PRESCHOOL THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES.

It’s till debatable whether any of it is necessary. But apparently Pre School is becoming more popular that ever. In most countries, it used to be a luxury only rich families could afford. However it’s become a common necessity. And all over the world debate on whether or not it’s necessary to send one’s child to nursery school before kindergarten still rages. Yet though still inconclusive, educationists and child psychologists seem to have at least agreed on the advantages disadvantages of preschool.

Advantages
Educational psychologists say preschoolers tend to be more prepared emotionally for kindergarten than children who learn from home. They are backed by primary school teachers who contend that in first grade a child who went through preschool tends to perform better than one who didn’t. This is because preschooler grow accustomed to a certain level of the formal education system. It is also said that preschool gives children learning opportunities and facilities they rarely get at home. For instance in an average family it is rare to find children around the age of five taught music arts crafts dramatic play storytelling or a second language at home.

More so, children in preschool have the opportunity to socialize with other kids their age, an appealing advantage for parents who used a nanny or relative care when their children were younger. And for parents who work a nursery school is a reliable and safer shelter where their kids can spend the day learning and growing. The preschool environment gives parents the peace of mind while at work. For a stay at home mother, preschool gives her time to perform other key parental duties like taking care of younger children. In addition, some child development experts contend that pre school helps to gradually wean children away.

Disadvantages
However, they also argue that most early childhood programmes do not give kids the one on one attention that some may require to thrive, as they are designed to meet the need of children as a group and not as individuals. And there are health concerns as well: sometimes children in preschools play with and sit next to their sick age-mates, which exposes them to illnesses. This has led to the conclusion that young preschoolers tend to become ill more often than kids who stay at home or are cared for by friend and relatives. Besides, after spending anywhere from six to eight hours each day in preschool, children get tired when they get home. They only enough time to eat dinner, take a bath, and go to bed.

This causes patents to miss out on spending large amounts of quality time with their children .and the cost of a quality preschool programme for children can put a hole in parents bank accounts which is why some opt to leave their jobs to stay at home with their children. Nevertheless, whole the advantages and disadvantages of early childhood programmes are clear, it’s ultimately up to the patents to decide whether or not to send their children to preschool.

CORRUPTION IS THE ONLY WAY TO WIN ELECTIONS.

The party was holding preliminaries for the local government elections that will be here soon. Don’t ask me which party because there is only one in Bongo. I knew that one I manage to secure my candidature; automatically I would be the next mwenyekiti. The more I thought of it the more I got excited. I was soon dreaming of all the allowances during my tenure. Then the ‘poshos’ for the Mwenyekiti baraza. Just imagine the fines for wife beating, overflowing pit latrines, wandering domestic, and wandering domestic animals. I could see myself leaving poverty just weeks after the elections. Besides, I believe I have that patriotic character to serve Bongo and its people

But first I must get elected as the party candidate. To begin with I sought my beloved wife a.k.a mama watoto’s opinion. “I say mama nani; how do you find the idea of me becoming the next mheshimiwa of this area. I mean the old mwenyekiti should retire now, he has been there for as long as I can remember”
Mama Watoto stopped her knitting suddenly as I she had seen a ghost. She gave me a long stare, and then she asked mockingly, “una hela wewe? What has money got to do with this? I shot back of course of all the people she knew my resources were very limited. If I was to be elected as the next chairperson that would be my first legally recognized job since the disintegration the old East Africa community in 1977. You need money to convince people to vote for you,” my wife told me. “But that is corruption! People should vote on merit, au sio?” “It’s not corruption, it is trade. You give them kitu kidogo, they give you their votes. Nothing is free in Bongo.

At the kijiwe the chaps told me the same thing, money pesa ….. As I delved more into the issue. I discovered the days of ujamaa leaders who had only brains without money were over I mean those who were mwalimu’s blue eyed boy’s. However, even with ills associated with it I had to take this opportunity because I was increasingly becoming desperate and out of the million jobs JK promised this one offered the best remuneration of all. To raise the funds I was compelled to pawn the only sofa set we had to get the campaign rolling. A neighbour of mine volunteered to be my manager in my Endeavour to become the next chairperson
“Unlike the past elections for post, this time it promises to pay back handsomely; inalipa. Can you imagine that the wenyeviti will even have a six-figure salary?” my neighbour emphasized. Our campaign first hit a snag when ‘most of the would be voters never had party membership cards or because of carelessness they had lost them. This meant that if I wanted their vote I would have to by them new ones. Others just confessed that they weren’t interested in party politics but if I would find them membership cards, they would gladly vote for me as a friend; mwenzetu. I was shocked to discover that new cards were not only a winning weapon but also a lucrative trade around the party election seasons.

