the previous acts fail. I help the Jews by hiding them from the Nazis and I will ease their pain with my prayers.Subsequently, I will continue my efforts to make the authorities do their part. I will not have myself killed, not for selfish reasons, but because I know that dying won’t solve anything. If I die, I would no longer be able to help the Jews or the needy. If I die, I won’t be able to strengthen their morale and keep their spirits and hopes high. On the other hand, Kurt Gerstein, played by Ulrich Tukur, is a real character or individual, greatly devoted to his duty as a soldier and religious beliefs as a Protestant. He is a German SS officer on board the Waffen-SS during the World War II.He is also an intelligent scientist and member of the Institute for Hygiene who developed the gas Zyklon B for treating or curing the waters drank and used by Nazi soldiers. As a scientist, hygienist and developer of the Zyklon B, he only wanted to prevent illnesses or the spread of diseases among the Nazi troops. Unfortunately, Zyklon B was used to exterminate the Jews. Raised in a family of patriotic officers and soldiers with strong sense of responsibility, his obedience or compliance to authority cannot be doubted. However, after learning this horrible truth, his values as a Protestant dominated his sense of patriotism.He alerted the Protestant leaders, then the authorities, Swedish diplomats and also the Roman Catholic Church about the immoral acts committed by his superiors. He took actions similar to what Father Riccardo Fontana did and just like the efforts of Father Riccardo Fontana, Gerstein’s efforts were in awe. Conversely, I am convinced that he believes the same ethical principles as Father Ricardo Fontana. If I were Kurt Gerst ein, I would first try to reach a higher position in the Nazi party. I will do my best to reach that position as soon as possible because time is of the essence.After having power or authority, I would instantly see to it that the officers under my authority would provide help to the Jews. I would do this secretly or behind the radar of my superiors so that I can still have my power and my life for the service of those who are suffering. With my power and my life, I will provide more help or make more things morally right. Pope Pius XII, the most controversial character in the movie, is subjected to allegations of preserving his selfish-needs, economic interests, ambition and power by doing nothing regardless of knowing the horrible truth at the Nazi concentration camps.In this sense, allegedly, the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church in extension, committed passive sin. Somehow, watching the movie had made me scrutinize or contemplate on the faith and hope that I had for the Vatican or to the Pope. Putting myself in the shoes of Kurt Gerstein and Father Riccardo Fontana made me doubt that the religious authorities are not morally upright. However, considering the position of the Pope, I reclaimed my belief that he did not do anything wrong and that he only wanted greater good for a greater number of individuals or Jews in particular.As a prominent and religious leader, every action should be seriously weighed and the interests of those who are in need or prosecuted should be considered in order to prevent further harm done to them. Alerting the international public would disrupt the allegiance of the Vatican and the Nazi party and spark more tension. If the allegiance is lost and the Nazis are angered by the public statement or expose of their immoral acts, will the Vatican be able to address the retaliation of the Nazis? How can the Vatican keep Jews, provide food and shelter in chapels if the angered Nazis destroyed the Catholic chapels?Will the public state ment improve the situation of the prosecuted Jews? Will it stop a possible war? I don’t think. This is due to the fact that the Nazi party has great military power at that time to retaliate to any threat or opposition. Public protests against this inhumane party would only increase prosecution, not only of Jews but also Roman Catholics; and that would be further agonizing. I think that as a religious leader, a morally upright Roman Catholic and diplomat, Pope Pius XII did actions behind the eye of the public to help the Jews.I believe that Pope Pius XII believes in utilitarianism and because of this. Consequently, he suffered the pain of doing nothing because he knew that the consequences would be right or provide greater good. Conclusion Father Riccardo Fontana, Kurt Gerstein and Pope Pius XII are three interesting characters with varied perspectives when it comes to what is right or wrong. Father Riccardo Fontana and Kurt Gerstein believed in fulfilling their moral obligati ons while Pope Pius XII believed that â€Å"the end justifies the means†.The first two characters believed in doing things now and in considering consequences later while the third character was thinking of the consequences first before making an action. Somehow, I believe that the Holocaust or the genocide of millions of Jews in Nazi concentration camps, considering these two opposite ethical principles, is a dilemma. It is a dilemma where I believe, Pope Pius XII did the best choice. Works Cited Costa-Gavras, dir. Amen. Perfs. Ulrich Tukur, Mathieu Kassovitz. Kino International, 2002.

Benjamin Franklin Essay

I. INTRODUCTION Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston as the son of a candle maker. From humble beginnings, he grew into a renowned figure of American history. â€Å"He became famous for being a scientist, an inventor, a statesman, a printer, a philosopher, a musician, and an economist†. Today, Americans recognize him for being one of our Founding Fathers and a prominent citizen of the city of Philadelphia. In his autobiography, Franklin shows that he desired self-improvement and in pursuit of this goal focused on improvements of four different types: intellectual, moral, business, and social. II. BODY Franklin’s intellectual improvements were numerous. As a child, he had a thirst for knowledge. He exhibited a readiness to learn and read at an early age, and while in school, he rose to the head of his class and then skipped a grade. After Franklin’s father pointed out that he had a poor manner of writing, Franklin resolved to improve not only his manner of writing but also his arrangement of thoughts in his written work. His ambition was to become a good English writer. In his young age, he also was intent on improving his language and when he got older he taught himself French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. He used the library as a means of improvement by constant study of one to two hours per day here. Franklin went to great lengths to achieve moral improvement. As a young man, Franklin developed a plan regulating his future conduct in life that he adhered to even in his old age. He wrote a list of moral characters that he would like to possess such as temperance, fr ugality, and humility. He had thirteen categories in all that he wrote down in a book to carry with him. He had a separate column for each day of the week. He would pull out the book and mark which virtues he felt he had committed a fault in that day so that he may examine them and improve upon them. During the course of this practice, Franklin said that he found himself fuller of faults than he would have thought, but he had the satisfaction of seeing those faults diminish. His actions also showed that he strove for moral perfection. He thought excessive drinking was a detestable habit and abstained from doing so when his coworkers drank all day long. He spent no time in taverns, playing games, or displaying antics of any kind. He also believed in the importance of frugality and did his best to save money on housing. During the eighteen months he lived in London, he worked hard and spent little on himself except for the occasional play or book. It was his practice of frugality that lead to his wealth and distinction later in life. Benjamin Franklin had a Quaker friend that pointed out that he thought that Franklin had a problem with pride and so Franklin endeavored to be more humble. He attributed his humility, or sometimes his appearance of humility, with allowing him to hold so much weight with his fellow citizens. Franklin also strove for truth, sincerity, and integrity in all of his business dealings. Not only did Franklin improve intellectually and morally but he also made improvements in business. In little time after becoming an apprentice to his brother, he exhibited great proficiency in the printing business. He was able to take a failing newspaper and make it profitable by developing a better type and better print which led to an increase in the number of subscribers. He made a mold to be used in printing houses to combat the problem of equipment deficiencies. He also made a copper press to print paper money. He filled the spaces in Poor Richard’s Almanac with proverbial sentences for the benefit of its readers. Similarly, he made use of newspapers to communicate instruction. Franklin also contributed greatly to social improvements in his day. He formed a club of mutual improvement called JUNTO. He started the Philadelphia public library which was an institution that was imitated by other towns. He laid the ground work for a more effective city watch and started the first fire company. He established a Philosophical Society in Pennsylvania and also an academy that grew into the University of Pennsylvania. He invented a more efficient and economical stove known as the Franklin stove. He helped in the establishing of a hospital in Philadelphia and also in streets being paved. Franklin was generally successful in his attempts at self-improvement, excelling from an early age. He attempted to be the best person he could be and genuinely desired to help others. He convinced coworkers to stop drinking and spend their money of food instead and also loaned money to them. He loaned money to his friends, Collins and Ralph, even though they took advantage of him and never repaid their debts. He recognized that Keimer was only using him to train his workers and then was going to fire him, yet Franklin still cheerfully put Keimer’s printing house in order. Franklin was also always eager to help young beginners. He further demonstrated that he was not a self-promoter when he had a chance for a better business deal but declined because of the obligations he felt he had with his current partners. III. CONCLUSION Franklin has long been revered as one of the great figures of American history. As a Founding Father, he was instrumental in the early days of shaping the American government. Throughout his lifetime, he strove for improvement in intellectual, moral, business, and social areas and was successful in his attempts in each of these areas. He was a benevolent individual who desired to help others, and he authored his autobiography in the hope that posterity would follow his example and reap the same benefits References Benjamin Franklin: Glimpses of the Man. 1994. The Franklin Institute Science Museum. http://www.fi.edu/franklin/ (accessed June 4, 2012). Franklin, Benjamin. 1909. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Ed. Charles W. Eliot. New York: P F Collier & Son Company.

