Healthy Grief Essay Example for Free

Healthy Grief Essay The loss of a family member and/or loved one can put someone on an emotional roller coaster. Whether it is an expected or unexpected loss, the emotional process of dealing with the grief could be the same. With an expected loss, loved ones are able to prepare themselves for what is to come. An unexpected loss could bring more emotions into the grieving process. This paper will discuss the grieving process by Kubler-Ross, the story of Job, and the way Muslims deal with death and dying. While some people focus on the sadness of losing a loved one, others try and find the positive in the any situation. To grieve the loss of a loved one, many would say that they feel a lot of different indescribable emotions. Shock, disbelief, emotional pain, anger, and sadness are all some emotions that people feel while grieving. Kubler-Ross developed a five step grieving process that one should experience and move through so they can move on to a happy life (Lecture 5 Notes). The process itself is: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Lecture 5 Notes). It is easy for a person to not believe that a loved one has passed on as begin the grieving process (Lecture 5 Notes). Once the denial has processed and the loss has become a reality, it is normal to get angry and ask ‘why did this happen?’ Bargaining with God is the next step in the grieving process. Trying to make a deal with God to try and bring back a loved one gives a person hope that their loved one will come back. Once reality has set in, depression is the next step (Lecture 5 Notes). This is when the feelings of hopelessness set in, making it difficult for a person to pass this stage (Lecture 5 Notes). The last stage of the grieving process is acceptance (Lecture 5 Notes). This is the stage that helps a person emotionally move on from grieving the loss of a loved one. Life goes becomes a new type of normal with the memory of the loved one instead of the having the loved one there (Lecture 5 Notes). In the book of Job, Satan challenges Job’s faith and love for God, with God’s permission (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). Satan does everything in his power to get Job to not only doubt God, but to curse him as well (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). Satan killed his ten children and destroyed his livestock and servants (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). Job focused more on God and praised him as he mourned loss of his children and wealth (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). Satan then tried one last time by filling Job’s body with sores (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). The doubt of his wife and the negativity of his colleagues never gave him a change of heart. Job remained faithful to God, never doubted Him (he doubted himself at times), and still praised Him (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). God eventually replenished Job’s wealth and blessed him with more children (Study Bible-NLT, 2008). Job grieved in a very healthy way. He did not blame others and he did not curse God. He tried to find the good in every ba d situation. One religion that differs from Christianity and western civilization’s way of grieving the loss of a loved one is the Islamic religion. With death and dying, Muslims believe that there is life after death (Ross, 2001). It is believed that believers of the religion must practice the five pillars of Islam and live a righteous life on earth in order to have a different afterlife than those ‘unbelievers’ (Ross, 2001). People of the Islamic religion must mourn as they prepare for a quick burial (Ross, 2001). A loved one should be buried the day of death or the day after, not any later (Ross, 2001). In public, it is not of their norm for women to show any emotion at a time like this (Ross, 2001). Finding joy in the midst of losing a loved one can be trying. But like Job in the Bible, joy could come quicker if faith is not lost. Grieving is a challenging time to stay positive. Making the attempt to stay positive helps push one through the grieving process without getting stuck in one of the stages for too long. A good way to find joy is to continue to praise God and not to lose faith in Him. In closing, re-reading the book of Job in the Holy Bible has reminded me of how important it is to praise God in the midst of a storm. The loss of a loved one is tragic for anyone and grieving is a natural process in life. But if the focus stays on praising God and not losing faith, that grieving process can turn into a healing process and it is possible to find peace in the midst of grieving. God always has a rainbow waiting at the end of each storm, it just depends how long it takes for you to play in the rain before you get there.