The district party secretary made it very clear that it was his time to harvest. The greet cards had become a very scarce commodity. Whoever wished to have them must help him with the ‘fare’ to the headquarters to get them. I paid the loot for the fare to the HQ but the delays dragged on for weeks. I later on discovered that the secretary had his own candidates in mind. We wouldn’t get enough cards to win. We cracked our heads and came up with a novel trick or printing our own cards and sharing the spoils with the party mwenyekiti, who would stamp and sign them for a fee each and magically they would become genuine

The trick worked superbly. I gave a card to any mwananchi who dared smile at me. On Election Day, I was buoyant that victory would be mine. The election process went on so smoothly. I wouldn’t wait to get the results. The election supervisor took his position at the prodium. I was surprised to hear my name being read first.” Usually winners aren’t the first to be mentioned,” I thought. May be this is a new arrangement. “He got one vote”

WOMEN STILL SIDELINE IN ECONOMIC DECISION.

GENDER equality contributes to economic growth, but economic growth does not always contribute to fender equality, says the United Nations World Survey on the Role of Women in Development launched Tuesday, a message well timed in the context of the current financial crisis. Women’s participation in the economic sector has been proven to underpin Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) such as poverty reduction child health and education. Still, “The lack of women’s access to financial resources, as well as their under presentation in institutions such as banks and ministries of finance, is striking, “says James Heintz, associate director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Built upon recent statistics and academic research, the World Survey, published every five years by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, focuses this year on “women’s control over economic resources and access to financial resources, including microfinance”. Data from 7- countries shows that women hold only 27 percent of positions classified as having “status, influence, power and decision-making authority” with regional variation of 31 percent in Latin America, and nine percent in the Middle East.

In the European Union, women ministries of the 27 member states were far more likely to hold portfolios relating to social affairs such as youth, health and education (26.7 percent), rather than the economy (17.7 percent). The marginalization of women from influential posts is hardly limited to developing regions. Almost held of the large companies in countries covered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have no women on their boards, while only 23 percent have more than one woman.

While programmes of microfinance were well intended and relatively successful in the poorest countries, especially in Latin America and Asia, microfinance “has failed to meet the needs of women entrepreneurs in business growth and expansions”, the survey concluded. “The evaluation tells us that is simply not enough to give small amounts of money to women, and expect them to become equal players,” says Naila Kabber, lead author of the survey and a professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies in the United Kingdom.

“We need to open up access to the broader financial sector, and we need to put far more emphasis on financial services apart from credit, such as insurances, savings, assets and remittance transfers,” she added. Kebber explained that for microfinance to work properly, it needs to be embedded in a package of services that address the existing constrains faced by many women, such as child care support.


Another problem is the copy- the past mechanism that has been too often applied to microfinance, Kabber admitted. “What worked in a poor Asian country, may not work in West Africa. Where there is a long tradition of female entrepreneurship,” she noted. Control over economic resources also includes access to full to full employment and decent work, as “labour factor or production at the disposal of poor people around the world and the primary means through which they earn a living”, says the survey. Overall, women show increased levels of employment, but this increase has been mainly in the informal sector, which is generally insecure, poorly paid, and not covered by labour registration or social protection.

In the formal sector women’s wages have been reported to be 16.5 percent less than men’s. Kabeer asked for more research on the nature of constraints that keep women in inferior positions in the labour market, and therefore captive to sometimes unreliable husbands or discriminatory laws. Of particular concern is the unequal sharing of unpaid work between women and men, in both Northern and Southern countries, a situation that has not significantly improved and continues to constrain women’s employment choices and opportunities.

“The issue of unpaid responsibilities of women is one of the things that has really struck me, since even the wealthiest countries with a lot of gender- sensitive policies put in place, still seem to struggle with it,” Kabeer said. Besides labour, lack of access to land and property, another areas of gender inequality touched upon in the survey, is still considerable due to discriminatory inheritance practices and gender-biased land reform. In many African countries, for example, the wife loses her house and land when her husband dies.

The survey recommends that policy makers rethink their economic growth strategies and pay attention to women’s economic empowerment, especially in the current recession. Heintz underlined that although many of the macro-economic aspects of the current crisis do not appear to be gender-specific, the report does document ways in which macroeconomic changes have gender-specific impacts, and need a gender-specific. Most importantly, he said gender equality in finance and business must be viewed as not only a women’s rights issue, but an economic imperative.