My essay draft (at the moment)

This is an on-the-way draft. Lend me your ideas or opinion please!

Name: Satoru Okamoto

Sec. BG

ARW

Prof. Christianson

Date: 10/17/11

Education as a tool for National Development

Education is becoming a more and more essential part of our life and societies, businesses and individual achievement. However, today “over 113 million children aged 6 to 11 (about 1 in 5) lack access to primary school” (World Bank 2011), and those children concentrate in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, which has stopped countries from their development. Research has proven that education is “one of the most effective development investments countries and their donor partners can make” (Basic Education Coalition 2004). This means that education is essential for the development of nations, but how does education help a country with their development? Before looking at the answer, we need to understand what “national development” is.

Today we often hear the words “developing country” (or less developed country) and “developed country” either on the TV, newspaper, or the internet, but it is biased and dangerous when these words are used and understood without knowing the actual meaning or the difference of the words. The criteria for the national development, however, are still controversial and the subjects that people argue on for long time. GDP per capita (Gross Domestic Product) is one of the tools to measure national development. The concept of GDP is mainly focused on the people’s income per person. The emergence of industrialization, some people say, has been also one such measurements. By industrialization, they mean a nation with a market of tertiary sector (services) and quaternary sector (Research & Development) as well as a market of primary (agriculture, fishing, mining etc…) and secondary (manufacturing) sector in which what people call “developing countries” often engage. The concept for national development today, however, has been substantially changed from those discussed above. Newly invented and utilized by Pakistan economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, HDI (Human Development Index) has become widely used measurement of the national development. HDI is a combination of three indicators; life expectancy, GDP per capita, and education (enrolment/ literacy rate). What is new on HDI as a measurement of national development is that it is not only focused on the economic status of the country, but also the social improvements and needs of the nation. It is becoming a common idea that national development requires the development of human as well as the development of nation, as it is people (i.e. citizens) who shape the nation itself. Life expectancy, for example, is one social aspect of national development and indicates human development.

What about education? Education actually has multiple effects on one nation, which is either economic or social effect, or socio-economic effect. As discussed before, national development needs to meet the citizens’ economic and social needs. This essay will look at how education helps meet the economic and social needs of citizens and achieve national development, from two critical dimensions that education promotes. Education is essential for national development because it promotes gender equality and globally competitive economy.

I.         Gender Equality

   Education can reduce gender inequality, especially by educating girls. Let us take Japan and Sweden as an example. Both Japan and Sweden are high-income, developed countries, and they were ranked in the top 10 countries for HDI: Japan was in 8th place and Sweden in 6th place of 177 countries in 2007. However, next indicator will make clear the stunning difference of the two countries. GEM (Gender Empowerment Measure) is a tool used to measure gender inequality by women’s participation in politics and economic forums. Higher the value of GEM, The more equal the society is. Sweden ranked in the 2nd place, whereas Japan, despite the high HDI value, ranked in 54th place. Why did this happen? This result was greatly influenced by the countries’ education. Ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education in Japan was stably around 100% through past 20 years; 101% in 1991, 101% in 2001 and 100% in 2009. Likewise, Sweden also kept the ratio just around the line of 100%; 102% in 1991, 115% in 2001, and 99% in 2009. These results of ratio were excellent in both countries. The ratio of girls to boys in tertiary enrollment, however, splits the countries apart. The ratio kept far below the line of 100% in Japan; 65% in 1991, 85% in 2001, and 89% in 2009. On the other hand, the ratio in Sweden has shown an opposite result to that of Japan; 122% in 1991, 151% in 2001, and 158 in 2009. Research has shown that the economic return from schooling to secondary and tertiary levels is consistently higher than that of primary education; in other words, greater effects will be presented on individuals in secondary and tertiary education. The gap of GEM between Japan and Sweden therefore turns out to be the result from the differences of girls’ education in tertiary level. Gender equality is one of the social needs that one country has to meet, and education has for sure played vital role for better society.

II.      Globally Competitive Economy

The national economy can be enlarged by education in many ways. It is proved that “no country has ever achieved economic growth without reaching a critical threshold of about 40% in its adult literacy rate” (World Bank 2011). This time we will look at the process through which education helps extend one country’s economy, taking the example of Singapore.