Educational Purpose Essay

Since childhood, I have always wanted to be an educator. This is because I have always considered education as an essential need. It is certainly because education makes one civilized. It is also through education that the potential of one person is maximized. Significantly, it is the way by which one gains knowledge which is very useful in everyday life. Education is also the means which will make it possible for individuals to achieve his or her dreams. In addition, education is necessary in order to mould one to discern what is right from wrong. Hence, education is one of the most important factors for people to exist in a peaceful and civilized society. Additionally, as widely recognized, being a teacher is the noblest profession. It is not only because teachers educate but also because they are considered as the second parent of the students. Hence, it is not only the intellectual aspect that teacher develops but also the emotional and psychological aspect of the student. Teachers are necessary in forming better persons in the society. Notably, in all these endeavors, the teacher does not merely exert effort and time but also extends care, concern, and love to his or her students. It is for these zealous purposes that I longed to be an educator. In the educational system today, many problems can be observed. The most common and old probably is diversity or socio-cultural differences. Even in the older times, diversity has always been a barrier for most of students. I had my own share of difficulty when it comes to the issue of socio-cultural differences. I have experienced being avoided in debates whenever I attempted to join. Being a person having a different skin color and language makes it difficult to be accepted by the majority. However, being different among the majority has challenged me to break the barriers that impede me from achieving my goals. I know that there are thousands who had experienced and is experiencing what I have been through. As such, I am inspired to make ways on eliminating diversity that hinders other students from pursuing their dreams. Meanwhile, school is considered as the second home of students. Hence, schools should be made as a place for freedom regardless of race, culture, gender, age, and socio-economic status. Another problem that is plaguing the education system is commercialization. Education has been said to be a right of every individual. However, as educational fees continue to increase, the burden to the poor is becoming heavier because the value is making it difficult for the poor to afford. Hence, education is becoming a privilege for the rich. Furthermore, the continued commercialization of education is affecting the quality of education because of competition among schools. At the same time, commercialization deviate the labor market and creates labor shifting. This happens especially when schools offer short courses when the employment demands for graduate courses. Education, as such, is one of the necessities for us to be able to achieve our dreams. A student goes to school to be educated so that someday he will have the employment he has desired for. However, the real situation would merely disappoint the student. It is of no doubt that the technological innovation has affected the drastic change in labor demand. In addition, the nation is also highly industrialized. Hence, the labor offered are those related to technology and industry. This fact puts the students of social sciences in a disadvantaged position because they have a narrower chance of employment in a highly technical and industrialized society. It has been said that education is the window to a student’s dream. Thus, the curriculum should correspond to the need of the society and at the same time aid in the fulfillment of the student’s dream.

How to satisfy the customers in alain distribution company ( water and Research Paper

How to satisfy the customers in alain distribution company ( water and electricity company) - Research Paper Example Commonly, it has been interpreted that satisfaction is characterized by a feeling that is brought about by the evaluation process regarding what customers expect, such as the decision to purchase the service along with their needs and desires associated with such purchase. Moreover, according to Bitner and Zeithaml (2003), satisfaction reflects whether the service has fulfilled the customers’ needs and expectations. Satisfaction can be a positive and emotional state as an outcome of the evaluation of a working relationship (Boeselie, Hesselink, and Wiele, 2002). Over the recent years, due to such definition, there has been a focus on service quality and customer satisfaction among service providers and researchers alike, although such concepts are two conceptually distinct variables from the perspectives of customers. Background of the Study The researcher aims to focus on the Al Ain Distribution Company (AADC) which is a public joint stock company in the United Arab Emirates owned by the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority. AADC remains to be the largest distributor of electricity and water in the eastern region of Abu Dhabi (AADC, 2009). The company holds total ownership, control and regulation of electricity and water distribution, and operation of services for electricity and water supply. AADC aims to commit to their shareholders by bringing about the required investment returns. It also attempts to demonstrate excellent service quality by making sure that the provision of electricity and water is at a high level of superiority and that professionalism is shown through customer transactions and business actions that fulfill customer needs. Finally, AADC aims to stay committed to their employees through equitable treatment, effective employee recruitment and development, empowerment, competency maximization, recognition of contributions, and a safe and secure working environment. Through such objectives, the AADC aims to follow high standards t o bring about favorable outcomes in their daily course of action. Research Objectives The current study aims to address one main objective and that is to examine the relationships of perceived service quality dimensions, as suggested by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) (reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, empathy, and assurance) on the satisfaction of customers in Al Ain Distribution Company (AADC). Review of Related Literature Customer Satisfaction A wide number of researchers have examined the important role that customer satisfaction plays in achieving long-term business success (Homburg and Stock, 2005; Schmit and Allscheid, 1996). Although customer satisfaction has been described through various definitions, generally, a process for evaluation is a vital component that comprises customer satisfaction. It is an evaluation provided by customers with regards to their consumption experience or service encounter based on how favorable it should be (Hunt 1977). Engel and Blackwell (1982) also referred to this concept as an evaluation whether the selected option is in accordance with prior notions regarding such alternative. Hence, such conceptualizations point out that customer satisfaction is the process of assessing the observed differences between expectations and actual performance/encounter. Furthermore, according

A Biological Explanation for Aggressive Behavior Essay

A Biological Explanation for Aggressive Behavior - Essay Example Based on the premise that chemicals such as hormones or pharmaceutical agents affect neuronal responses such as mood and behavior, it tries to explain how the body’s internal chemical reactions have overt effects on how humans react to the environment. In the study done by Drs. Kruk, Hala ´sz, Meelis and Haller on the â€Å"Fast Positive Feedback Between the Adrenocortical Stress Response and a Brain Mechanism Involved in Aggressive Behavior,† the relationship between the body’s stress response and aggressive behavior is looked at. It was the aim of their experiment to test whether there was a â€Å"mutual stimulatory interaction between brain mechanisms controlling aggressive behavior and the stress response† (Kruk, Meelis, Halà ¡sz and Haller 2003). The investigations cross traditionally disparate domains of psychology as it takes an in-depth look at the connection between Behavioral, Social and Clinical Psychology – the link between integrativ e physiological investigation (e.g., in the role of specific neural structures, such as the hippocampus, in eliciting the stress response), frustration and aggression, and even psychopharmacology. Theoretically, it tried to prove that aggression is more of a biological response, and as such could be controlled, or even induced, by pharmacological means. The Experiment and the Results In the experiment, 53 rats were used as the main participants for five different experiments aimed to study whether stimulating the brain's aggression mechanism raised blood levels of a stress hormone and whether higher levels of the same hormone led to the kind of aggression elicited by that mechanism (Willenz 2004). Rats, whose neurophysiology is similar to ours were prepared by means of surgically implanting electrodes designed to stimulate the aggression-related part of the rat, his hypothalamus, a mid-brain area associated with emotion. Opponent rats were given an intraperitoneal injection of morphine before encounters with their electrode - implanted counterparts in order to produce profound sedation and analgesia during attacks (Kruk, Meelis, Halsz and Haller 2003). A series of five different experiments whereby the hypothalamus was electronically stimulated and measurements on the level of corticosterone (a substance akin to cortisol which humans produce under stress) present and the concomitant increase or absence of aggressive response in the rats in the presence or absence of an enemy or another attacker was undertaken. In the first two experiments, the rats' hypothalamuses were stimulated and their response to the absence and presence of an aggressive and non-aggressive opponent were measured. The results showed that "that activating the hypothalamic aggressive area is in itself a sufficient condition to obtain a considerable adrenocortical response. The confrontation with an opponent apparently is not required. The small increase observed in the absence of stimulation and opponent is probably due to an anticipatory stress response to the introduction into the test cage, a setting where these rats had fought before" (Kruk, Meelis, Halsz and Haller 2003). In the next two experiments, they determined the effects of a surge in plasma corticosterone and assessed the duration of their effects on attack thresholds. It was found that the levels of plasma c orticosterone induced attack behavior in the rats. The last experiment tried to determine what would happen if the rats underwent an adrenalectomy and the stress response was chemically induced

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward novel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward novel - Essay Example In a careful analysis of the novel, it becomes lucid that Bellamy's bipolar society is partially organized by scientific-technical reason and partially devoted to the pensively rational pursuit of freedom and individuality. Therefore, the author makes use of scientific-technical means to solve the social problem of scarcity through high levels of political centralization and a willingness to assimilate the machine culture. Thus, Looking Backward is one of the best known films of this sub-genre and arguably the best in terms of literary merit and wholeness of conception and vision. In the novel, Bellamy's society is bipolar in nature as it incorporates scientific-technical reason although it is devoted to the pensively rational pursuit of freedom and individuality. However, this scientific-technological advance has not come to pass by 2009, even in modified form, as either socialism or capitalism does not give room for this bipolarity in the 20th Century. Bellamy's concept that such a society would result with high levels of political centralization and a willingness to 'fit in' with the machine culture proved to be wrong. The main reason for the lack of this scientific-technological solution is that Bellamy's society is bipola

American racism between 1600 and 1975 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

American racism between 1600 and 1975 - Essay Example This essay highlights the impact of political, economical and social factors that shaped American racism between the period of 1600 and 1975. Racism in America is mainly because of the color discrimination among people. Though American society is united and there are fewer conflicts among people still the color discrimination persists. During the sixteenth century it was a major problem and people hated each other because of this reason. Racism mainly started in Africa after people were made to work for European colonies forcefully. Slowly slavery spread across the world and the European colonies were set up in America as well. People were offered jobs and they were made to do difficult jobs all day against their wish. Slavery took a very adverse face when people were sold from one owner to another. Men, women and children were made to do different kind of jobs for the rich people in the European colonies (Beisner, 2003). The political structure during the sixteenth century led to the rise in racism in the western society. In American political system the government was involved in the transportation of slaves from America to Europe. Due to involvement of government in slavery, racism had drastic affects on the life of people and society. The political structure let people from different countries to come to America and increase the slavery business. People were sold out at high prices and they were treated in the worst ways possible. There were many death reports about people if they turned their back to the white people. Sixteenth century undoubtedly faced the toughest challenge due to racism. People in America faced the challenge because they did not have any voting rights. The government formed by selection not by election hence there was no choice given to people and they had to accept all the changes without any questions. During this period the black skin people faced the toughest challenge an d they