The Inclusive Education Policy In Myanmar Education Essay

The Inclusive Education Policy In Myanmar Education Essay This research focuses on the primary and lower secondary level students with disabilities for the purpose to address the educational needs of CWDs in Myanmar. In addition, one of the most important concerns in the Myanmar educational sector is how CWDs can be provided with opportunities to take responsibility for their learning throughout the concepts of community involvement and technical assistance to achieve a sustainable future. The political and social context is discussed in terms of international policy reforms and initiatives, especially the Salamanca Statement that agreed to ensure a basic education for all children, including CWDs. The Salamanca Framework for Action (1994) was a significant milestone in the education for CWDs and recommended the mode of service delivery of timing and intervention that linked to inclusive practices. National-level policy and laws as they relate to CWDs are briefly described in service delivery, and increase awareness about the educational opportunities for them. Moreover, the government tries to make the concerted efforts harmoniously for the quality of life of PWDs at pleasant. According to the guidance of the EFA-NAP, the following activities are being implemented: Providing primary school textbooks worth over 1835.51 million kyats in free of charges for over 5 million primary students to initiate free, compulsory primary education; Preparing the programs for scholarships and stipends which will be implemented starting from 2012-13AY in basic and higher education sectors; and Enacting the private school registration law and developing rules and regulations in coordination with concerned departments to contribute the education services by the private sector. For improving the quality of school education, monitoring and supervision mechanism has been strengthened since 2006-07 AY by focusing on the teaching and learning process. Basic education schools were classified by 5 levels (A, B, C, D, E) based on applying the following monitoring and supervision criteria such as Accomplishment of the school principal; Level of school attendance; Implementation of monthly lesson plans; Students achievements; Use of teaching aids, facilities laboratories; Cultivating morale and ethics; Capacity of teaching staff; Adequate classrooms and furniture; School sanitation and tidiness; Adequate teaching aids and multimedia facilities; Greening of a school campus; and Good physical setting of schools. Myanmar has made progress in the education sector to fulfill MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education with the target of ensuring that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling: however the dropout rate still high in secondary school level. A total of 92 governments including Myanmar and 25 international organizations reaffirmed commitment to the goals of Education for All (EFA), recognizing the necessity and urgency of providing an education for children and youth with special needs within the regular education system. By the official data on net enrollment in primary schools was 84.6% in 2010 (MOE, 2010, EFA in Myanmar) and the gender discrimination has mostly been removed from basic education enrollment. However, the net enrollment rates in secondary and tertiary education are very low. The quality of education at all levels remains a serious concern. Inclusive education (IE) is to support education for all, with special emphasis on removing barriers to participation and learning for girls and women, disadvantaged groups, children with disabilities and out-of-school children. The core point of IE is the basic right to education, which is rooted in many international human rights treaties since the UDHR adopted in 1948. The Dakar Education Forum (2000) reaffirmed that education was a fundamental human right and underlined the importance of a rights-based government actions in implementing EFA activities at the national level. The agreements on the principles and standards of IE spelt out the international human rights instruments and a rights-based education system. Myanmar government applies a rights-based approach to education in their programming and planning processes. It will also briefly discuss possible entry points and tools to move forward. In addition, it is hoped that this research will increase understanding of human rights importance in underpinning development cooperation programming, as well as fostering a discussion on the practical aspects of implementing such programming. Many of the problems are related to the lack of education quality, relevance and exclusion of learning. There is a well-recognized link between overcoming the barriers of learning and achieving the EFA goals. Government and schools principals must, therefore, pay special attention to children who should be in school, and are not, and to children who are in school, but are unable to succeed there. At the present, MOE is making special arrangements for the disabled and other excluded children to attend formal schools and to continue their education receiving special care and attention. In Myanmar, IE programs were formulated to accommodate for all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions. These programs include all vulnerable children such as CWDs; children form mobile families, orphans, street children, and other disadvantaged children. No.25 Basic Education Primary School (Yangon) is the best witness of MOE in implementing IE. A new multi-pronged strategy for the capacity building in Teacher Education can promote the progressive adoption of effective teaching and learning methodologies for all CWDs at all levels. MOE and other partners strengthen educational management for the Basic Education Sector Plan that supports the Governments education service delivery to meet commodities needs at the school level. IE is a programme that creates opportunities for CWDs to pursue education together with non-disabled children in mainstreaming schools. It can bring about the educational opportunities for