French Education System Essay

In France, education has a clear goal: the system must always produce a group of well-educated individuals with a common culture, language and abilities that can then serve the State. The French educational system has a very large emphasis on content, culturally specific knowledge, scientific and mathematic knowledge. The system is designed to serve the needs of the state; the individuality and originality are not considered worth while values The French Republic has 60 million inhabitants, living in the 22 regions of metropolitan France and four overseas departments (1. million). Despite the fact that the population is growing slightly (up 0. 4% a year), the number and proportion of young people under 25 are, however, falling: there are now fewer than 19 million of them in metropolitan France, i. e. 32% of the total population, compared with 40% around 1970 and 35% at the time of the 1990 census. France is seeing a slow aging of the population — less marked however than in other neighbouring countries (Germany and Italy), especially as the annual number of births is currently increasing slightly. 5 million pupils and students, i. e. a quarter of the population, are in the education system. Just over 2 million are in higher education. In 1999, France’s GDP was close to FF 9,000 billion (EUR 1,330 billion), i. e. FF 150,000 (EUR 22,000) per inhabitant. Of this total, just over FF 600 billion (EUR 95 billion) were devoted to initial or continuing education: 7. 2% of GDP. As far as school education spending is concerned, France is in a middle position, behind the Nordic countries (Sweden and Denmark), but fairly significantly ahead of Italy and Japan. France has a workforce today of 26 million, of whom fewer than 2 million are unemployed: the unemployment rate recently fell to below 9%. 6% of the labor force (about 1. 5 million jobs, including 1 million civil servants and local government officers) are undergoing training. Educational Structure Around 13 million pupils attend school in France. The system is a unified one, whose present general structure (primary schools, colleges, lycees) was gradually put in place during the 1960s and 1970s, ending the formerly more compartmentalized system which was based on a clear separation between rimary and secondary education. Since the 1970s, France has also had an outstanding record with respect to the development of pre-school education; all 3- to 5-year-olds can go to nursery classes. Since 1967, school attendance has been compulsory for those from 6 to 16 years of age. France has 60,000 primary schools catering to pupils during their first five years of formal education: the first three years (CP – cours preparatoire cours elementaire 1 and 2) provide a grounding in the basic skills. The next stage – CM1/CM2 (cours moyen 1 and 2) takes the children up to the end of primary school. Secondary schooling is divided into two successive stages, known as cycles. From 11 to 15 years, almost all children now attend a college, taking them from form 6 (sixieme) to form 3 (troisieme) (1). Since 1975 there has been a single mixed-ability college for all pupils regardless of their level of achievement. After form 3, they move onto a general, technical or vocational lycee. These prepare pupils for the corresponding baccalaureatexaminations (referred to as le bac), which they normally take at the age of 18.

An awareness campaign for rescue dogs

An awareness campaign for rescue dogs The topic I have chosen is an awareness campaign for rescue dogs. My goal is to inspire others to rescue dogs as opposed to buying them from a pet shop or a breeder. I will be researching and exploring why rescuing is the better option, where and how to adopt them. I will also be discussing my dogs story and why my family and I made the decision to rescue my adorable, loveable, four- legged, furry, best friend, Henry! The inspiration I had for this project idea was my dog’s story. I hate the idea that there are so many dogs going through what my dog went through before we rescued him, such as being abused, left on the streets, etc. After my dog was previously abused and left on the streets he lived with a small family who found him but did not want to keep him. I want to raise awareness to this issue and bring attention to these dogs who do not have a voice of their own. I will be achieving this by making a logo and a specific color to represent rescue dogs. I may also make merchandise (e.g. badges, t-shirts, etc.). I want to make bananas for dogs to wear to symbolize rights for dogs. Bright colored posters and merchandise will also be features to draw attention to it. I have chosen ‘Fairness and development’ as a global context. I chose this as it is obviously unfair that dogs are being treated in such a way as well as pet shop dogs/ breeder dogs are preferred over rescue dogs. I want to tell others that rescue dogs deserve a second chance at life with a new family. Majority of dogs put up for rescue have been previously abused and neglected which is not fair. My dog was on going to be on death row which means he was in a designated area for a while to die as no one wanted to adopt him but he was lucky to have us. This makes me think about how many dogs are in death row/ going to be and how one family could save a life. Not choosing a rescue dog over a pet shop dog can potentially end a dog’s life. However not choosing to buy a dog from a shop will not kill the dog as it will have many other families to choose from. How many dogs have been put down or put into pounds because someone just had to have the cute puppy in the window instead of an equally cute puppy begging for a family that will truly love and respect them that they never had experienced before? This is not ok. This should not be ‘the normal’.