History of Science - review a chapter of Peter Bowler and Iwan Morus's Essay

History of Science - review a chapter of Peter Bowler and Iwan Morus's textbook Making Modern Science (Chapter on Science and - Essay Example In fact, however, scientists and historians have argued for many centuries about the differences between the two, suggesting that pure science is hierarchically different from its applications in the world of work. The chapter explains how some thinkers place science above technology, and others place science below technology, in importance. The authors finally come to the conclusion that the best way to think about these two things is to observe examples and conclude that â€Å"little practical distinction is made between the two.† (p. 401) The authors start with recent times and argue that the most common view in the twentieth century was that science was more pure, and more important because it dealt with ideas and truths. Technology was considered a lesser area of study because it was concerned with merely things. It could be said that this is an idealist position, because it is theoretical, and imaginary, rather than concrete and applied. An interesting aspect of the auth ors’ approach is that it also brings in cultural and political factors. Scientists often see things through a narrow lens, in terms of numbers and theories, as if these things are absolute, but this chapter shows that ideas like Marxism influenced science. This ideology strongly favors a materialistic view of things, and stresses the usefulness of ideas in the real world. For scientists in Soviet Russia, then, technology was seen as more important. Scientists in the Capitalist western countries, on the other hand, continued with old ideas from the Enlightenment, which favored the theoretical over the practical. Another useful comparison is drawn (pp. 396-397) between French and English government approaches to the funding of science in the nineteenth century. In France the government wanted to promote science for its wealth-bringing potential, and funded research very generously, while in Britain there was a more relaxed attitude which left research to be more of a gentlemanà ¢â‚¬â„¢s hobby which was funded by private money. Looking at the world of science today it is interesting to see that these same old debates are still very relevant, because scientists always have to seek various sources of funding for their work. The American contribution to this debate was to emphasize the importance of inventors like Morse and Edison, who used their craft skills and intelligence to improve existing designs and create completely new ones. These men referred to traditional scientists, also, when they needed to solve some problems, which goes to show that theory and practice need to work together if progress is to be made. The chapter contains a number of headings, some of which are indicators of a particular example such as â€Å"steam culture† while others are more fancy such as â€Å"the chicken and the egg† and â€Å"invisible technicians.† These fancy headings do not help the reader to work out what the next topic is going to be. Unlike mos t historical textbooks, this one does not present the facts in chronological order, since it jumps back and forward through the ages, following the arguments for and against the supremacy of science or technology. This can be confusing, since at first it is not clear which way the authors wish the reader to follow. This is a weakness in the chapter, because a lot of the time the reader feels lost, and wondering what the point is that the authors want to make. After

Compare three companies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Compare three companies - Essay Example 1 in the overall mobile phone market; with its revenues skyrocketing and sales to end users growing 19 percent in the second quarter of 2013 .This paper is an attempt to identify the key tactics and measures adopted by Samsung to reach the top slot of consumer market all over the world. Apple and Samsung have been rivals of each other over a number of years for acquiring the entitlement for the best Smartphone manufacturer. In the recent past, Apple has convincingly won the best Smartphone provider in the past years. After the loss of its iconic mastermind Steve Job, Apple has lost its hold on the market and is receiving tough competition from Samsung. Samsung, on the other hand, has shot to fame by breaking his own previous sales records by consistently improving the quality of its smartphones, giving high-quality products like the Samsung Galaxy and giving lots of new features with every version of its smart phone range. Although Sony is not far behind but it will take time to comp ete on an equal scale with Samsung. Sony had established its name quite firmly in the television, LCD, LED, gadgets, and cellphone manufacturing industry but Samsung has now taken the lead in this context and is capturing the TV market by developing LED, LCD with more advanced technology and more user friendly features under reasonable rates. After the not so successful launch of iPhone5, Apple has quietly predicted that the new iPhone 5S will be the first ever Apple phone that has been created primarily to compete with Samsung and will give a tough competition in head to head sales. If both company’s latest smartphones are analyzed, then it becomes clear that the image of Samsung is in every way a step ahead from Apple because of its unique production techniques. It is important to have a comparison of iPhone5S and Samsung Galaxy S4 specs to understand the difference between the latest offerings from each vendor. Both these sets were introduced in 2013. DISPLAY Samsung Apple Physical size 5.0 inches 4.0 inches    Resolution 1080 x 1920 pixels 640 x 1136 pixels    Pixel density 441 ppi 326 ppi    Technology Super AMOLED IPS LCD    Colors 16 777 216 16 777 216    Touchscreen Capacitive, Multi-touch Capacitive, Multi-touch    Features Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Scratch-resistant glass (Corning Gorilla Glass) Light sensor, Proximity sensor    HARDWARE System chip Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T Apple A6    Processor Quad core, 1900 MHz, Krait 300 Dual core, 1300 MHz, Apple Swift    Graphics processor Adreno 320 PowerVR SGX543MP3    System memory 2048 MB RAM (Dual-channel) / LPDDR3 1016 MB RAM (Dual-channel, 1066 MHz) / LPDDR2    Built-in storage 16 GB 16 GB    Storage expansion microSD, microSDHC, microSDXC up to 64 GB       (Han) From the above comparison, it becomes clear that Samsung is taking the lead in almost every aspect related to producing a great and fully loaded smart phone. The only edge that iPhone 5s seem to have over Samsung’s Galaxy S4 is that iPhone tends to be much lighter but still Samsung’s S4 offers so much more and is also having a handy look to suit all sorts of customers. The strange thing which is noticed by the users of android is that the new version of Apple ios7 is almost a replica to the android users, which is a controversial topic. It is crystal clear that the iPhone is actually adopting android interface software to give their iPhone a different look. The new version of