My Essay Topic

• Research Topic: Is Education essential for National Development?
• Why important?: I am very interested in how countries were developed, and I want to know whether education played an essential role for the development. I would take a look at the issue taking a specific example of a successful country.
• Why is it interesting to me, and what the connection to me?: I have been thinking why developing countries have lagged behind in development, and what the causes were. I made a hypothesis that lack of education must be one main cause of it. 
• What questions do I have?: 1) What Education has on National Development 2) What kind of issues education can resolve 3) One (or more) country/region successful in development by education 4) Limitation of Education for National Development 5) The next countries that would take advantages of Education for their development.
• English Sources for this: 1) Education, skills training, and national development : experience and lessons from Singapore / Linda Low. 2) not yet

Reaction to "Perception Of Self" by Fisher

 In his essay, Fisher looks at "perception" from many different angles. According to him, perception requires a minimum of three elements: a perceiving person, an object of perception, and an inferred interpretation or meaning that is the outcome of the perceptual act. People's perception is based on their past experience, belief, attitude, and value, and therefore no perception is objective. Furthermore, information for interpreting an object at one time is limited, and perception tries to fill in the blank of the information missing: all of them make our perception inaccurate. 

 It was interesting to me to know that perception is very personal. I could find the link between "perception" and "intercultural communication". People from different cultures have different background, past experience, and therefore beliefs, attitudes and value. All of these elements make us different, sometimes causing conflicts. As I read off both "Stumbling Blocks" by Barna and This essay, they reminded me of the importance that we mustn't take anything for granted, and keep us open-minded. 

Reaction to "Stumbling Blocks in INtercultural Communication" by Barna

 In his essay, Barna mainly looks at why and how we feel frustrated or fraught when we communicate with people from other cultures. He raises six stumbling blocks to illustrate how they become a problem, giving some examples in each section. 

 

For the first stumbling block he talks about "Assumption of Similarities", in which people assume that they are all alike simply as being human and having common requirements of food, shelter, security and so on.  This can make you feel frustrated because what you think other people are would be different from what they actually are. 

 He next takes "Language Differences" as the second stumbling block. This is when people cling to just one meaning of a word when they learn languages. This could lead to problems because one word can have more than one meaning, nuance and sense. 

 For the third one he raises "Nonverbal Misinterpretations". People tend to interpret any meaning of things such as gesture, postures and other body movements through the frame of reference of their own culture. This can misunderstand the utterances or actions of people from other culture, leading to problems. 

 "Preconceptions and Stereotypes" also can be a problem, he says. They roots in people's mind because people want to reduce the threat of the unknown by making the world predictable. Unfortunately, people actually feel more frustrated when their stereotypes collapse. 

 The fifth Stumbling Block is, he mentions, "Tendency to Evaluate". People tend to evaluate other cultures as whether it is good or bad, believing their own culture is the most natural. This can lead to conflicts between people from other cultures. 

 Finally, he raises the last stumbling block, "High Anxiety". This is linked to the other stumbling blocks as high extent of anxiety requires some form of relief and defense, which appears in the form of stereotyping or evaluation, for example.

 As I read through his essay, I found it helpful. I had an experience in England for a year, his essay looked to me more real and made it easier for me to understand the text. I thought that it is really important to keep us open-minded, as is often told in ICU. I didn't know how we should open our mind. This "open-mindedness" could also be dangerous to the people who come to the middle of nowhere what to believe. But I learned that nothing is natural, and there may be things that are more meaningful than what I believe now, so it is important to know other concepts of way of life, or of doing things. 

Summer Reading

 In my summer I read an English novel of which the title is "the giver" written by Lois Lowry.
 I chose this book because many of my friends recommended me this novel to read. I heard a bit of the story from my friends, and it seemed interesting to me.
 The story is about a community, which Jonas, the main character, lives. Jonas is 11 years-old (but close to become 12) and has a sister Lily, and his parents. In his community, everything is decided by The Chief of Elder, the top position of his community, and the examples are their jobs and even their family unit. There are age groups in his community from the Ones to the Twelves. When one becomes the Twelve, he or she is assigned their jobs by the Chief of Elder.

My Summer Vacation

 Hi, I am telling you about my summer vacation.
 There were more than 2 months of summer vacation in our university, ICU. I spent first 1 month working on Mt, Fuji. I stayed the workshop during the period, and it was 3,100 m high, so my first 3 days were awful having terrible headache. I guess it was because of lack of oxygen in that hight. The life on Mt. Fuji made me exhausted everyday, the workers there so strict. I fell asleep as soon as I finished working. But the experience there gave me much confidence in my life for sure. I'm proud that I could work there with brilliant,  strict workers.
 After working there, I spent the rest of my summer vacation in Kyoto, my hometown. I went out and played with my high school friends everyday, which reminded me of the great days of my high school. It was really fun to be with them. I also spent some days there with my family, who I haven't seen for nearly 5 months. I was really impressed and moved by the meals my parents cook for me because I have had to cock for myself since I started to live alone. Actually I am not good at cocking, so my parents are great.
 This is all I did in my summer vacation, and I will tell you my goals of ARW this year.
 My main goal for this term is learning new ways of doing things, comparing them with the ways I am, and choosing the better. Also, I am keen to train my ways of doing things, such as reading and writing, and always make them better. This would improve my skills significantly, and the hope is that I can have  confidence with myself.