them. Nowadays, CWDs who have completed their primary education through special schools are now able to continue their education in mainstreaming schools by keeping abreast with other non-disabled children. IE According to the statistics data from MOE in 2011 showed that, there were 801 disable children in mainstreaming schools, 1450 children in special schools for the blind and the deaf, 30 disable students in universities and colleges and 6 disable students in master degree courses in 2010-11 AY. The government policy was developed and practiced with policy reform to fill the gap in legal and policy development. As par hearing from the media, the advocacy for helping disabled issue more and more in Myanmar. The government policy and legal change occur on resetting criteria for definition of PWDs. Out of nine criteria (international norms), some implementation processes of IE use four criteria to define the PWDs. To be more specific about educational opportunities for CWDs, the government agrees to provide all children (including all regardless of physical condition) equal opportunity to learn basic education. In the actual situation, there has a gap between policy and practice. The concept of IE means welcoming all children, without discrimination, in formal schools. Indeed, it is a focus on creating environments responsive to the differing developmental capacities, needs, and potentials of all children. Inclusion means a shift in services from simply trying to fit the child into normal settings; it is a supplemental support for their disabilities on special needs and promoting the childs overall development in an optimal setting. It calls for respect of difference and diversity of individual characteristics and needs. This has to include a consideration of overall organization, curriculum and classroom practice, support for learning and staff development. By the collaboration and cooperation of MOE, DSW is implementing inclusive education for the students with disabilities especially for the Blind and the Deaf students. Also, inclusive education workshops were held throughout the country and the teachers from the MOE and the staffs from DSW were also attended. Myanmar is now implementing six sectors for PWDs across the nation such as Enhancing Education Standard, Improving Vocational Trainings and Job Opportunities, Promoting Health Care Service, Enhancing Reintegration into the Society, Upgrading Capacity Building and Morale, and Providing Social Needs. In this situation, if the service providers can make the concerted efforts harmoniously, the life quality of PWDs will surely be enhanced and pleasant. Inclusive education can bring about the educational opportunities for CWDs. Some NGOs and DPOs are collaborating with the Department of Social Welfare, the Department of Basic Education and the Department of Health for CWDs, who have completed their primary and lower secondary education level through special schools, able to continue their education. 3.6.1 Implementing processes of IE by I/LNGOs TLMI is involving a little part in this area of IE implementation processes. They only conduct trainings for teachers on disability issues, the importance of CWDs to get the opportunity to attend schools like any other children and providing some barrier free arrangement in selected schools. TLMI is working with the parents of CWDs to convince to send the formal school and on the other hand they also try to engage with school principals to accept and pay attention for those children. Also they proposed the education need of PWDs in the Draft disabled law, advocate the decision makers and teacher, and we are working together with U Tin Nyo, retired DG from MOE who is very interested in IE for CWDs. Myanmar Independent Living Initiative (MILI) has concrete plan to implement the IE programs for children with cross-disabilities, they could not take shape it yet fully because their organization is just one year old still young. But, some executive members of MILI organization are actively involved in comprehensive disability law drafting process to ensure the educational rights of PWDs. The Long experience of disability inclusive education for five years, the community-based rehabilitation programs mainly supported poor children with disabilities to go to mainstream schools, advocated parents and education teachers for disability inclusive education and renovated the schools to be accessible for students with disabilities in collaboration with Department of basic education, DSW, local PWDs Self-help Organizations and other relevant stakeholders. That organization has planned to work in IE policy for PWDs by following kinds of strategies; Awareness raising and advocacy for disability inclusive education policy law Capacity building of educational officers and staffs, and parents as well Support children with disabilities for their mainstream and special schools Change the schools as accessible friendly places for disabled children Strengthen the collaboration among government departments, non-government sectors and relevant stakeholders to ensure the educational right of disabled children Eden initiated the project of IE implementing in formal schools and the plan for barrier free renovation such as walkways, seat toilet and one handrail that fixed in the toilet. In that project, 80 IE students were gathered at Eden Centre for CWDs. Also Eden celebrated the township level awareness meeting for introducing to the teachers for successfully implemented IE policy. It means that the principals and teachers from 21 schools are introducing IE awareness about IE at their schools. Therefore, IE process can only succeed through strong collaboration and cooperation amongst all shareholders especially from the government site and the donor site as well. Eden is cooperating with DSW and MOE. According to their advice, they held workshops and trainings for awareness raising workshop with DSW and MOE and shared awareness about IE and disability issue to other I/LNGOs staff, local authorities, other stakeholders and teachers from mainstream schools. EDEN organizes a series of mobile training courses throughout