An informative article on employment and education issues in the UK. Unfortunately, its tone is rather negative.
In reply, I would say that there will always be faults in the educational and political system. Our task should be to focus on the positive and constructive trends, which certainly DO exist, and to build on these.
(Highlighting is mine.)

From The Sunday Times

February 21, 2010

Schools are churning out the unemployable

by Harriet Sergeant

The latest unemployment figures are a shocker. Eight million adults are "economically inactive". That means one in five people of working age does not have a job. A new and expanding group, poignantly described as "discouraged" workers, have even given up looking.

They are right to be discouraged but wrong that there is no work. A report out on Friday points out that a fifth of firms and a quarter of employers in the state sector are still hiring — despite the recession. Except they are taking on migrant workers — not our home-grown "discouraged" variety.

The managing director of a medium-sized IT company explained why. High-flyers — Oxford and Cambridge graduates — are still as good as any in the world. His problems come when he tries to recruit middle management. Last year he interviewed 52 graduates — all educated in state schools. On paper they looked "brilliant students". Each had three As at A-level and a 2:1 degree. He shook his head. "There's a big difference between people passing exams and being ready for work."

This was obvious even before the interview began. Of the 52 applicants, half arrived late. Only three of the 52 walked up to the managing director, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and said, "Good morning." The rest "just ambled in". When he asked them to solve a problem, only 12 had come equipped with a notebook and pencil.

The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their "lackadaisical" attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own. Their ability to "engage in business" was "incredibly" disappointing and "at 5.30 on the dot they left the office".

This year the managing director has joined the 20% of companies recruiting overseas. "We are an English company but we have no English staff. It's just too much trouble," he said.

It is the same story with employers at every level in the UK. Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, put it bluntly. Too many children have been leaving school after 11 or 13 years of compulsory education "without the basic skills to get on in life and hold down a job". He said 5m adults were functionally illiterate and 17m could not add up properly. "On-the-job training" cannot act as a "bandage or sticking plaster" for "the failure of our education system".

A CBI survey revealed that literacy and numeracy were not the only problems. More than 50% of employers complained that young people were inarticulate, unable to communicate concisely, interpret written instructions or perform simple mental calculations.

This goes a long way to explain why, of the 1.7m jobs created since 1997, 81% have gone to foreign workers. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agrees with Leahy. UK citizens are on the dole because of "issues around basic employability skills, incentives and motivation". It is a pity it has not passed that insight on to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The DWP has made it clear: work is where the inflated claims for our state education finally hit the buffers. At every stage we have a system in which the expediency of politicians and the ideology of the educational establishment take precedence over the interests of pupils. ...

Read the full article here.

MONGOLIA: Extreme, crippling weather conditions - a foretaste of things to come worldwide?

Asia extreme cold

Last reviewed: 29-02-2008

WORST WINTER IN DECADES

The worst winter weather in decades brought brutal temperatures and deadly snowstorms to swathes of Central Asia and China in early 2008, knocking out power supplies, crippling transport and destroying crops. Freak cold and snow across the southern half of China killed more than 100 people, affected some 100 million others and caused $15.4 billion of direct economic losses. Blizzards brought down houses, destroyed crops and created the country's worst ever power crisis as storms toppled pylons and ice on rail tracks halted coal deliveries. Thick ice and hail even hit parts China's subtropical south, while two central provinces recorded their coldest weather in 100 years. In Afghanistan, icy temperatures killed several hundred people and about 40,000 cattle. Aid groups say the cold weather affected more than two-thirds of provinces in and rendered parts of the central region inaccessible in January. Neighbouring Turkmenistan, seeking to emerge from decades of isolation, sent an aid package comprising fuel, food and clothes to northern Afghanistan. As spring promised to bring welcome relief from the cold, millions of Afghans faced the risk of seasonal floods brought on by melting snows. Tajikistan, paralysed by its coldest winter in a quarter-century, asked for emergency international aid to help it survive an energy crisis that has left millions of people without power and heating. U.N. experts say the harsh winter underscores the need for governments to build infrastructure that can withstand previously unthinkable weather. "So-called freak weather is becoming more common, and reducing vulnerability to unexpected extremes must be a top priority for governments," says Salvador Briceno, head of the U.N's disaster relief agency, ISDR. China's Meteorological Administration says the snow and cold probably developed out of a La Nina - or low sea-surface temperatures - in parts of the Pacific in the second half of last year combined with unusual weather from the west.

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/AS_COLD.htm

N. Korea famine, once again

North Korea hunger

Last reviewed: 10-07-2008

THE SECRET FAMINE

North Korea has spent more than five decades cut off from the world. It is so secretive that no one knows how many people died in its famine of the 1990s, although analysts have estimated it killed 3-5 percent of the population. Now it faces another humanitarian crisis after a poor harvest that has caused food prices to skyrocket.