Higher education Essay Example for Free

Higher education Essay Security, quality education, access to healthcare, prospects of a reasonable job on merit and sound economy are the ingredients to be provided by the state to its citizens to run the state and the society smoothly. Growth of successful nations is denoted particularly to the education. There was a time when people believed that higher education should be available to people of all social classes and, obviously, it was freely available to all who wanted it. The fact that it is not, that public education was once available and now it is very hard to access is indicative of deep problems in Pakistan. Encouraging colleges and universities to raise their own resources by charging higher fees has clearly excluded a significant section of students belonging to poor sections of the society. Education in Pakistan is now so expensive that poor can’t even imagine of their children becoming doctors and engineers. Our education system is passing through a very bad phase now and it is regarded as perhaps amongst the poorest in the world. Cream of the Pakistani brain is either becoming idle due to non-availability of ever rising cost of education or going to other countries. UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS Article 1 provides; every child has the right to have equal access to an education, irrespective of their color, creed, nationality, ethnicity, or social and financial status, so they may obtain gainful employment and contribute to the growth of their society, being born free and equal in dignity and rights. Life for a common man in Pakistan in this so called â€Å"democratic† regime has already become difficult owing to the all-round price rise across the country. Inflation, combined with policies of privatization, has caused a complete deterioration in living standards of the people. Frankly speaking, there is no such thing as democracy in Pakistan. This type of â€Å"democracy† has often left the common man in constant struggle for survival. Majority of Pakistanis are living in poverty and unsustainable economic conditions; when they are struggling for their livelihood education loses its utility in their eyes and it becomes far from their desire. But for the riches and powerful corrupt politicians, things are very rosy. Pakistan is suffering terribly for that, with socio-political and economic crises strewn all over the society like a straw hut in a typhoon. Lack of good education and unemployment in Pakistan would contribute many social ills, including crime, prostitution, and the break down in law and order. In Pakistan, providing education to the masses had always been state responsibility. Now there has been a major push for the private provision of educational services. Moreover, corrupt politicians, feudalism, injustice are such problems which have further pressed the most pressed people of the country. Education is a tremendous tool for social change as well as an opportunity out of poverty traps. People trapped in the lower classes have trouble climbing out of it because they lack the tools to do so, because they live in a feudal society that actively works to keep them there, and education can be a form of escape hatch. But Education System in Pakistan In Human development Report Pakistan is placed at 136th position for having just 49. 9% educated population. In addition to that, Pakistan is ranked at 113th out of 120 registered UN members according to the research conducted by UNESCO et. all. Some of the very basic flaws of the education system in Pakistan contribute to the economic, ethnic and sociopolitical crisis within the country. Flaws of Education System in Pakistan Firstly, the education system of Pakistan is based on unequal lines. Medium of education is different in both, public and private sector. This create a sort of disparity among people, dividing them into two segments. Such a distraught infrastructure is a basic cause of high illiteracy rate in Pakistan and high drop out rates in rural areas and public school. Secondly, regional disparity is also a major cause. The schools in Balochistan (the largest province of Pakistan by Area) are not that much groomed as that of Punjab (the largest province Of Pakistan by Population). In FATA, the literacy rate is deplorable constituting 29. 5% in males and 3% in females. The third major cause of flawed education system in Pakistan is gender discrimination. The current primary school ratio of boys and girls is 10:4, which is a cause of huge concern. For the last few years there has been an increase in the growth of private schools. It is believed that Pakistan is among the most prominent states affected by gender discrimination. That not only harms the quality of education in Pakistan but create a gap among haves and have nots. Fourthly, the lack of technical education is a biggest flaw in the education policy that has never been focused before. Therefore, less technical people means low standard of education. Fifthly, the allocation of funds for education are very low. It is only 1. 5 to 2. 0 percent of the total GDP. It should be around 7% of the total GDP. At that budget allocation, the illiteracy rate in Pakistan would not decrease but rather increase. The federal and provincial governments need to cut down their expenditures in other areas and spend a bigger proportion of income on education. Moreover, the quality of education in most of the public schools and colleges is well below par; the teachers in government schools are not well trained. People who do not get job in any other sector, they try their luck in educational system. They are not professionally trained teachers so they are unable to train a nation. Quality of teaching needs special attention in rural areas where the teachers lack in all departments. In America, Europe and most of the developed countries, the emphasis of the states is on developing virtual education systems i. e. provision of education through online networks. The idea of online education is gathering momentum and many online institutions have been set up which offer online courses and online degrees. The Higher Education Commission and Education ministry need to focus on developing a strong online education network so that students through out the country can benefit. Universities such as Harvard, Berkley and MIT are offering online courses and degrees. It reflects the importance of online education in todays modern high tech world. Finally, Poverty is also another factor that restrict the parents to send their children to public or private schools. So, they prefer to send their children to Madrassas where education is totally free. The government has to make changes to financial infrastructure to improve the situation. Bank loans for education purposes should not be interest based as it discourages the people of Pakistan to acquire loans. Education loans are offered at low rates through out the world and it enable people to acquire quality education. Social awareness regarding all these issues need to be spread and we, the people of Pakistan have to work hand in hand with the government authorities to improve the current system. Our children should not be deprived of their basic right to acquire knowledge. All these issues contribute to high illiteracy rate, which in turn result in economic crisis in shape of high unemployment rate and below-par quality of labor. Moreover, the country suffers on social, political and technological front! There are hundred other problems which need attention but the core-issues need to be addressed as soon as possible. You can read my article Pakistans Educational System which is an overview of the education infra-structure within the country. In todays world, the benchmark for excellence is education. Moreover, if a country has a distraught academic infrastructure, the chances to survive in current competitive world are petite. The illiteracy rate in Pakistan is alarmingly high which calls for critical attention. The federal and provincial governments need to work together towards elimination of flaws of education system in Pakistan. The first time I thought about education and its significance to this society was when I went on a field trip to a school set up by an NGO in the late 1990s. It is now a rightly famous NGO but back then during my sixth grade field trip it just seemed like a project of a group of cranky Karachi businessmen who had decided to spit against the wind of the government’s non-interest in providing education to its people. These rich grouches had  gotten together in the chaos of 1995 Karachi and seeing the government more interested in massacring hard-boiled militants than provide social services, they decided to simply pool their own money and build their own schools. How benevolent of them. I would love to see these rich men’s tax receipts. The citizens of a country shouldn’t be dependent on the benevolent charity of rich men. Through their own democratic political process, citizens must enforce upon their richest members the income taxes necessary to fund an education system that reaches every child in the state. The fact that Pakistanis have not done so points towards the weakness of their political system in dealing with its population’s educational needs. There is no real shortcut from the state actually enforcing a tax system that extracts the adequate revenue needed to fund the creation of a school near every human settlement in Pakistan. The goal I have described of having a school near every human settlement in Pakistan, is what Pakistan is obligated to do under its current international treaties and the simplest and most straightforward way it can be done. It is certainly not impossible. Pakistan has managed to make sure that no human settlement lacks a mosque. The same needs to be done for schools. Where we went wrong Nationalisation of schools, as was done by the Z. A. Bhutto administration, was a shortcut that cannot be used, and was actually instrumental in ruining government schools. The provincial governments that ran education departments became overstretched then to the point of breaking. The schools that were nationalised saw the prospect of future capital and human investment in them pointless, as the former owners were now dispossessed of their old stake in the schools. Good teachers left, rather than become government employees to be posted in far flung places, and the lack of good teacher training colleges, a necessity unacknowledged up until recently, saw little competent replacement. By nationalising the missionary (Christian), faith-based (Muslim) and private schools, an unwieldy, unplanned expansion of Pakistan’s school system reduced the status of government school teachers to the corrupted, incompetent, ineffective place it finds itself in today. Teachers do not come to classes, and if they do, they are ill-prepared to teach. It becomes difficult to weed out and penalise underperforming teachers because their status as government employees prevents them from being penalised as they would be in the private sector. As much as this rhetoric may sound similar to the United States, Pakistan’s teachers’ unions continue to shelter wildly incompetent teachers, who beyond being simply bad at teaching, many times do not even show up. Anti-participatory environment We are not helped either by large class sizes, low teacher to student ratios, non-production of teachers in a sufficient quantity and quality by the low number of Pakistani teacher-training colleges. Central to this remains the criminally low expenditure on education by Pakistan, and the failure to collect or divert enough revenue to the education sector. Taking the education emergency of Pakistan seriously would mean finding means to increase the amounts spent on education in Pakistan, on a war footing. Students cannot themselves push for an effective learning environment. Despite the fact that some students actually do want to learn, the environment that exists in classrooms, does not brook dissent. This discourages students from bringing up flaws in their educational setting. This anti-participatory environment in classrooms is facilitated by excessively large class sizes, which discourages teachers from having more individualised interactions with students. This anti-participatory trend in classrooms is complemented by an anti-democratic trend in schools, where no voting is done to elect new prefects or monitors, rather the relevant students are appointed by the school administration. Giving students an opportunity to actually vote for their school leaders might inculcate democratic and participatory values in them at an earlier age, and teach them the responsibility of making their own decisions. If and when these students reach Pakistani universities, they can adequately recognise the entrenched authoritarianism accumulated in many of Pakistan’s universities over the last three decades. Student politics This persistent anti-democratic trend within Pakistan’s educational establishments has reinforced the low academic quality of these institutions. There is little legitimate input from the student bodies on how their education is conducted. Since the 1980s student union elections have been either banned or delayed, witnessing unrest in a violent country like Pakistan ripple into campuses as violence, as opposed to measured  debate. The situation turned chaotic in the 1990s when the general mayhem of the city of Karachi coincided with violence on the Karachi University campus. The presence of such violence made the students of that decade disinterested in participatory politics. This suited the authoritarian and bureaucratic administrations of varsities, as well as the sclerotic, unelected leadership of Pakistan’s political parties. They did not mind that the students of Pakistan slid into political apathy. However, the importance of student politics was re-kindled in the 2007 lawyer-led movement against the dictatorship of General Musharraf. The importance of student politics was even acknowledged by the government that won against Musharraf in 2008, when it lifted the ban on student and trade union elections. However, the twist in the tale has been the glaring domestic democratic deficit of this government. The anti-participatory atmosphere on campuses has not lifted as no memorable student elections have been held. Neither have any well-publicised trade union elections been held. And most significantly, no internal party elections have been held in any party that maintains a decisive number of seats in parliament. What the lack of student democracy has to do with Pakistan’s state of education is that there is no feedback from students, who are the objects of education. There is no diminishment in the cruel authoritarian atmosphere of Pakistani government classrooms, where teachers, in negligent enough environments can still use sticks to punish students. I never really thought about education in society as a child. That would have been expected of any 11 year old. But when I visited a third grade NGO school classroom in the late ’90s and saw another 11 year old struggling with phrases I would read just for fun, it hit me how serious the problem of illiteracy was for Pakistani society. In a misbegotten decade as that one, beyond the Gordian knot we had witnessed of Karachi’s bloody politics, the reality of children’s mis-education struck me as a crueler fate, a dire issue that had to be resolved immediately. That’s because these ill-educated children would not remain children much longer. They would soon be badly-educated adults. And if this cruel act of omission by Pakistani society was not amended quick enough, then one more generation would see their adulthoods wasting away under the 21st century curse of illiteracy. Tax the rich, teach the kids. We have an education emergency on our hands. The Education System of Pakistan is divided into five levels 1. Primary level (Class 1 to 5) 2. Middle level (Class 5 to 8th) 3. Secondary level (S. S. C) 4. Intermediate level (H. S. C) 5. University level (Graduation, Masters and Research) Another division of Education System in Pakistan according to the School System 1. 