Myanmar aimed at helping improve the lives of disabled people which focus on activities such as CBR, IE and disability development. Through the help of DSW and Department of Basic Education No. (1), (2) and (3), awareness training not only about IE but also the Social Model of Disability was conducted in mainstream schools. PWDs in Yangon have more chances to access this information with help from NGOs and DSW, but those living in rural areas having difficulties due to inconvenient transportation and lack of mobility, U Hta Oke said. Im pleased about the growing number of people working in the field, but most of them are using a charity approach, which involves giving food, money, tools and other necessities, he said. Not many are using a life-based approach, which means providing training so they can stand on their own feet. Moreover, for the educational status of children with hearing/seeing/ intellectual disabilities in Myanmar is inadequate and behind-the-times. There is only the DSW has one project on sign language especially for people with hearing disability. There is no standard educational practice. Teachers learn by copying the methods of older teachers. According to the UN CRPD agreement emphasizes bi-lingual/bi-cultural education for people with hearing disability. The Mary Chapman School in Yangon uses the philosophy Total Communication that is method has been a widely adopted language policy in deaf education from the 1970s. But this philosophy is out-dated. Graduation rates are very low. In Yangon Division, only 14 students with hearing disability have passed high school and only six have graduated from university until 2011-2012 academic years. Undertaking All School-age Children in School Program In Myanmar, all school aged children in school project (ACIS) was implemented by the MOE by collaborating with UNICEF since 1994 with the aims of reducing the number of over-aged out of school children, eliminating non-school going populace, ensuring that all school aged children to attend school and increasing the enrollment rate of primary level students. They designed the last week of May as the Whole Country School Enrollment Week. 3.6.2 Special schools which are supported IE for CWDs Myanmar has a policy of IE, which means disabled students, including those who are blind, are allowed to attend classes in mainstream schools. This study found that mainstream schools are not properly equipped to cater for students with disabilities which mean that most CWDs are forced to attend special schools, despite the policy. There are challenges to implementing the policy, since schools lack the required resources and facilities. Myanmar Christian Fellowship of the Blind (MCFB) was founded on 4th August, 1975, to upgrade the basic level of education afforded to blind people in order to increase opportunities of leading independent in life styles. That foundation encourages beneficiaries in education specific to their needs including vocational training, as well as a focus on how to cope as a blind parent and job placements. The MCFB accepts children aged five and above and enrolls a similar method to the government mainstreaming schools. At that school, students can learn from grade 1 to 5 and then they can continue their secondary education in formal school. That school charges Kyats 15,000 a year for day students and Kyats 40,000-50,000 for boarding students, which covers accommodation, meals and tuition fees. However, there are over 700 blind and visually impaired students receive a formal or vocational education. The schools should be equipped with teaching materials in Braille, and teachers who know how to teach the blind by using Braille, said Mr. Thein Lwin, the general secretary of MCFB. Also in an interview with the principal of the Kyee Myint Daing School for the Blind found that the school accepts children from age six to 16, who are taught to the fourth standard. After they finished the primary education, they are sent to a formal school to continue their secondary education. The school and provides has both day students and boarders with free of charges for all fees of food and accommodation. The school can accept 200 students for one academic year. Mary Chapman School for the Deaf accepts children from the ages of five to 18. At that school, children can learn regular curriculum that is taught in formal schools together with speech reading, finger spelling and sign language. Moreover, children at that school over 10-year of aged are taught reading, writing and arithmetic and vocational training such as tailoring, knitting, book binding, bag-making, cooking and massage. The school fee is Kyats 6,000 per month including meals for students. The School for Disabled Children in Mayangone Township in Yangon is operated by the DSW. That school accepts both physically and mentally disabled children between the ages of six to 18 and teaches the standard curriculum up to the fourth standard. It has developed a special curriculum for children with a learning disability that take into account the extent of their disability and their capacity to learn. The current admission fee is Kyats 10,000 for one academic year. Further, while the study found that, the technical for education and training initiatives are not new to Myanmar. As a result of some recent educational developments and reforms, it is new to some teachers and learners both in curriculum and methods of delivery. Special Program for Over-aged Children This program is one of the branches of all school aged children in school especially for over-aged children. It was started in 2003-04 AY at basic education schools. If the child has between the age of 7 and 8, he/she will complete the primary education within 3 years and if the child has over 9 years of age, this accelerated program enables to complete his/her primary education within 2 years. Monastic Education System Under the supervision the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the monastic basic education schools are initiated by collaborating with the MOE. They use the formal basic education curriculum of MOE but the schooling hour is flexible according to the students availability. This program is so benefit for the marginalized children including CWDs that is complementary to the formal education system. In 2010-11 AY, there were about 1431 Monastic schools (1071 primary schools, 246 post primary schools, 112 middle schools and 2 high schools) with 0.215 million students including novices and nuns. Currently, at least 40% of all students in Myanmar are attending at these monastic schools. The research found that it is still very few opportunities for CWDs if we compared to the entire nation. 