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American education system is one that focuses on activity based learning for school children. Although the nation boasts of 98% literacy rate over age 15, research studies in 2008 indicate that the graduation rate from high school stands at a mere 77%, quite dismal for a nation with overall better infrastructure facilities than most developed/developing nations. This statistical figure gives a strong indication that academic excellence in the country is being compromised with.

“We can’t afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they’re competing against kids in China and India who are actually in school about a month longer than our kids…” said President Barack Obama in a recent town hall meeting in California.

He also said -”You can’t put the entire burden on a teacher. If you’re not making sure your child does their homework, if you’re not reading to them, instilling a sense of excellence and a thirst for knowledge in them, then they’re not going to do very well, no matter how good your teacher is”

President Obama’s concerns echo the need for educationists and parents, to team together and drive the American kids towards academic excellence in order to collectively raise the education standards of the nation.

Academic excellence is something that needs to percolate beyond school hours and into the everyday life of a child. Parents need to be proactive enough to understand their child’s educational needs and address them in time and in an effective manner.

To begin with the responsibility of the parent doesn’t end with finding the right school, but begins by partnering with the school and making the extra effort in ensuring the child excels in his regular course of study. In fact, most kids past grade 5 find it difficult to cope with subjects like Math and Science and require extra help or personalized training from a teacher, parent or expert(tutor) apart from their regular school coaching to excel in these important subjects.

While cost can be a major driving force in deciding the choice of a support system for a child, the options available are a plenty. From personal tutors to online tutorials – the list is long. One has to search for a support program which best suits the needs of their child. The medium has evolved to the extent that today some online tutorials like etutorworld – use innovative techniques like Learn by design wherein they customize the curriculum as per your child’s speed and aptitude and work towards making them fundamentally strong in these subjects. Parents who have used these services vouch for it.

“ …. The (online) program has allowed our daughter the opportunity to relax at home and feel at ease while working to improve her math skills. The staff is very open to listening to her personal needs and working with her on her areas of need. We would definitely recommend eTutorWorld to other families.”- Say Ted and Shawna: Parents, Anne Arundel County, MD

It is not possible for all parents to help their children with their daily lessons or homework; hence it is advisable to leave the job to professionals who can support the parents in their pursuit for academic excellence for their children. The realization has slowly set in and the mindset is changing, as is evident from the above testimonial found in an online tutoring site.

Apart from subject training sessions, regular counseling is required to boost the child’s drive towards academic excellence. It is the primary duty of every parent to provide their children with a peaceful study conducive environment at home. Regular meetings with class teachers can also help identify pain points for the child, and to act accordingly in time. This combination of specialized training and an encouraging family can work wonders for any child.

Success is immaterial if it does not matter to the people who matter to us; hence it is essential to make your child believe that you are his ally, his partner in his pursuit for academic excellence. His success and failures matter to you as much as it matters to him and you are ready to do anything to make it work for both of you.

Taking up the challenge and making an intelligent and proactive decision now can help you and your child reap benefits in the long run.




By: ajax

If you are given the task of writing an academic essay, you want to know the best approach to adopt so that you get the best possible grades. On the surface, this sounds easy enough but there is more than meets the eye, as you shall soon see.

Most students think that just by submitting a well researched paper that is written with perfect grammar means that they have a chance for scoring well. Unfortunately, this approach will most likely get them an average score. Let’s take a look at why this is on.

An academic essay is often used as a tool by educational institutions to assess the students in various areas. Different educational systems may have different grading systems. But in general, most will want to grade students according to: amount of research (or the equivalent of effort), understanding of topic, originality of ideas, and expression of ideas. These are the four key areas.

As you can see, it is easy to assess a student’s ability to write and to conduct research. It is also easy to see whether a student has a good grasp of the subject at hand just by reading the paper. For instance, if a student has good command of English, he has a good command of English. There is no two way about it.

The problem is, it’s not so easy when it comes to assessing originality of ideas. What if all the students start coming up with original ideas? Does that mean all of them should get distinctions for their papers? In theory, they should. But in reality, we all know that this is not the case. That is because educational institutions sometimes set thresholds as to how many students can score As, how many can score Bs, and so on. That means even if you have a whole cohort of geniuses, not everyone will get As. Only a handful will be able to get the top grade.

So what does that mean for the student?It means that in order to have a higher chance of scoring top grades, you need to know what your fellow classmates are writing about. Often, you can get a good feel of what the other students are writing just by talking to them.

But note that this does not mean seeing your classmates as the competition. In fact, all of you have the same goal – to score good grades. The challenge, therefore, should be to elevate everyone’s standards by having open discussions about the ideas that you are going to write about. That way, everyone shares and the writing process becomes more fun. As students, the common “enemy” is whoever will be grading the papers. So make the job of the graders as tough as possible by submitting top notch academic essays.

This is the secret that very few students know about. Usually, in any given cohort, only a few students know this. And guess what? They are the ones who score top grades. And they continue to do so on a consistent basis. Know that you know the secret as well, maybe you can score better than them!




By: Gen Wright

The ILO (International Labour Office) estimates in its latest Global Employment Trends report that up to 50 million jobs will be lost by the end of the year, that the financial crisis has also become a jobs crisis – that is 210 million people out of work – and does not include the working poor.

