education Archives - TalkAfrique

October 18, 2011July 8, 2012

Making a Case For Tuition Reimbursement and Flexible Hours

[ad#GBAF-2-pix]
Folks who have been in the industry longer will tell us one thing: the landscape has changed, and it is a big change. Gone are the days when you got hired after college and you were certain that you were going retire with that employer if you chose to. These days, it is possible to change careers several times in one year and many times in your career.

At some point, you may realize that the skills that you brought out of college are no longer needed or inadequate to meet the ever-changing demands at the workplace. At other times, all you may need is a different challenge. All these situations may require you to go back to school or take some additional courses to make your position more secured or just for personal fulfillment. Continue reading “Making a Case For Tuition Reimbursement and Flexible Hours”

September 4, 2011

Education Delays Sex and Marriage for African Girls

A new statistics from the East Africa’s demographic and health survey points to something we may all be familiar with through sketches or stories: the longer a girl stays in school, the longer she is likely to delay marriage, and the fewer children she is likely to have.

The conclusion form the survey is simply: In most all African societies, education is the number one factor that will influence when a girl gets married and when she starts having children.

Early marriage and childbirth have been linked to higher maternal mortality, as young mothers are more likely to die during childbirth; and with higher fertility rates, as women who start having children young tend to have many children

Samples Demographic Housing Survey shows that the median age of marriage increases with advances in education —

Kenya

Girls who have no education will get married at about 17.5 years

Girls with at least a secondary education will tie the knot at 22.4 years, almost a five year delay.

Tanzania,

Girls who have never been to school will be married by 17.7 years of age, but

Girls who have a secondary education or higher are likely to postpone marriage till 23.1 years.

May 6, 2011

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Nigeria: A Threatened Scheme

The National Youth Service Corps [NYSC] was a scheme set up almost immediately after the end of the Nigerian Civil War. In 1973 to be precise, to help heal the wounds of the civil war and particularly help foster national integration amongst young Nigerian school graduates.

That the NYSC scheme was a novel one was not in doubt, as it provided an avenue for young graduates to be posted or deployed to states or regions different from their indigenous or native regions/states. This enabled such youth corps members to become acquainted with the norms, values and culture of other Nigerians who were not from the same region as them.

The NYSC scheme has sought to do this since its inception in 1973, as thousands of Nigerian graduates including the current Nigerian President and his Vice have partook in the scheme. The prestige and importance which partaking in the scheme confers on Nigerian graduates was further reinforced by the legislation enacted that for any graduate to gain employment anywhere in Nigeria either in the private or public sectors, such persons must have completed the mandatory 1 year NYSC scheme.

However, recent untoward events in Nigeria have begun to threaten the existence of this once noble scheme. One of such is that the multitude of graduates which Nigerian universities churn out cannot find placement or accommodation within the scheme. Such that participation in the scheme has become compartmentalized into batches and streams within batches. This has led to a situation whereby graduates were left to languish for years before they could secure placements in the scheme to serve their fatherland.

Another issue which threatens to eclipse the survival of the scheme and which many observers feels portends a grave danger to it, is the killing and maiming of youth corps members across the country mostly during political and ethnic upheavals. The recent being the slaying of a couple of youth corps members in the recent post election violence that engulfed some parts of Nigeria. The sexual harassment of female youth corps members by “respectable” members of the community in places where such youth corps members are posted for national service is another serious factor hampering the survival of the scheme.

The NYSC has indeed come of age, and there is no doubt that in a diverse and plural country like Nigeria, it is a scheme capable of pulling the fabrics of the disparate tendencies in Nigeria together. But unfortunately, it seems like everything “Nigerian” the scheme seem to be tottering towards a collapse.

February 28, 2011March 3, 2011

Learning Reduces Blood Pressure, Scientific Study

Forget about the stress you go through during exams time in school. A study that has been published in the journal BMC Public Health, shows education reduces blood pressure and the reduction is even bigger in women than in men.

The British Heart Foundation said the findings supported the link between deprivation and heart disease risk.

The researchers suggest that blood pressure could be the reason why higher levels of education are generally linked to lower levels of heart diseases.

Now the technical:

Length of study 30 years
Number of people followed in the study 3,890
Study Groups: 3 [low education (12 years or less), middle education (13 to 16 years) and high education (17 years or more].
What was measured: The average systolic blood pressure for the 30 year period was then calculated.
Results: Women with low education had a blood pressure 3.26 mmHg higher than those with a high level of education. In men the difference was 2.26 mmHg.

Factors such as smoking, drinking and medication were taken into consideration

So what? ((Added commentary mine)

Does this mean you should pack and head for Harvard? Not necessarily. Some of us surely cannot or will not go back to school, but we can surely spend a day at the library over the weekend, read a challenging article in the local newspaper, or watch that intellectual discussion on the TV. Feeding your brain with diverse material will help reduce stress and worries which play role in blood pressure. And depriving your brain with such material will surely warrant the opposite effect.

And as for your children, give them the best start in life.

