Bestriding with Baby Steps - Essay Example

?Education Education Bestriding with Baby Steps The world is developing at a rocketing pace. Every new moment opens up new surprises and seeks new solutions to unheard problems. To keep the up with the pace of this transforming world every country requires fresh legs to accelerate and keep on progressing in the right direction. The times are pretty much over when one was required to be reactive. Now to be impactful in everything you do, one must be proactive, innovative and creative. Organizations are not running after heads with decades of experience and lots of silver on the head, rather they are hunting for street smart, tech savvy and brilliant young colts that could be transformed into great, young, energetic future leaders. The hurdle ahead to making and cultivating of bright future leaders lie in the fact that there must be a solid, rational and foolproof system in place that ensures the supply of the best possible talent in a systematic manner for generations, just like the flow of fresh waters from glaciers, unconditional and superfluous. Young talent originates from the children of a nation. Indeed the birth of a “born brilliant” is the miracle of Mother Nature but the polishing of a gem till its transformation into a priceless jewel that the world can admire but cannot afford to buy is the duty of a jeweler. Similarly the states today need to nourish their children and develop them into accolades that honor the nation in the future with standout performances in the fields of military, science and technology. Perhaps this one of the most significant reasons that why developed countries spend large chunks of their budgets on the development programs for children; and why do they allocate high percentages of their budgets to educational and other development programs that are aimed at providing the best of the facilities and infrastructure to their children. Some Exemplary Moves It took United Nations (UN) not long to correctly identify the benefits and meaningfulness of children to the progress and success of the world in the long run. UN was proactive in addressing to the arrangements that were required to be made in order to provide a platform to children and adolescents to coin their opinions and voice their concerns on higher levels. Several resolutions have been passed in the UN as part of the process that ensures that member states provide bright and lucrative opportunities to the young members of their populations to be a part of the decision making process and of the work force (Harry Sheir, 2001). Inviting young individuals to higher platforms and including and considering their opinion and views into the final decision making has become the order of the day in most developed countries as of today. Activation of youth parliaments and student convoys of International Relations and Law students travelling from one country to another in search for knowledge and solution to modern day political enigmas and scenarios is a rising trend. United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Children is also a great breakthrough in the right direction. In light of the articles and clauses of this convention the rights of children to participate in decision making were addressed and implemented in various countries. Developed nations like UK have adopted this convention as one of the primary guidelines to enhance the development of children in its territory and to give them more rights and space to work with (US Census Bureau, 2011). In United States of America, children development is a seriously considered issue and it entails a lot of policy making measures around it. There are several prominent state funded child care and development programs in the US that ensure that children are given the best possible facilities and infrastructure to grow and nourish and flourish. To ensure that children are taken care of well at all times programs such as Child Care and Development Block Grant is one example of state funded programs for children that cater to families belonging to lower income groups. Prominent measures are taken by the state to ensure that working mothers get extra leverage and benefit for their children at homes. Such policies and funding programs have bolstered the growth and development of children in the US keeping their talent and skills intact for the benefit of the nation in the long run (US Census Bureau, 2011). The picture in the UK World’s 5th richest and prosperous country, United Kingdom, has 18% of its population lying below the age of 14. This is an eye opening and startling statistic. This suggests that UK is relatively a mature age group country with not a lot of young talent lying in the stock. This is an alarming situation as UK needs to make the best use of this limited talent that it has in terms of the young population that lies below the age of 14 years. What is even more awe-inspiring is that a large number of children approximately 3.9 million live below the poverty line in the UK. The fatal condition faced by the authorities in UK is that this number is on a rise and it is not coming down despite of all the hard work and brains put into policy making by the big heads (BBC News, 2007). The UK Children’s Minister expressed his vows at the demeaning state of his government over the even greater miseries faced by children by exclaiming that indeed UK is one of the worst countries in the world for children to live in. As per the UK poverty facts children is the age group that we be highly affected by poverty in the future in UK. In the UNICEF’s Child well being ranking UK is ranked well below among other developed nations at number 21 in 2007. Some of the astonishing findings of the report included (Child Poverty Action Group, 2011), 1) Children population living in poverty has doubled since 2007 2) Homes with an income that is half the average income in UK are home to 16% of the Child population of UK. With the entire numbers and reports in consideration one cannot think twice before stating that UK has a long way to go in meeting the objective of former Prime Minister Tony Blaire which was to eliminate child poverty completely by 2020. This objective today seems an ambitious idea with no realistic means of achieving it. The situation is very bleak and the policy makers need to turn tables and come out with far out strategies to combat the challenges (The Telegraph, 2007). Current Policies in UK Indeed the task at hand with the UK policy makers is to reduce child poverty outcry in the country as soon as possible. The media and NGOs across the country have made life even more difficult for the policy makers to face the current situation. The policy makers are targeted from all circles regarding this issue. The policy makers are also handcuffed by the macroeconomic downturn that has slowed the UK economic progress as well. The Policy makers understand the fact that no matter what policies you out forward on the table until and unless you have sound funding behind them all policies are the same (Jenny Percival, 2008). More importantly a recent trend is, as discussed above, a large number of children are growing up in households that either belongs to lower income groups or that are dented by the shadows of unemployment. So a policy within the policy is to get rid of poverty and hence create jobs as well. So the issue of child development here has become multifold and multifaceted for the policy makers as solution to one scenario is dependent upon several other and for this chain reaction to start a lot of funding needs to be injected (The Poverty Site, 2010). Input into the Policy As a management and sociology student I would like to add the following measures to the current Child policy making agenda in UK. The government should initiate a separate fund that must be dedicated to the aim of eliminating child poverty in the country The fund must be linked to all the social and interactive media and must provide awareness to the masses regarding the severity of the problem The fund must be open for the entire world population for donations and contributions The government in UK should also allocate a percentage of the tax and other receipt earnings to go into the fund The earnings or receipts of the fund must invested in different ventures such as stocks, commodities, dollars, real estate The returns on the earnings as well as the earnings must be used to finance ventures that are aimed at improving the standard of living of the deserving children by creating jobs and employment opportunities for their parents and mentors Consequences of the Policy The above mentioned policy will assist the UK government in combating multiple social enigmas at the same time, child poverty and unemployment. Once the standard of living of the children is elevated and they are given the best possible facilities and infrastructure to make the best use of talent. Once the innate needs and basic necessities of life are available to the children of UK then they will automatically climb up the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid and will reach the levels of self esteem and self actualization. As children are now not worried about filling their bellies or being deprived of going to school because of low income so they will divert their attention to creative and constructive tasks and thus would generate output that will help UK becoming even more established in the world economic forum. References BBC News, 2007, UK is accused of failing Children, viewed 15th October, 2011 Child Poverty Action Group, 2011, Poverty in the UK, viewed 15th October, 2011 Harry Sheir, 2001, Pathways to Participation, viewed 15th October, 2011 < http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/chi.617/pdf> Jenny Percival, 2008, Number of Children Living in Poverty Rises, viewed 15th October, 2011, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network. (1999, July). Child outcomes: When child care center classes meet recommended standards of quality. American Journal of Public Health, 89(7), p. 1072-77 The Telegraph, 2007, England ‘one of the worst places for Children’, viewed 15th October, 2011 The Poverty Site, 2010, United Kingdom Key Facts, viewed 15th October, 2011 US Census Bureau, 2011, Child Care, viewed 15th October, 2011 Read More

 

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