Up to 6 million in need of help

Hit by floods and rising prices

Relies heavily on international aid The Stalinist state has in recent years depended on aid from China, South Korea and United Nations agencies to feed millions of people. It blames natural disasters for its hunger woes but observers say catastrophic economic mismanagement is also responsible. Agricultural experts warn that North Korea faces its worst food shortfalls since the 1990s famine with high grain prices, flood damage from 2007 and political wrangling with South Korea taking their toll. The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) has estimated up to 6 million people need help. In mid-2008, the United States began its first bilateral assistance to North Korea in eight years after Pyongyang agreed to relax restrictions on aid agencies' ability to monitor distribution. Delivery of the aid will be overseen by the WFP and five aid agencies. South Korea has traditionally provided major food aid to the North. But the flow stopped when President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008. He says aid should be dependent on how well the North abides by an international nuclear deal. Food shortages and human rights abuses have prompted tens of thousands to risk their lives trying to escape across the border into China.

KEY FACTS

Total population	23.9 million (Source: U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division, 2006)
Famine death estimates	220,000 (Source: Democratic People's Republic of Korea's government, DPRK) 2.5 million (Andrew Natsios, former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development) 600,000 - 1 million (Marcus Noland, Institute for International Economics) No estimate ever given by World Food Programme (WFP)
Chronic malnutrition under six years old	37 percent (DPRK/UNICEF/WFP, 2004)
Grain deficit	1.4 million tonnes (Source: Korea Rural Economic Institute, 2007)
Total targeted by WFP country operation	1.9 million people (Source: WFP)
Total targeted by WFP flood response in 2007	215,000 people (Source: WFP)
WFP donors for North Korea	United States, Japan, South Korea, European Union, Australia, Italy, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Russia, Ireland and Norway.
North Korea's military spending	15.9 percent of budget (Finance Minister, 2005)

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/KP_FAM.htm

Haiti quake unearths lesson of brotherhood

(Haiti) Adversity teaches the universal (spiritual) law governing proper human conduct: the imperative to share ("eat with the same mouth" HW) - 

The children of men are all brothers, and the prerequisites of brotherhood are manifold. Among them is that one should wish for one's brother that which one wisheth for oneself.

- Bahá'u'lláh, Tabernacle of Unity 41

From NYTimes.

Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions

Maggie Steber for The New York Times

Children waiting for rice and beans distributed by the Haitian government in Port-au-Prince.

By DAMIEN CAVE

Published: January 25, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Maxi Extralien, a twig-thin 10-year-old in a SpongeBob pajama top, ate only a single bean from the heavy plate of food he received recently from a Haitian civic group. He had to make it last.

"My mother has 12 kids but a lot of them died," he said, covering his meal so he could carry it to his family. "There are six of us now and my mom."

For Maxi and countless others here in Haiti's pulverized capital, new rules of hunger etiquette are emerging. Stealing food, it is widely known, might get you killed. Children are most likely to return with something to eat, but no matter what is found, or how hungry the forager, everything must be shared.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/world/americas/26hunger.html?ref=world

Consumerist culture as elephant in room with respect to environmental issues

Collapse of the Consumer Culture Coming?

WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (IPS) - The last 50 years have seen an unprecedented and unsustainable spike in consumption, driven by a culture of consumerism that has emerged over that period, says a report released Tuesday by the Worldwatch Institute.

This consumerist culture is the elephant in the room when it comes to solving the big environmental issues of today, the report says, and those issues cannot be fully solved until a transition to a more sustainable culture is begun.

"State of the World 2010", subtitled "Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability", tries to chart a path away from what Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin calls "the consumer culture that has taken hold probably first in the U.S. and now in country after country over the past century, so that we can now talk about a global consumerist culture that has become a powerful force around the world."

In this culture, says the book-length report, people find meaning and contentment in what they consume, but this cultural orientation has had huge implications for society and the planet. The average U.S. citizens, for instance, consumes more each day, in terms of mass, than they weigh. If everyone lived like this, the Earth could only sustain 1.4 billion people.

© Worldwatch Institute

Flavin admits consumerism is not the only factor driving environmental degradation but says it is one of the key root causes on which other factors are built -- and, as a cultural framework, it is expanding.

"In India and China, for instance, the consumer culture of the U.S. and Western Europe is not only being replicated but being replicated on a much vaster scale," Flavin says.

Consumption has risen sixfold since 1960, the report says, citing World Bank statistics. Even taking the rising global population into account, this amounts to a tripling of consumption expenditures per person over this time. This has led to similar increases in the amount of resources used – a sixfold increase in metals extracted from the earth, eightfold in oil consumption and 14-fold in natural gas consumption....

Escalating resource consumption has also led to unsustainable systems of distributing and producing those resources. In the field of agriculture, for instance, every one dollar spent on a typical U.S. food item yields only about seven cents for the farmer, while 73 cents goes to distribution, says the report's chapter on shifting to a more sustainable agriculture system.