1. Public Schools or Government Schools These schools are managed and financed by the government. Unfortunately, the majority of the schools are in poor condition.  » There is no any merit system; teachers and other staff are appointed by the ministers on their own wishes.  » There is no any accountability; a large number of GHOST SCHOOLS AND GHOST TEACHERS are listed in the documents. They are receiving funds and pays, but, in reality they did not exists.  » In Rural areas, the buildings of public schools are mostly held by Waderas and Feudal. They use them as marriage halls, otaks, bethaks etc. â€Å"Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality. † (Henry Fielding) 1. 2. Elite Class Schools (private schools) Due to badly failure of government in providing the Education, the Elite Class Education System in Pakistan got successes very quickly. Today, even poor prefer to send their child in these private schools but because of high fee structure many aspirants are unable to part this Education System. It is generally accepted that, the standard of Elite Class Education System is more reliable and first-rate than Public Schools and Madarsas. There is accountability, transparency and checking system. Generally, the students of private schools are more competent than those of public schools and Madarsas. The government should take lessons from this Education System. These are successive models for the government i. e. CITY SCHOOL, BEACON SCHOOLS, PAK-TURK SCHOOLS etc. 1. 3. Madarsas Madarsas are the largest NGOs of the world. Today in Pakistan about 8000 Madarsas are working. They provide not only Education but also accommodation and food. They provide Islamic as well as worldlyEducation. Mostly, poor parents who are unable to educate their child prefer this Education System. The government should introduce the reforms for the Madarsas and improve their standard. This will be helpful in two ways. Firstly, it will provide free of cost education to poor child. Secondly, it will lessen the burden the government. Before the 18th Amendment, the EducationSystem in Pakistan was the responsibility of Federal Government. The Ministry of Education at Federal level was responsible for formulating Policies, Planning and Promotion of Educational facilities across the country. But, after the passing of 18th Amendment, the responsibilities of Education System are divided among the Federation and the Provinces. The responsibilities of the Provinces 1. To set the Curriculum 2. To set the Syllabus 3. Standards of Education up to Grade 12 (F. Sc, H. S. C, I. Com, etc). 4. Islamic Education The responsibilities of Federation are following 1. Planning and Policy 2. External Affairs; Signing, implementation and monitoring of Bilateral and Multi-lateral Educational Agreements, Pacts, Protocols, MoUs 3. Controlling of Libraries, museums, and similar institutions 4. Federal agencies i. e. FATA 5. Special Studies 6. Inter-provincial matters and co-ordination. † 7. Legal, medical and other professions. 8. National planning and national economic coordination including planning and coordination of scientific and technological research. 9. National Education Policy and clear cut Domain over the following acts. 1. 1. Centres of Excellence Act 1974 2. Area Study Centres Act 1975 3. Pakistan Study Centres Act 1976 4. National Book Foundation Act 1972 5. Fed. Board of Intermediate Sec Education Act 1975 6. Federal Directorate of Education Isb. [Article 142 (d)] 7. Federal Supervision of Curricula, Textbooks and Standards of Education Act 1976 8. National Education Foundation Ordinance 2002. Source: http://www. defence. pk/forums/national-political-issues/125588-education-system-pakistan-good-bad. html#ixzz2PKkMjbtM Flaws hovering over Pakistan’s education system Filed under ISSUES 0 According to the reports of Human development our country is placed at 136th with just 49. 9 percent educated population. There is lack of uniform education system. Private and Govt. educational institutions has different syllabus. The flaws in education system lead to sociopolitical, economic and ethical issues in our society. Our education system is based on uneven lines. Even the medium of education is different in private and public educational institutions. This inequality has divided people among two segments. Such a distressed educational infrastructure is a crucial cause of increasing rate of illiteracy in Pakistan. The regional discrepancy is also main reason illiteracy in Pakistan. The schools in largest province of Pakistan Baluchistan are not establish and sparked as schools in Punjab. There is lack of awareness among people about the significance of education. In FATA the literacy rate is very poor constituting 29. 5% in men and 3% in women. The gender discrimination is also one of the major causes of educational flaws in country which is projecting the boys and girls primary schools ratio 10:4 correspondingly. In the last few years many new primacy schools for girls and boys are established but still there is need to establish more and more primary schools to meet the educational needs of increasing population. In the last decade the growth of private sector schools is tremendously increased. The private schools trend not just harms the quality of education but also created a huge gap between rich and poor. The people of lower class couldn’t afford the fees of private educational schools and colleges. In public schools there is lack of quality education. There is also shortage of required facilities like qualified, train staff, furniture and school buildings etc. Our educational policy doesn’t focus on technical education. There are very few technical institutions and less technical trained people in country. The funds allocated for the education are not sufficient the funds are just about 1. 5 % to 2. 0% of total GDP. Although to promote the education the funds must be about 7 percent of total country GDP. With increased education budget the literacy rate in country will surely increased. The provincial and federal Government both need spend a larger portion of their income on promoting education. Author: Rizwan Ghani Posted On: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 Source/Reference: www. pakobserver. net Total Views :1320| After 18th Amendment, improvement of education in Pakistan to international standards can be done with help of international frameworks including Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and boards like National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Federal and provincial governments have to address the issue of teaching language (English, Urdu or regional languages), standardization of curriculum, and dealing with two-track education system- Urdu and English medium to take local and international exams. These tested frameworks can bring the progress of decades in Pakistan while saving billions of dollars. Thus, Pakistan needs to adopt appropriate policies to raise education standards, sustain economy and earn foreign exchange. The political, social and education complexities of teaching language can be controlled with help of international frameworks. PISA does not require the member states to change curriculums, teaching languages and teaching methodologies. It allows governments to periodically monitor outcomes of national education systems within internationally agreed framework. It provides a basis for international collaboration in defining and implementing educational goals and skills that are relevant to adult life (professional and social). PISA reading, mathematics and general science frameworks help bring national education at par with international standards. Around half a million 15-year-olds from 75 countries representing 28 million students, participated in PISA 2009 assessments and surveys. Pakistan can use PISA to improving national education standards in all provincial languages (www. pisa. oecd. org). Teaching in local languages can improve Pakistan’s education standards internationally. According to the 2011 Writing Framework for National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) of America, good writing instruction empowers students to acquire new knowledge and to develop critical thinking skills. This is true of writing in all subject areas, not just English language http //www. state. nj. us/education/assessment/naep/results/writing/2011naep. PISA and NAEP framework rubrics allow student evaluations irrespective of language. Learning and teaching in mother tongue is a universal human right recognized by UN. China, was a top scorers in 2009 PISA testing http //www. nytimes. com/2010/12/07/education/07education. html. It shows education in mother tongue does not affect nation’s international competitiveness and national education standards. Since education is a provincial subject, therefore provinces should be free to impart education in local languages, make English and Urdu as optional languages. Provinces can issue degrees with pass/fail with English/Urdu or both to free the country from politics of language. It will allow students to continue higher education without passing compulsory languages, which is a major contributor to school and college dropouts. It will allow the students to join job market who do not wish to continue with further education. The employer can omit or consider language(s) pass/fail status of candidate at the time of employment. On the other hand, the higher education institutions can keep compulsory languages as part of admission criteria. In line with many American universities, a six months period can be given to first year university students to clear compulsory languages. In terms of syllabus, international frameworks and boards can help Pakistan’s policy makers develop required syllabuses, fulfill demands of local market, and meet national education objectives to bring national and international education at par. They allow improving exam testing and incorporating modern technology in reading and writing. In addition, they facilitate linking of national boards to international boards like NBME (www. nbme. org). NBME model allows state medical qualified doctors to take national level exams, upgrade national education and examination standards and link them to rest of the world. It allows tens of thousands of international medical graduates to take United States Medical Licensing Exam without actually studying in American medical colleges. It is equally true for British, Australian and New Zealand medical boards. This model can help cut cost of professional education and fight poverty in Pakistan. Based on these frameworks and models, federal and provincial governments of Pakistan should collaborate to standardize local education and bring it equal to international standards. Islamabad should hold annual summits with China and western countries in line with reports of annual Indo-US higher education summits planning collaboration of universities in both countries. In addition, Pakistan needs to allow private publishers to print books according to the contents of given courses. It will improve concepts of students, standard of books and education. The existing control of federal government on higher education needs to be changed by allowing provinces complete control of universities, scholarships, hiring, training etc. Federal government needs to become a regulatory body instead of controlling authority and facilitates provinces to standardize higher education, provincial education and bring it equal to international levels. Federal education setup should work with ministry of labor and manpower to identify and develop human resource for interprovincial and overseas market, work with foreign missions to issue annual forecast of overseas jobs and train foreign workers and students. Pakistan needs to organize education to cater to local and international needs, attract foreign investors and earn foreign revenue. Reportedly, America and Britain earned $31bn and ? 8 bn in 2010 from foreign students respectively. China is charging $5333 boarding lodging fee annually for a five-year MBBS and one-year internship. It is also offering seven-year specialization degree programs (5 years MBBS and 2 years specialization) in most medical fields. Beijing has gained international recognition through standardized tuition fees, transparency, qualified staff and allowing foreign students and teachers in local universities (http //www.4icu. org/cn/). The Chinese model can help Pakistan cut prices of professional education by 50 percent and train surplus number of local and foreign students to sustain domestic and international needs. In line with China, Pakistan should also take necessary steps to attract flocks of foreign students, interns and investors. Finally, a debate is going on in China on two-track system- one for national college entrance exam (the gaokao) and other for international exams. Imran Khan’s PTI is deliberating about single education system. Pakistan can overcome challenge of teaching language, two-track system (English and Urdu medium) and bringing local education at par with international with help of international frameworks, NBME and more freedom to provinces. | Pakistans Education System and Links to Extremism Author: Jayshree Bajoria October 7, 2009 * Introduction * A Dysfunctional System * Government Reform Plans * The Madrassa Myth? * Reforming Madrassas * U. S. Policy Implications - Introduction Pakistans poor education system has increasingly become a matter of international concern. Lack of access to quality education, which in turn limits economic opportunity, makes young Pakistanis targets for extremist groups, some experts say. The World Bank says nearly half the adult population of Pakistan cant read, and net primary enrollment rates remain thelowest in South Asia. Experts say the system suffers from inadequate government investment, corruption, lack of institutional capacity, and a poor curriculum that often incites intolerance. In August 2009, chief counterterrorism adviser to the White House John Brennan, summing up a concern held by many U. S. terrorism experts, said extremist groups in Pakistan have exploited this weakness. It is why they offer free education to impoverished Pakistani children, where they can recruit and indoctrinate the next generation, he said. There have been some efforts by the Pakistani government, Western governments, and the World Bank to reform the system, but serious challenges remain. A Dysfunctional System According to the Pakistani governments National Education Policy 2009 (PDF), three parallel streams in educationpublic schools, private schools, and Islamic religious schools, or madrassashave created unequal opportunities for students. Of the total number of students going to primary school (grades 1 to 5), 73 percent go to public or government schools, 26 percent to private schools, and less than 1 percent to madrassas, according to the Karachi-based policy research institute Social Policy and Development Center. Within the public and the private sector, there are elite schools catering to a small minority of students. The majority of students attend low-quality private and public schools with poor curriculum, limited teaching materials, and inadequate number of properly trained teachers, or in many cases absent teachers. [N]o Pakistani leader has had the courage to implement serious [education] reforms- Pervez Hoodbhoy The government-mandated curriculum is a major concern for Western observers who say it encourages intolerance and a narrow worldview. Except in some elite private schools, which do not follow the government-prescribed curriculum, all public schools and registered private schools have been required to teach Islamiyat, or Islamic studies, for nearly thirty years. In addition to Islamiyat, many scholars have noted that the government curriculum uses Islam for a wide array of controversial ideological objectives, writes C. Christine Fair in the 2008 book The Madrassah Challenge.