Only a matter of months ago the crisis was a labour and skills shortage. Now it is a jobs shortage crisis. It is not too hard to see that these are two sides of the same problem.

There is little about business today that resembles that on which the way we work is based. In the late 1800s to early 1900s – the genesis of our present labour systems – the majority of workers had to fulfil tasks, broken down to the level that would give employers the most control and lowest costs. The rationale for low costs was workers who performed repetitive functions would need limited training, could be quickly replaced, also quality could be controlled and work output could be monitored against production targets, meaning they could be supervised by people with limited supervisory training.

Such a system was possible (not necessarily successful in human terms) because workers supplied time and labour (easily transacted), because they were inclined to stay with employers, because goods were homogeneous (a little training could go a long way), and because competition was limited (lower costs trumped quality and features). This treatment resulted in workers becoming entrenched in certain tasks, certain processes and restricted by the titles and job descriptions that classified them. Employers, unable to find job applicants with a like-for-like match to their job description lamented the skills shortage, while perfectly, but differently, qualified candidates were overlooked.

As work conditions changed, the employment system became more difficult to maintain. It has been propped up with tools that makes employment more a matter of process than of management, as employers wait for these processes to do their thing: for competency-based assessment to deliver perfect employee/job fit, for performance appraisal to bring people in line with expectations, for bonuses to spark motivation and loyalty, for feedback boxes to make people feel included. Managers who are not trained in the sciences behind these processes can only administer them. Employees too wait, to feel more valued, to be provided opportunities, to be know jobs are secure.

Worse, this fundamentally flawed system adds costs that cannot be justified in difficult economic times. Predictably, HR expenditure is one of the first to be reduced in times of economic pressure, leaving confusion over what processes will continue or disenfranchisement over the hypocrisy of the “greatest asset” rhetoric.

If these are not the times to significantly overhaul the current systems of employment, there is no other. When the economy turns, recovery will be stalled by a deflated workforce, large tracts of workers without recent work experience, whose last jobs are ones no longer in demand, and who have been unable to update skills, and organisations without the systems and facilities to engage a workforce with anything but a short-term mentality.

In Fortune magazine September 1994, William Bridges wrote about The End of the Job. “As a way of organizing work, it is a social artifact (sic) that has outlived its usefulness.” Traditional work systems produce the very workers who are eliminated when organisations face pressure: the unempowered, those lacking skills to be flexible, those who get the job done rather than work on outcomes. Bridges argues that it is not just certain jobs in certain industries that are disappearing, it is the need for jobs themselves, “trying to use outmoded and under powered organizational forms to do tomorrow’s work”.

Many organisations are hamstrung in their ability to employ what they really need because they spend time and money in employment-related activities they don’t understand, are unable to quantify in cost and have no expectation of return on the investment.

New labour market-wide employment methods are urgently needed. Our list of changes includes:

1. Making it easier for people to work as independent contractors. Independent contractors are self-reliant, taking responsibility for maintaining their own skills and knowledge and the contexts in which they can be applied. Independent contractors are a valuable source of specialised expertise and can be engaged as needed. For this, for bearing the costs of their own expenses and for not being paid statutory entitlements, contractors will command a higher fee. Treatment of contractors – suppliers like any other – is not always positive if the organisations create an “us” and “them” culture. To unions who do not have jurisdiction over commercial work contracts, independent contractors are effectively scab labour and in some states and industries, legislation has been passed that forces independent contractors to be subjected to employment laws.

2. Human resources must become qualified (currently there is no minimum qualification) and that qualification must include business, finance or economics. The role – and if HR do not want to change then another profession will take over – must be more than administrators, guardians and do-gooders of employment. HR have long complained they are not taken seriously but many given a “seat at the strategy table” squandered the opportunity. A SHRM (US-based Society for Human Resources Management) survey reported that 83% of the HR respondents believed interpersonal communication skills was academically valuable to their careers, and only 2% of respondents believed the same of skills in finance.

3. Employers and workplace laws alike must allow greater mobility of workers in, out and around organisations. Employee retention is not often well thought through; in attempting to hold on to knowledge and stave off costs of recruitment, employers frequently invest in maintaining a status quo. The potential talent base becomes limited as does the ability to respond to changes (except, ironically, through redundancies). When inevitably they do implement change it is usually reactive and the disruption, insecurity and instability drains the organisation of energy and confuses its purpose.

4. Employers and workers alike need to treat all work forms as being as, if not more, valuable than full time, permanent positions. Portfolio careers means undertaking work in multiple jobs and across industries. Employers will benefit by being more adept at using talent when and where it is needed and employees will be less dependent on one employer. There will be a double-benefit as employees have more opportunities to gain on-the-job skills but the costs of doing so are spread.

5. Imagine if employee work histories were as transferable as results between educational institutions. Sure, this information will not be perfect and would be subjective. Hiring, for starters would be a very different process with this information and not just reliant on the CV, the reference check and how well the candidate jumps through the hoops set up for them.

Real leadership to make real changes, not just another round of quick-fixes, is needed now.




By: Isabel Wu