It points to this as one outcome of increasingly unsustainable consumption habits. These habits have formed only recently -- the same dollar yielded 40 cents for the farmer in 1900 -- but they have now become ingrained, it says.

This consumption is based on more than individual choices. ...

Rather, we are acting under the heavy influence of cultural conventions that influence our behaviour by making things like fast food, air conditioning and suburban living feel increasingly "natural" and more difficult to imagine living without, he says.

To prevent future environmental damage, "policy alone will not be enough. A dramatic shift in the very design of human societies will be essential," says the report. ...

Flavin admits that cultural shift is "arguably one of the most difficult" topics to tackle, but, as project director Erik Assadourian says, "This shift is not only possible, it is already beginning to happen."

Most of the report, in fact, discusses action that has been and can be taken to shift the cultural paradigm, rather than the damage the current paradigm has done.

The 244-page report cites a wide variety of examples such as the enshrining of the rights of nature into Ecuador's constitution and schools pushing children to think more sustainably by giving them healthy, locally-grown lunches and encouraging them to walk or bike to class. ...

"Now I know that cultural assumptions, even well-established ones, can be overturned," he says, "The book goes well beyond standard prescriptions for clean technologies and enlightened policies. It advocates rethinking the foundations of modern consumerism."

The report also points to the roles different societal institutions can play in spurring cultural shifts. Among these, religion, government, the media, businesses and education all have key roles to play. Taken separately, their efforts might seem small, admits Assadourian, but taken together they can effect real change.

"Keep in mind that consumerism had its beginning only two centuries ago and really accelerated in the last 50 years... With deliberate effort we can replace consumerism with sustainability just as quickly as we traded home-cooked meals for Happy Meals and neighbourhood parks for shopping malls," he says, alluding to the tenuousness of what appear to be deep and solid cultural roots.

"Eventually consumerism will buckle under its own impossibility," predicts Assadourian. We can either act proactively to replace it with a more sustainable cultural model or wait for something else to fill the void, he says.

"Culture, after all, is for making it easy for people to unleash their potential, not for standing there as a wall to stop them from moving forward. Culture that does not let people grow is a dead culture," concludes Yunus.

Source: http://us.oneworld.net/article/368550-the-coming-collapse-consumer-culture

Youth dedicated to interests of children [LOVE], [SERVICE], [COMPASSION], [IDEALISM]

A remarkable story of the impact that a youth can have on the well-being of his community -

2009 Children's Peace Prize: 16-Year-Old's Radio Show Brings Hope to Refugee Children Baruani Ndume, Age 16 Baruani Ndume, 16, is the 2009 winner of the International Children's Peace Prize, presented to a child who works to further the interests of children around the world.

Baruani received the prize for his work with children in a Tanzanian refugee camp where he lives after fleeing violence in his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now 16, Baruani has lived in the refugee camp for over nine years and dedicates his time to promoting the interests of children in the camps. His radio show, called Children for Children, airs on Radio Kwizera in Tanzania, Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Baruani uses the show to discuss the problems and challenges refugee children face in the camp. It is also a way for refugee children to make their voices heard. This interview was translated from Swahili.

Read the full article here.

Empowerment through knowledge gained in the work process - ENVIRONMENT, DEVELOPMENT

Highlighting the virtue inherent in, and benefits of empowering people (rather than simply delivering aid) -
(Excerpts:)

...in Natagaima, the women involved in the project are not discouraged by these 'minor' achievements. Because what's important for them is the knowledge they've gained and the real improvements their efforts have brought to their environment and lives. On the day that IPS followed a group of these women as they performed their daily tasks, they couldn't stop talking about all they've learned about agriculture and ecology.

Environmental improvements are not the only good thing to come out of the initiative: women have also been empowered by their work.

"Women feel empowered by the confidence they gain going out to work in their crops, working on their own, knowing they can be self-sufficient. And that's probably the best thing about this project," [Javier Múnera, an economist who manages and organises activities in Manos de Mujer] reflected.

COLOMBIA: Women Empowered by Restoring Desertified Land
By Helda Martínez

Claudina Loaiza, left, works on her ecological garden with her daughter and niece. Credit:Helda Martínez/IPS

NATAGAIMA, Colombia, Jan 2 (IPS) - Indigenous and rural women from southern Tolima, a province located in the heart of Colombia, are lending a hand to the bleak land around them, with the aim of simultaneously recovering the ecosystem and regaining their own dignity, in a community effort that is changing their environment and their lives.

Manos de Mujer (Women's Hands) is the name of the non-governmental organisation working since 2001 in Natagaima, a town some 100 kilometres south of the provincial capital, Ibagué. Nine hundred women of the Pijao native community plant ecosystem-friendly seeds to grow natural crops without the use of agrochemicals. ...

Source: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49875