United Kingdom and the Eurozone

United Kingdom and the Eurozone DEFINITION OF CURRENCY UNION In the world today, systems in which countries come together in agreement of sharing single money. The system is called currency or monetary union, its importance and number of participants is growing. In May 2005, 52 out of 184 IMF members participated in currency unions (Rose, 2006). A currency union can be defined as a system where two or more groups usually countries share a common or single currency in order to keep the value of their currency at a certain level (Investopedia, 2015). It can also be defined as an agreement among member’s countries or other jurisdictions to share a common currency, and a single foreign and monetary exchange policy (Rosa, 2004). Currency unions occur when a poor country unilaterally adopts the money of a larger â€Å"anchor† country. For Example, a number of countries currently use the American dollar such as Panama, Ecuador, and a number of smaller countries and dependencies in the Caribbean and Pacific (Rose, 2006). In Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho and Namibia all use the South African Rand thereby forming a currency union (Multilateral monetary area). In these cases, the exchange and interest rates of dependent countries are influenced and determined by the anchor country, generally in the interest of the anchor. There are a number of multilateral currency unions between countries of similar size and wealth such as the East Caribbean dollar: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint vincent and the Grenadines and Saint Lucia. The Central Bank of the West African of the CFA franc: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo and also the Bank of the Central African States. Other currency unions in the world are the monetary authority Singapore, eastern Caribbean currency union, multilateral monetary area etc. The largest currency union is the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union which began on the 1st January 1999, although the euro was only physically introduced three years later. Twelve countries instituted the euro as a legal tender, delegating and determining monetary policy for EMU to through the international European central bank. One of the reasons of forming a currency union is mainly to synchronize and manage each member countrys monetary policy which could be done through lowering of transaction costs of cross-border trade (Silva and Tenreyro, 2010) The union is expected to grow more with Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia recently joining the area and other states such as Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City unilaterally adopting the euro as their sole currency however, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and the United Kingdom have rejected membership but maintained debates on the advisability of adopting the euro particularly after the onset of the global financial crisis (Carney, 2014). Currency unions have no definite size therefore there is no appropriate domain for a currency. The use of a single or common currency is advantageous to regions as well as can also cause problems in the dual presence of asymmetric shocks and nominal rigidities (in prices and wages) (Mundell, 1961). The effect of the size on currency union tend to create more open and fewer nominal rigidities for smaller countries making them better candidates for currency unions (Mckinnon, 1963). The effects of the economys degree of diversification could result in fewer asymmetric shocks and accordingly fewer benefits from national monetary policy. The insights of the theory of optimum currency areas provided by Mundell (1961) concluded that common currency areas are defined by internal mobility and external immobility of factors of production. According to this theory, the optimum size of currency area depends on the tradeoff between the macroeconomic efficiency gains and micro-economic costs. The forming currency unions have its costs as well as benefits. THE COSTS Generally, the main cost of joining a currency union is the loss of an independent monetary policy with the inability to react to shocks through exchange rate adjustments. Monetary independence can be beneficial when shocks are regionally specific, alternative mechanisms are weak and when exchange rate changes function as means of lightening idiosyncratic shocks Countries that could potentially let their exchange rates adjust to justify the impact of shocks often display fear of floating and thus do not exploit the automatic stabilization properties of exchange rates (Calvo and Reinhart, 2002). Countries reluctance to implement monetary policy to tackle shocks could be linked to its actual effectiveness; less effectiveness of monetary policies to facilitate the adjustment or possibly wider consideration such as fear that it may trigger beggar thy-neighbor responses by trading partners inducing structural volatility in the financial markets. Besides the absence of price adjustment mechanisms, output stabilization and currency revaluation in the currency union faces another challenge. A system of income transfers is necessary for softening negative asymmetric shocks in countries that have joined a currency union however; the prospect of income transfers between countries generates the type of moral hazard commonly seen in insurance models (Grabner, 2003). Another cost of currency unions relate to overcoming structural differences among the countries. The transition towards a monetary union is likely to expose structural weaknesses (Jacquet 1998 and Grabner 2003). By entering a monetary union, countries lose the ability to correct their monetary troubles in short term. The necessary structural reform preceding the acceptances of a single currency focus on issues like taxation, supervision of capital markets and also mutual recognition and harmonization of labor markets (Jacquet 1998). There is also an issue of fiscal financing. Public budget can be financed from government bonds and tax revenues. A country in a currency union is likely to face constraints on financing options resulting in a suboptimal situation. At the same time, government bonds are linked to inflation and a currency union implicitly assumes convergent optimal inflation rates (Grabner 2003). In reality the optimal levels of inflation may differ among the countries in the currency union. Furthermore, the cost or problem of currency union inability of participant countries to independently choose an inflation rate. It seems relatively less important now than in the past as improvements in available technology to central banks enable sustainable inflation that result in low actual inflation rates in most countries however if a country plagued by low productivity enters a currency union of higher productive countries, it could experience higher inflationary rates (Coleman 1999). THE BENEFITS One of the main benefits of currency unions envisaged by Mundell (1961) is the elimination of currency conversion costs and greater predictability of prices which would increase trade. The savings are more significant for small, open and less developed countries whose currencies are not used for international payments (Grabner 2003). Coleman (1999) mentions the savings from the reduction of transaction costs and reduction of price uncertainty together account for 0.4 percent of GDP in the Eurozone. Increased price transparency and reduced price uncertainty are often quoted as interrelated benefits of currency unions. The reduction of price uncertainty is linked to the use of unit of account which is simultaneouslu used by broader economic area (Zika, 2006). The even disappearance of exchange rates removes a vital barrier to trade integration; this furthermore leads to better information, increased competition and price transparency (Jacquet 1998 and Grabner, 2003). Further benefit of monetary union is the removal of competitive devaluations by member countries which also known as â€Å"beggar-thy-neighbor† policy (Kronberger, 2004). Within currency unions, both importers and exporters have a strong interest in avoiding disproportionate swings in exchange rates. The transfer of resources between regions by the centralized monetary authority through its money issuing function. These transfers can be used to diversify the risk of expected economic shocks however; public finance plays a significant role (Voss, 1998). Currency union has the potential to reduce the number of investment failures. Price uncertainty negatively impacts the welfare or risk adverse individuals in standard economic theory. The greater exchange rate volatility tends to impair the quality of decisions about investment projects abroad; therefore greater exchange rate volatility implies more frequent investment failures and larger costs (Grabner, 2003). Higher risk caused by the increase in price and exchange rate uncertainty increases the real interest rate. Higher real interest rates then highlight the problems of moral hazard and adverse selection. This therefore helps lower systematic risk (Grabner, 2003). Finally, the vast economic area of currency unions increases the effect of networking. The adoption of a single currency in a bigger economic area creates greater benefits for all users. Looking at the economic structure of the United Kingdom and Eurozone, both have projects which are suitable to the individual development and growth of both economies. The United Kingdom becoming a member of the eurozone will be more of disadvantage than benefit to the United Kingdom due to several reasons. The core argument for entering the EMU is the elimination of exchange risk against the euro which would promote much more trade with and within Europe by merging the rather risky and limited sterling capital market into a bigger and less risky euro capital market. The joining of the Eurozone is not to world currency but a regional one. Outside of Europe, most of the world either uses the dollar or is tied to it in some way therefore trade and investment would be half with the euro area and half with the dollar area. But over the years, euro/dollar exchange rate has been highly variable which when compared to British pound/dollar exchange rate it doesn’t seem convincing. If the UK remains outside, the pound can go between the two currencies as the euro swings occur against dollar thereby sitting on the middle of a seesaw. Looking at this, there is no necessary gain in the exchange risk reduction in UK joining the Eurozone and that it is even possible that the overall risk would rise. The benefit of price transparency and comparison between UK and Eurozone is also of little importance in the sense that United Kingdom has no land borders with the Eurozone unlike Belgium and Netherlands. Given this fact, the comparing of prices between both zones is irrelevant. In terms of bailout and the emerging state pension crisis, growth and development is slower than expected while unemployment is turning out to be higher. The politics of pension cut benefits is speculative given that the aging population will increasingly be dominated by older voters. The effect of raising taxes further would lower growth and increase unemployment. It is a matter of concern to the UK that cost of meeting explosive financial liabilities might somehow impact British taxpayers. In conclusion, the reduction of transactions cost of currency exchange would be roughly offset by the one-off cost of currency conversion. There would be some gain from eliminating exchange risk against euro but this would be offset largely by the volatility against the dollar with around half our trade broadly defined with countries either on or closely linked to the dollar. Generally, the exchange risk does not appear to have an important effect on trade or foreign investment, and in the UK case, on the cos of capital. Honestly, I would like to advice that the UK waits and properly assess and plan out different projects. Due to the structure of the Eurozone, I am strongly against the UK joining the Eurozone which is the best interest of British citizens REFERENCES A Coleman. (1999).Economic integration and monetary union.Available: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/workingpapers/1999/twp99-6.pdf . Last accessed 04-01-2015. Andrew K. Rose. (2006).Currency Unions.Available: http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/Palgrave.pdf. Last accessed 05-01-2015. Available: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2004/5/cj24n1-2-10.pdf. Last accessed 04-01-2015. G.M.Voss. (1998). Monetary integration, uncertainty and the role of money finance.Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 65 (2), 231-245. G Fink And D Salvatore. (1999).Benefits and Costs of European Economic and Monetary Union.Available: file:///C:/Users/G1308037/Downloads/6.2_Fink.pdf. Last accessed 05-01-2015. G Thompson and D Harari. (2013).The economic impact of EU membership on the UK.Available: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=10cad=rjauact=8ved=0CGEQFjAJurl=http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06730.pdfei=iBCsVJ_QAefe7AbMvYDgDgusg=AFQjCNG. Last accessed 05-01-2015. Guillermo A. Calvo And Carmen M. Reinhart. (2002).Fear Of Floating. Available: http://web.cenet.org.cn/upfile/87741.pdf. Last accessed 02-01-2015. Investopedia. (2015).Currency Union.Available: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currency-union.asp. Last accessed 05-01-2015. Jan Zika. (2006).Cost and Benefits Of A Monetary Union.Available: http://janzika.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/Monetary_union.pdf. Last accessed 02-01-2015. Jacquet P. (1998).A worthwhile gamble. International Affairs.Available: No. 1, January, Vol. 74, pp.55–71.. Last accessed 04-01-2015. Mark Carney. (2014).The Economics Of Currency Unions.Available: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2014/speech706.pdf. Last accessed 06-01-2015. Patrick Minford. (2002).Should Britain Join The Euro?.Available: http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook147pdf.pdf. Last accessed 07-01-2015. Patrick Minford. (2004).Britain, The Euro, And The Five Tests. R. Kronberger. (2004).A cost-benefit analysis of a monetary union for MERCOSUR with particular emphasis on the optimum currency area theory.Available: http://econwpa.wustl.edu:80/eps/mac/papers/0407/0407010.pdf . Last accessed 04-01-2015. R Layard, W Buiter, C Huhne, W Hutton, P Kenen and ATurner. (2002).Why Britain Should Join The Euro.Available: http://willembuiter.com/RL334D.pdf. Last accessed 05-01-2015. Robert A Mundell. (1961).A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas. Available: http://digamo.free.fr/mundell61.pdf. Last accessed 05-01-2015. Ronald I. Mckinnon. (1963).Optimum Currency Areas.Available: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1811021?sid=21105014573601uid=4uid=3738032uid=2. Last accessed 02-01-2015. S Rosa. (2004).Definition Of Currency Union.Available: https://www.imf.org/external/np/sta/bop/pdf/cuteg1.pdf. Last accessed 04-01-2015. S.Silva and S. Tenreyro. (2010).Currency Unions in Prospect and Retrospect.Available: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/tenreyro/cupaper.pdf. Last accessed 01-01-2015. S.Tenreyro. (2001).On The Causes and Consequences of Currency Un.Available: http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/tenreyro.pdf. Last accessed 05-01-2015. Willem H. Buiter. (2008).Why the United Kingdom Should Join the Eurozone.Available: http://willembuiter.com/ifeuro.pdf. Last accessed 05-01-2015.