MGT Leadership and Ethics Unit 2 IP Research Paper

MGT Leadership and Ethics Unit 2 IP - Research Paper Example An effective leader exhibits a combination of both in-born traits and skills acquired through experience and biological background. â€Å"Leadership style is the combination of traits, skills and behaviours leaders use as they interact with the followers.† (Lussier and Archua, 2010) thus the individual characteristics and traits of the leader depend on two factors: Heredity and Environment. The heredity factor includes the generic composition of the leader along with his biological background. However environment includes the culture, religion, family, location and education etc. The interaction between heredity genes and the environmental forces help build up the leadership characters. The differences in the traits possessed by the leaders arise from the demographics, values, personality and aptitude. ‘Individual behaviour is determined to a great extent by internal elements such as attitudes, personality, perceptions, and ability.’ (Lewis & Goodman et al., 2007) The demographics of the leader includes his background, age and other physical attributes and whereabouts, the values are the long lasting preferences and beliefs, and personality is what makes the leader unique showcasing the different physical and psychological characteristics. Lastly the important individual characteristic is the aptitude of the leader, the natural talent of doing something both mentally and physically. ‘Executives who can effectively focus on others emerge as natural leaders regardless of organizational or social rank.’ (Goleman, 2013) This aptitude cannot be enforced on anyone however skills can be acquired through training. A leader cannot be made through training however new skills can be taught for better and effective leadership. Thus the conventional theories of leadership involve the trait and behavioural theories that focus on the traits as well as the acquired behaviour of the leader also mentioned in the above discussion. The contingency theory brings in the situation and its characteristics into the leadership equation. The test of leadership depends upon the nature of the situation and the success depends upon how well the leader manages the situation at hand. The power and influence theory that will become the main focus of this discussion, focus on the different ways the leaders use their power in order to get things done. All these believes and theories are reflected in the leadership model where the leader has to deal with the personal front involving his set of his abilities and traits, the group where he manages the organization and lastly the public involving the environment and the stakeholders of the leader’s organization. The power of the leader in an organization is vast (see Appendix). A CEO of a large organization has the power to influence the board of directors. He is the sole figure that can change the philosophy of the entire organization. The power of the CEO is to decide how much input he wants from the subordinates and how stringent or relaxed the work hierarchy should be. His expertise in the organization is supposedly more enriched as compared to other employees in the organization. It is this knowledge and official responsibility that gives the CEO the power to control. He is the one who can turn a bad situation to a positive through his influence tactics. For example, Proctor and Gamble (P&G) the consumer

Heroes and Intellectuals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Heroes and Intellectuals - Essay Example That is a question that haunts us all at some point in our lives. â€Å"Weve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. Thats who we really are.† (Rowling, n.d.) Those who choose the light are expected to fight for it at all times. However, is being a hero an obligation? It is really a choice. In essence, evil, obligation and heroism are separable in various circumstances and this explains the belief that no one has the obligation to fight evil whereas he/she puts the lives of the loved one in danger. This essay seeks to dissect various aspects relative to evil, obligation and intellectuality. The word evil is associated with all sorts of bad things which may endanger the lives of people in a society. The question as to whether some people who have the ability to fight evil can do so even if the lives of their loved ones is in danger is debatable. Whereas I agree that, those with ability in political, religious or economic arenas to fight evil for the sake of the numerous lives of the other members of the society other philosophers such as Rousseau (1999), argues that there should be values attributed to any kind of heroism. Rousseau (1999) asserts that heroism requires recognition of values and a cognitive decision to undertake the top most risk in the fight for the attainment or defense of such values. This explains that despite that fact that heroism can be attributed to an element of choice, the fundamentals includes cognizance of the values and the greatness of the danger. This belief can be counter argued that heroism can be justified not only by choice by necessity . For instance, if only one option to save a life exists then this is attributed to personal sacrifice. In cases where personal sacrifice is foremost and the only way, then there is no aspect of choice in this situation. This explanation disqualifies the belief that heroism is by choice, because there is a possibility of making a choice not to save

