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Volume
14, Number 16 |
Also in
this section:
Dignified
employment
and education by Raúl Leis R. --- raulleisr @hotmail.com We are immersed in the perfect storm, the product of a great global disorder, characterized as such recently by Joseph Stiglitz, and this storm is composed, according to Ignacion Ramonet, of three crises of great breadth: finances, energy and food, which coincide, conflate and combine. Each of these interacts on the others. Thus the real economy is aggravated in exponential fashion. In the context so explained, employment becomes a conducting wire, as the present system has profoundly transformed the categories of work. The regularly paid job is in crisis, because as a practical matter nowadays nobody has a long-term guaranteed job --- the jobs that currently exist are ever more oriented toward tasks or projects of a limited duration. The 2007 Report on Social and Educational Trends clearly identifies factors that pose obstacles to the universalization of education and access to knowledge by stating that the resources that are mobilized for the processes of teaching and learning in the educational institutions are an important part, but another very significant part is the support that families give: it's kind of an historical pact upon which educational practices are founded. But now it's burdened by the limitations of a development model based on exclusionary and competitive markets that leave out about one-third of Latin America's families, which in turn creates incompatibility with the social and economic development strategy that has been adopted in recent decades. That is, a third of the adult work force isn't able to find a place in the formal sector of the economy and is left with the alternative of unemployment or informal work. The deprivation of adequate opportunities produces a cruel competition for jobs, and education has been established as one of the sources that most of all marks the difference between winners and losers: those with less education are those most sure to be left among the excluded. In this way the social conditions upon which rest the expectation of an education for all are configured. Those families with sufficient resources have an adequate standard of living, which gives them a material base to educate their children, unlike the families of low educational level who are marginalized from dignified work and reproduce the conditions of exclusion among their children. According to the report there are additional indicia that signal that educational expansion could be held back in this decade, and if that happens, then once again the sectors left farthest behind would be left unable to enter the educational system. It's a restatement of the adage that it's impossible to sustain a goal of educational inclusion atop a base of social exclusion, and it's a warning that the goal of universalization of knowledge in Latin American presupposes as base of human welfare that's not guaranteed. The base of welfare is built upon the labor market, and this makes it necessary to orient ourselves toward a development model that provides labor markets with opportunities for all and not just exclusionary markets open only to those sectors in the best positions; and to adopt public policies directed at strengthening families so that they can be supported by dignified jobs. At the same time high-quality and equitable education should be a priority, as in it youngsters and adults must find a relevant place to form their skills.
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