(Added commentary mine)

[ad#Adsense-200by200sq]

February 26, 2011March 2, 2011

Africa Is in a New Era With so Many Success Stories to Tell

For too long, Africa has been defined just by war, corruption and poverty. It was so welcome to read “A fresh chapter is opening in Africa’s history” (Editorial). It is time the rest of the world recognised the amazing resilience shown by Africa.

The continent quickly recovered after the economic crisis. Growth is forecast at 5.3% this year and 5.5% in 2012, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing developing regions. Africa’s resilience was the result of years of hard work – a deep commitment to reform and economic stability over 15 years. Two-thirds of African economies brought in reforms during the crisis to make it easier for investors. Foreign direct investments in sub-Saharan Africa grew by 17% last year.

Africa still needs aid but it should be aid that targets real results – in education and health, with malaria an example. It should also be aid that leverages private investment and creates jobs.

Africa presents a market of 1 billion people whose potential buying power should make the continent an important contributor to global growth. Africa is coming of age in a complicated environment, marked by issues ranging from global imbalances to climate change. It must seize the opportunities to tell and sell its own success stories.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Managing director

The World Bank

Washington DC

[ad#Adsense-468×60]

January 24, 2011

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship

Social Science Research Council

The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) is a strategic fellowship program designed to help graduate students in the humanities and social sciences formulate doctoral dissertation proposals that are intellectually pointed, amenable to completion in a reasonable time frame, and competitive in fellowship competitions.

The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) is open to all students, regardless of their nationality, who are currently enrolled full-time in a doctoral degree-granting program at a U.S. institution.

In order to participate in the Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) program, students must have finished all incomplete course work and have removed any “incompletes” from their transcripts at the end of the academic year during which they are applying for a fellowship.

This is an open competition; students will apply directly to the SSRC with no campus nomination required (other than the standard letters of recommendation, transcripts, and essays).

If awarded a fellowship, your expenses (airfare, hotel, meals, ground transport) will be paid for by the Social Science Research Council.

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) staff will either make arrangements or offer you a maximum sum with which to arrange your own needs.

Students enrolled in U.S.-accredited institutions outside the United States are not eligible to apply.

Fellows are eligible to apply for up to $5000 from SSRC to support predissertation research during the summer.

Incase you have any questions, please contact: dpdf [at] ssrc.org

Note: Application information can be found on the site given below.

January 21, 2011

ASA CALL FOR PROPOSALS 2011 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

ASA CALL FOR PROPOSALS/2011 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
The ASA 2011 Call for Proposals is Now Open! The 54th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association will be held November 17-20, 2011 at The Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. This year’s Annual Meeting theme is: “50 Years of African Liberation” and this year’s Program Chair is Carol Thompson, Northern Arizona University. To renew your ASA membership and/or pre-register to submit your proposal, you may log on at www.africanstudies.org.

December 30, 2010December 27, 2011

Making It Slowly but Surely

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. But many of today’s youth do not know this, or they know but not make it a maxim in running their life race. If we take things easy, and act as purposely and positively as we can, success will surely come our way.

There are rules for success, and one of them is: ‘Never rush’. If you look around you, you will discover that those who have made it to the top are not only those who inherit wealth, fame or name. Yes, wealth, fame, and popular name can open door of opportunities for some folks, but the lack of them, ab initio, does not lock such doors and windows of opportunities either.

If you want to make it in life, as we all make efforts to achieve greater potentials and accumulate better aspirations of life, the rule , ‘never rush’, applies. What do you want to make in life: intellectual progress or social mobility? The best and possibly easiest way to make it in life is to make it slowly but surely.

With this recommendation, I am not saying we should be lackadaisical about life, or that we should sleep off all the twenty-fours and expect miracles to come, what I am saying is that we should organise ourselves, and see our dreams come true one by one.

Remember the scriptural axiom that the battle is neither for the strong nor the race for the swift, but that time and chance happen to them all. In the year 2006, I gave a speech at the orientation event organised by the Student Leadership Development Programme, SLDP, at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The coordinator of that novel student programme, who read my modest citation on that day, is today the Chief Economic Adviser to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am talking about

Prof (Mrs) Precious Kassey Garba, a woman of substance; respectful, respected, and respectable scholar and teacher.

Prof. Garba always told us to believe in ourselves, and that no matter how big a challenge could be, determination can melt it. At the event mentioned above, I spoke about why and how the youth can take their destiny in their own hands. I said the youth should always plan their time and time their plan. I said the youth should always choose their friends and make library one of their friends. I reminded the youth about what Prof Adedoyin Soyibo used to tell us, that when you add value to yourself, the distance from your success is reduced by miles. We can make it slowly but surely. Nothing is worth-worrying or worth-rushing about in life.

The biggest god most people worship is money. Money is good but money is not god. How you get is more important. Remember Napoleon Hill, who wrote in Think and Grow Rich that ‘Quick riches are more dangerous than poverty’. What we need most of the time is organised planning, faith, hope, and action, and slowly but surely we shall make it.