Positioning and social responsibility Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Positioning and social responsibility - Essay Example Moreover, the strategic decisions may be aimed towards the customers of the business organization or the employees of the organizations. Strategic decisions aimed at the employees of the organization attempt to improve the productivity of the employees and hence lead to an increase in quantity or quality of the products produced. However, most of the strategic decisions that are aimed at the customers are usually aimed at increasing the sales of the products of the company, which the customer makes. Several strategies may be employed to help increase the sales by the customers. In addition, the company may undertake measures aimed at improving its image, which will therefore lead to improved sales and customer loyalty to the company. The company may base improved image of the company on the quality of the products, which they offer, a wide range of products or corporate social responsibility of the company. One of the strategic planning decisions, which business organizations make, i s the positioning strategy of the company. Positioning strategy Positioning strategy is a strategy that different companies make to improve their perception. Thus, it can be said to be a psychological approach to marketing. Positioning strategy is mainly aimed at making the customers prefer the products of a certain company as opposed to those from its main competitors (Hiam, 2009, p. 36). The positioning strategies of the company may be directed either towards the customer or towards the competitor. However, brand-positioning strategies can generally be classified into the following categories: Using product characteristics or customer benefits Price- quality approach Use or application of the product Product-user strategies Products class strategies Cultural symbol of the product Strategies aimed at competitor (Batra, p. 205) Using product characteristics or customer benefits This is the most used positioning strategy; it links a certain product with a certain characteristic, whic h is generally of great importance to the customer. The company may stress the durability, safety, or reliability of its products. However, a company may also use two or more different characteristics to build the brand image of the product. Companies that use two or more product characteristics to build the image of the brand risk confusing the image of the brand, which affects the customers’ perception of the brand (Batra, p. 208). Yo sushi helps in attracting customers to its restaurants using the claim that its food is fresh (company website – Yo! Sushi). Emphasis on the quality of food that is served in the restaurants portrays the image that the food is of higher quality and safe to the customers who may it. In addition, Yo sushi emphasizes on the speed in which the restaurant is able to serve its customers. The restaurant serves the food from conveyor belt. Yo sushi claims that its food is fast, fun and fresh (company website – Yo! Sushi). Due to the fact that a belt would definitely move at a fast speed the company in effect portrays to its customers that its services are very fast and hence the customers would not waste time waiting for the food to be served. This therefore helps in attracti

Perform a rhetorical analysis of a work of your choosing Essay - 3

Perform a rhetorical analysis of a work of your choosing - Essay Example who plan on getting married to cherish their marriage rather than their wedding day, albeit a cursory glance of the article merely gives the impression of a comic trying to make the audience laugh by relating a personal story. By using informal language, appropriate diction, exclamatory sentences, sentence length, and persuasive appeals, Winchell has successfully conveyed the message she sought to express: weddings are not marriages themselves; they are just preludes to what should actually be given importance. April Winchell, by relating the experiences of her own wedding right at the beginning, lays out her credibility for writing a wedding related article. She was also a bride once and so she is qualified to write about weddings and the feelings of the brides, the brides-to-be being the intended audience: seeing how the name of the website where the article was published is brides.com, it is all but natural to assume that the intended target audience is brides-to-be. Therefore, there is no doubt that, rhetorically, this article is sound when it comes to ethos. Winchell normally resorts to informal language, resorting to slang as well in some cases, as she is not aiming to write to a scholarly audience. Her target audience is made up of people (or brides) who come from average households in America, and who are more comfortable using slang or, at least, conversing very informally. Moreover, the use of informal language by Winchell is quite effective in that through its use Winchell has avoided sounding too â€Å"preachy† even though the main objective of her article is to give advice. The style and tone of the piece comes off very casual and relaxed, as Winchell has chose to write in vernacular, take this excerpt from the article, for example, in which she is describing her dress â€Å"I don’t recall where I got the dress, but I’ll always have the memory of how butt-ugly it was.† It is very apparent here that not only is Winchell using vernacular

Regulatory and legislative issues paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Regulatory and legislative issues paper - Essay Example â€Å"Thousands of US organizations must comply with the†¦ Security Rule. The Security Rule is a key part of HIPAA -- federal legislation that was passed into law in August 1996. The overall purpose of the act is to enable better access to health insurance, reduce fraud and abuse, and lower the overall cost of health care in the United States† (HIPAA, 2010). The overall common estimation is that the Security Rule has affected healthcare positively, leading to greater client confidentiality and better information access for healthcare facilities. However, cost is a major issue in implementing new technology covered by the rule, such as the establishment of electronic health records. It is important to provide a general overview of the HIPAA Security Rule, its strengths and drawbacks, and how it is being implemented, and reacted against, in the present. databases, and communications. Patients are expected, and have been shown to, have a greater quality of healthcare because of the rule, because due to it, information and healthcare data is delivered faster, better, and more conveniently. Although some state that the rule is excessive, because the government would have to provide for client confidentiality with or without the law, others state that, â€Å"The real value of HIPAAs transaction standards is the reduction of operational expenses and fragmentation in the health care industry† (Zimmerman, 2010). This shows the law to be cost effective, and it is also gathered to be cost-effective from the standpoint of government costs for social welfare programs like Medicare. Although cost effectiveness and better, safer, faster patient information seem to be key advantages to the HIPAA Security Rule, there are also possible drawbacks as this law extends over time. For example, although ultimately the new technology covered by the rule is designed to make facilities more