Concept of working with and leading people

Concept of working with and leading people Tesco was found in 1919 when Jack Cohen started selling surplus groceries from a stall in the East End of London. Mr Cohen made a profit out of selling  £4 was  £1 on his first day. In 1924 Mr Cohen bought a shipment of tea from a Mr T E Stockwell. Tesco was formed with the initials and letter from the name of Mr T E Stockwell and Mr Cohen. In the year of 1929 Mr Cohen opened a flagship Tesco in Burnt Oak, North London. Tesco Started to rise in 1930s when Mr Cohen built its warehouse and headquarters in North London and in 1932 Tesco became a Private Limited Company. Further on Tesco stores Ltd started to float on the stock exchange with share price of 25pence. Meaning of Recruitment, Selection and Retention: Recruitment is the process that starts from the point when an organization receives an application for the post. Recruitment may be internal or external as per the needs and requirements. The advantages of internal recruitment considered that saving can be made, as they know the business and the job very well and hence they need shorter period of training. It is like extra money to all staff to work harder within organization which is basically called Incentives, Perks and Bonus etc. External recruitment helps to pull wider range of talent and provides the opportunity to bring new experience and ideas to the business. It is very costly and expensive way of recruitment as full training needs to provide to the new recruiter. There are number of stages, which can be define and set out the nature of particular jobs for recruitment purpose. Selection then consists of the processes involved in choosing the right applicants to fill the post. Recruitment, selection and retention procedures for Tesco: For any company it is important to have right staff or people to run the business in the competitive world to be ahead. Tesco make sure that every experience of its customer are valuable and great which need to have right customer service staff. Tescos core purpose is to create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty. Values: Our success depends on people: the people who shop with us and the people who work with us. The way we work The way we work is how we deliver Every Little Helps to make Tesco place to shop and work in. We use simple processes so that shopping is better for customers, Simpler for staff and Cheaper for Tesco. Tesco recruitment and Selection process: Tesco is the biggest private sector employer in the UK. The company has more than 360,000 employees worldwide. In the UK, Tesco stores range from small local Tesco Express sites to large Tesco Extras and Superstores. Around 86% of all sales are from the UK. Tesco operates in 12 countries outside the UK, including China, Japan and Turkey. It has recently operates in USA as well. Tescos strategy includes diversifying and growing the business by international expansion. In its non -UK operations Tesco builds on the strengths it has developed as market leader in the UK supermarket sector. Tesco uses the approach as per the needs of the market such as in Thailand and Bangkok where the foods are not pre packaged as it would be in UK. Tesco needs people across a wide range of both store based and non store jobs: In stores, it needs checkout staff, stock handlers, supervisor as well as many specialists such as pharmacists and bakers. Its distribution depots require people skilled in stock management and logistics. Head office provides the infrastructure to run Tesco efficiently. Roles here include human resources, legal services, accounting, and marketing property management and information technology. Tescos business objectives aim to ensure all work together towards achieving its objectives. It needs to ensure is has right number of people in the right jobs at the right time. To do this, it has a structured process for recruitment and selection to attract applicants for both managerial and operational roles. Workforce planning: Workforce planning is the process of analysis an organizations likely future needs and requirement for people in terms of numbers, skills and locations. It helps an organization to recognise how those needs can be met through recruitment and training. It is very vital for a company like Tesco to plan ahead. As there is a competitive market and Tesco needs to grow in this market. It requires recruiting right people on a regular basis for both the food and non food parts of the business. Position become available because: New stores are open in the UK and International market as well which requires recruiting new people for the new position. Jobs are created when someone retire or resign or get promotion to other positions within Tesco. New jobs can be created as the company changes its processes and technology. Tesco uses a workforce planning table to establish the likely demand for new staff. This includes both managerial and non managerial position. For example in 2009/2010, the workforce planning suggested to have 3000 new managers for its business growth. The planning process runs through each year from the last week in February. There are quarterly reviews in May, August and November, so Tesco can adjust staffing levels and recruit where necessary. It allows to have sufficient time and flexible to meet the demands for staff and allows the company to meet its strategic objectives. Tesco generally seeks to fulfil its vacancies internally than going to externally as it believes to motivate it current staff. It practises what it calls talent planning. An individual can apply for higher position through annual appraisal scheme. Employees identify roles in which they would like to develop their careers with Tesco. Managers set out technical skills, competencies and behaviours necessary for the roles, kind of training to be given, so that a person can be ready to take the applied role. This helps Tesco to achieve its business objectives and employees to achieve their personal and career objectives. A very important element in workforce planning is to have clear job descriptions and person specifications. Steps 01: Job Description: Job title To whom the job holder is responsible For whom the job holder is responsible Job description of roles and responsibilities A person specification set out the skills, characteristics and attributes that a person need to do a particular job Together with the job descriptions and person specifications provide the basis for job advertisements. This helps job applicants and a post holder to know what is expected of them. They should: It contains enough information to attract suitable people It helps to select right applicant with right skills to be called for interview Set targets and standard for job performance Job descriptions and person specifications show how a job holder fit into Tesco business. They help Tesco to recruit the right people. They provide a benchmark for each job in terms of responsibilities and skills. Attracting and Recruitment: Recruitment involves attracting the right standard of applicants to apply for vacancies. Tesco advertises in different ways depending on the job available. Internal Recruitment: Tesco first looks at internal talent plan to fill a vacancy. Internal recruitment process list all current employees who are looking for a move, either horizontally or vertically growth. Tesco advertises the post internally on the intranet for two weeks. It helps to motivate the current employees to grow internally stronger and shape their career growth. External Recruitment: For external recruitment, Tesco advertises job vacancies via Tesco website or through vacancies board in stores. Managerial positions are made online. The right applicants are invited for an interview followed by attendance at an assessment centre for final stage of the selection process. People interested in store based jobs with Tesco can approach stores with CV or register through job centre plus. The store then prepares a waiting list of people applying in this way and calls them in as jobs become available. Pharmacist and bakers Tesco uses the external sources of advertisement which is: Through offline media and its website Advertising through magazines such as The Appointment Journal or on Google Through radio and television Tesco will seek the most cost-effective way of attracting its right applicants. As we know that advertising through television, radio or some magazines are really expensive however at times it becomes really important for any companies to advertise the right job to the right people so that they can learn more about the job. Tesco uses the easy way to advertise its job vacancies and has a simple application process. When any applicants browses the Tescos website it becomes easy for them to find which jobs are available like local jobs, management jobs and head office positions. Tescos website also has the online applications for candidates to apply their application forms directly. Selection: Now comes the real difficult time to choose the right candidates from the applicants who have applied for the vacancy, whilst keeping in mind the employments laws and regulations. Screening is the most important part of selection process. This makes it easier to understand that the selected candidates are the right fit for job requirements. In the first stage of screening, Tesco selectors will carefully look at each applicants Curriculum Vitae (CV). The CV summarises the applicant personal details, education and job history to date. A well written and positive CV helps Tesco to analyse whether an applicant matches the person specification for the job. Most of the company also provides a job type match tool on its careers web page. This tool helps the people who are interested in working with Tesco and can see where they fit before applying for the job. There are several stages in this process which Tesco uses to select the external management candidates. As the candidate passes the screening stage attends an assessment centre. The assessment centre is taken place in store and run by the managers. They help to provide regularity in the selection process. Applicants are given various tasks, including problem solving or team-working activities. This involves the problems they might have to deal with at work. As the candidate passes the assessment centre they are put for an interview. When interview takes place the Line managers for the job on offer takes part in it to make sure the right candidate fits the job requirements. Task 2 Build Winning teams: Identify the mix of knowledge, skills and experience necessary for its teams to fulfil their functions within the organization: Team management flourishes in a supportive environment in which the manager effectively delegates and the team members effectively communicate in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. Its a commonsense approval of letting people improve their performance by improving they use. Mix knowledge, skills and experience necessary for the teams: It is not easy to form a successful team. Belonging to a team is a result of feeling part of something much bigger than you. It has lot to with the understanding of the mission or objectives of your organization. Though you work for specific function or you belong to different department, even then you are unified with other organization member to accomplish the overall objectives. In order to have a effective team following criteria are important: Unity in and respect for the primary task. Ideas and opinions needs to be expressed i.e are open communications. Mutual trust is revealed in actions. There is always a support by the presence of care, concern and active help. It is an active process that involves the personal contributions of all members equally. Selective use of the teams, leaders and trainers are required to know which groups are good to use for certain tasks, group effectiveness differs by project. Leadership is to manage and integrate all characteristics into the norm for team behaviour. Team relationships and building rapport: Individual in a team create a collaborative effort to achieve common goals and may need to give up individual autonomy in order to attain those goals and may need to give up individual in order to attain those goals. Each individual in a team has talents and abilities that can contribute to a solid work relationship which is needed to be productive in the job. As a team, members have to identify who excel in technical expertise, who are keen in decision making. It is important to identify skills which will help to perform team effectively. This is otherwise known as team synergy through coordinated effort of performing these abilities. Differences in skills and talents are common. Sharing these skills can help to build solid work relationship among team members. For a relationship to become healthy, one has to learn to appreciate each others talents. Being recognized by fellow for the effort contributed for the team is heart-warming and rewarding. Encouraging team members to develop roles during team assignment: It is important to treat everyone in the team equally and encouraging them to participate in every process of the given assignment. Being mutually understanding towards each other which further requires being dependent on each other. Every individual should be encouraged to develop a level of trust for each other in order to believe reliable to each other. In order to make every one involve in the process of assignment, it is important to entrust work to another team member. There can be meeting every now and then to build the confidence of the team member in regards to task given. Self disclosure is a good strategy to involve every member in the process of the given task which can help to establish trust with each other. In order to build trust, the team can hold trust building talks during meeting every now and then. It is important to share a little about you to your teammates will give them to chance to know you as a person. Inject humour and some fun to be comfortable with each other. Task 3 There is a tuff competition in the market where it is important to have a great leader in the company to lead the objective / goals to accomplish. As Tesco is a market leader in UK and international market. Hence, it is important to have right Leaders with right leadership theory. Tesco has adopted Transactional theory to run the company. Transactional Leadership Theory/ Management Leadership Theory: According to Gill Robinson Hickman (2010) Transactional Leadership Theory is defined as It takes place when one person takes the initiative in making contact with other for the purpose of an exchange of valued things. Assumption: Mostly People are motivated by reward and punishment. Social systems work best with a clear chain of command. When people have agreed to do a job, a part of the deal is that they cede all authority to their manager. The prime purpose of a subordinate is to what their manager tells them to do. Style: The transactional leader works through creating clear structures whereby it is clear what is required of their subordinates, and the rewards that they get for following orders. Punishments are not always mentioned, but they are also well understood and formal systems of discipline are usually in place. When the transactional leader allocated work to a subordinate, they are considered to be fully responsible for it, whether or not they have the resources or capability to carry it out. When things go wrong, then the subordinate is considered to be personally at fault, and is punished for the failure. Transactional leadership is based in contingency, in that reward or punishment is contingent upon performance. Despite of much limitation, transactional leadership is still a popular approach with many mangers. Indeed, it is very much towards the management end of the scale when it is leadership vs. Management spectrum. Leadership style: According to Joseph Clarence Rost (1991) defines Leadership as Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes. Leaders do not have subordinates- at least not when they are leading. Many organizational leaders do have subordinates, but only because they are also managers. When they lead is to have followers and following is always a voluntary activity. Best leader is the when who inspire and do not tell what to do to their subordinate. You have to appeal to them, showing how following them lead to their hearts desire. They must want to follow you and perhaps walk into danger and situations that they would not normally consider risking. Leaders with the strong charisma find it easier to attract people to their cause. As a part of their persuasion they typically promise transformational benefits, such that their followers will not just receive extrinsic rewards but will somehow become better people. Although many leaders have a charismatic style of some extent, this does not require a loud personality. They are very effective at creating the loyalty that great leaders engender. This leader are good to people but that does not mean they are friendly with them. They often maintain and retain a degree of separation and aloofness. They are very achievement focused then paying to much attention to tasks. Members are always enthusing others to work towards their vision. They are always pursuing their vision; they consider it natural to encounter problems and hurdles that must be overcome along the way. In Tesco organization often the leaders/managers tries have the combination of leadership style which would best suit the success of the organization. Combination of Transactional and Transformation Leadership Style helps to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization. Vision, goals and values that are effectively communicated to the subordinates / team members is very important. Communication between the leader and the team, and within the team, is vital if success is to be achieved. Everybody likes to feel involved, that they feel involved, that they have a part to play and nurturing this is a skilful and often time-consuming task. Goals need to be achievable within the time task. Expectations of your team need to be realistic, practical and flexible. It is very important to communicate vision, goals and values to colleagues. The way an effective leader recognises the values of delegating task to colleagues, once again this reinforces their involvement and common purpose. However, support is often necessary so you will need to ensure that appropriate forms of supports are both available and accessible. All colleagues may not share the passion that a leader may have for the project but this does not mean that they should not be involved. It is therefore important to keep in mind their responsibilities and personalities so that you can maximise the efforts of your teams. It is important to enthuse and motivate its colleagues to achieve objectives they are as follows: By involving them, many employees want to be involved in the ongoing development and progress of their company. Communicate. It is important to communicate to their employees or colleagues by email, memos, telephone and meeting. Celebrate individual and team performance. It is important to recognising the individual efforts and appraising their performances. Set challenging goals. It is important to set challenging goals that drive all the colleagues to work hard to accomplish them. Give them the tools to succeed. No team will stay motivated if they do not have a right tools required to do their job. This includes equipment, internal support, inventory, marketing materials and etc. Believe in your people. The majority of people want to well-very few individuals approach a job with the intent of messing up. Task 4 Performance monitoring and assessment Objective setting techniques is used to set specific objective for enterprise performance or as they are related to some specific activity or initiative. An objective can be defined as a specific result that is desirable to achieve, within a specified time period. Goals differ than objectives; a goal is specific target to be reached. Purpose: The purpose of objective setting is to determine key achievement results, desired by an enterprise or other group in support of its support vision and mission, to determine key achievement results for a change project to measure progress and to evaluate accomplishment and to facilitate goal setting. Benefits: The benefit of objective setting is that common objectives facilitates consensus and provide a focus for taking action. Objectives also provide a way to measure progress. The wider the participation in setting the objectives, greater is the commitment and motivation to achieve them. Tesco has always adopted a technique and process which is best suitable to achieve the objective and ultimately achieving the targets. The best technique is SMART objectives: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time Based. Every technique used in objective setting should follow the basic needs and requirement. Tesco needs to manage the performance of its employees effectively if it is to remain as the UKs leading retailer and maintain a competitive edge. This means that there must be an effective management control exercised at both individual and organisational level. A range of processes and techniques are placed within all Tesco stores and in the Tesco offices, which allow individual employees to know how well they are doing, and for managers to be able to monitor how well their subordinates are performing. Tescos managers exercise control at an individual and organisational level through: Planning by setting objectives and targets. Maintaining performance standards are important. Rectifying mistakes and taking action. The process described above contributes to management by.. The objective of using performance monitoring techniques as a key element in the management of projects is to: Regularly assess the achievement of or the potential for achieving technical, financial, and economic goals of the project. Provide the management of the EA, the borrower and the Bank with an effective means of measuring the progress of a project, its components, and the adequacy and timeliness of the provision and use of funds. Determine the form and nature of corrective actions necessary to achieve goals monitored by performance indicators. Importance of monitoring performance: All successful organisations have to monitor their performance in order to keep their data updated or to increase their performance level in the market. To have an improvement in performance the management needs to have proper information about the current performance. In order to analyse the performance the management needs to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) which will help the management to monitor progress. There are three areas of activity within every professional firm that are critical to success and KPIs needs to be established in each of them: Measures relating to business development and financial performance The view of clients about the range and delivery and provision of professional services firm services Views of personnel about all aspects of their relationship within the professional firms Tesco is successful because they are been agreeing and identifying all this KPIs and considering how best to measure them. Tesco is so successful because they have using the most important factor that is delegation contingency factors where it is very essential management skills. A good delegation help to save time, develops the people, grooms a successor and motivate the people. There are some delegation contingency factors which need to be taken under consideration in order to be successful in the market and they are: Size of the organisation Importance of the decision and duty Culture of the organisation Complication of the task Qualities of employee Tesco has always strived hard to motivate its colleagues and the best way to do is giving them responsibility, by making them feel that they are important part of the organization. Hence, Tesco has always strived to delegate its responsibility. Any job is assigned to its colleague through proper delegating technique or process: Understand the Task: It is important to understand the task so that you can clearly communicate the task to the person undertaking the task. It is important to understand the barriers and resources which are required to complete the task. Find the right person: It is very important to find the right person who is motivated enough to undertake the task with the right skills and knowledge. It is important to communicate the expectations of the task, so as to determine the ownership of the task which he/she will fully responsible success of it. Communicate the task: Take the time to clearly to communicate the task. Expectation from the task has to clearly communicate. It is important to communicate the ownership clearly to the delegated person. Provide resources, remove barriers: It is important to give all resources and remove all barriers in order to succeed in the task. To provide the success of the task, it is important to provide all the resources, technology, people or time for successful completion of the task. Guarantee Understanding: Delegator has to make sure that the person who has delegated with the task has understood everything completely. Encourage Success: It is important to make the person delegated realise that you have full confidence in them and hence the task has been given to them with full resources and technology. Follow up, Reward: To follow up is important which would decide whether the success of the task. Proper delegation helps to succeed in the task given which in return motivate its colleagues. Tesco has always tried to improve its performance and hence it has adopted the MBO ( Management By Objective ) is a process in which managers / employees set objectives for the employee, periodically evaluate the performance, and reward according to the result. It mainly focuses on the attention on what has to accomplish (goals) rather than how it has to be achieved. They are classified into Corporate Objective, Functional Objective and Individual Objective. An objective must be SMART as shown in the below diagram: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time specific SMARTer Objective for _________________ By ____/_____/___ , __ _____________________________________________________ will have ___________________________ [WHEN] _____________________________________________________________ [WHO/WHAT, include a number that you can measure] ________________________________________________________________________, [HOW, WHY (remember to specify results Diagram 1: http://www.rapidbi.com/created/WriteSMARTobjectives.html This diagram below will show us the factors which are affecting the performance: Diagram 2: http://userwebs.cth.com.au/~gcutts/Management/19a_factors.htm Ability: Ability, skills and knowledge which are used for performing to the highest level is the important key factor affecting performance Effort: The amount of manual or mental energy that a person is ready to spend on a job to reach a certain a level of performance. Incentive and motivation could affect the level of performance of an individual. Motivation: Motivated people can have an affect their performance. Motivated people can achieve 80-90% ability level whereas de motivated can achieve only 20-30% of the ability. Equity and Expectation: It is important to treat and reward equally avoiding any discrimination which would ground any in abilities or de motivate. Task or role and perception: It is important to know where one is heading or the direction towards which an individual. Standard and job description must be known and understood. Environmental factors: Other factors which could affect the performance such as time constraints, lack of resources or obsolete equipment, information overload or conflicting priorities. Co-operation from the other staff or department, policies and supervision exercised.