3.7 Problems of accessibility to education faced by PWDs The principle of basic education as a right based approach has been accepted internationally. However, a large number of CWDS are not able to complete a minimum number of school years in most developing countries. They face a variety of barriers before coming to school and even within the school. This research findings highlighted the problems of CWDs to access education that although the regulation and laws on inclusive education for all excluded children have been well established in Myanmar. The government runs the IE as the national level education development plan, however, there is a lack of educational assistive materials such as Braille books, Braille writing frames and syllabuses, qualitative/standard papers for writing in Braille, assistive devices for mathematical teaching or learning, and sign language interpreters. For these reasons and because of the lack of skilled teachers, the IE systems benefits have not been realized. Learning through the restricted environment has also been one the most critical issues of educational opportunities for PWDs that needs to be addressed in order to create equality and equitable education in Myanmar. The current education system does not suit for PWDs in rural area, specifically in promoting the education standard of CWDs. In fact, there are several factors that influence over the education opportunity for CWDs. In addition, the researcher tries to explore what are those factors, challenges, and obstacles in pursuing education in the community. The following data are contributed by the PWDs and community representatives during the field research. Towards the attainment of MDGs, many challenges still remain with regard to special focus which is required on hard-to-reach areas. A need of advocacy with more focus on duty bearer is a strategy to make sure of the long term commitment. The policy needs to be rewritten with a better understanding of authorities, duty bearers and duty holders. Moreover, the accessible services for PWDs in Myanmar is very little, only those who live in cities could access to those services and even then they need to get to such places where by need a lot of barriers to overcome to get there and money factor is another big barrier. In 2008, there are only 100 Physiotherapists appointed in hospitals under ministry of health. According to the First Myanmar National Disability Survey 2010 showed that there were only 50% of PWDs in Myanmar never attended school, out of which 66.5% enrolled in primary schools, 22.2% in secondary schools. Some kind of problems concerned with CWDs. A large percentage of those who do attend mainstream schools soon drop-out because of unfriendly attitudes and environments in educational settings. They often encounter negative treatment from their peers who are not sensitized to disability issues. Most teachers and school principals are not familiar with the idea of including. In Myanmar, one of the Southeast Asian countries, most of the people are still discriminate and exclude the CWDs traditionally. They believe money can make CWDs to be happy. Its not right. In special schools, there have IE projects for all CWDs. It can only the way to make in those childrens lives to be valuable. While the enrollment rate increase almost 100% every year at school opening seasons, there is alarming about 40-50% dropping out before they completed in their primary education so one could imagine for students with disabilities. There is little help for schooling opportunities for students with disabilities with the current situation because of the low awareness about the disability issue, wrong traditional believes and practice, less accessible resources (Brielle, sign language, teaching aids, Buildings, etc.), Low prioritization and no special law and regulation to protect them. Among the four types of disabilities, accessibility for physical disability, blind and deaf disability may be about 3. For people with intellectual disability is 0.05. The vast majority of CWDs never attended school and that a large percentage of the ones who do attend mainstream schools soon drop out due to inaccessible school infrastructure, lack of learning scopes, improper learning process and unfriendly school environment. But amongst the children that are not in any form of educational setups, a large majority shows a keen interest to acquire education. CWDs may have many of the problems that affect children at risk. The difficulties and problems are not because of their impairments but because of several barriers around their environments. During this field research, the researcher notified that there is an absence of reliable and consistent data on the educational status of children according to their disabilities. This makes it difficult for educators, policy-makers and programmers to understand the nature of the problem, and identify possible solutions. Moreover, the current teaching methods are not addressing to the individual needs of students with disabilities by lacking training and experience of teachers in teaching and handling them. Currently, the education of CWDs is concerned by DSW. For this reason, it is difficult to mainstream the program. Education for CWDs needs to be addressed by the MOE by collaborating with DSW and other stakeholder organizations. Economic Factors The high cost of instructional materials of CWDs further curtailed their access to all inclusive education services. Some representatives from DPOs were also presented about the cross section of economic factors of CWDs families to access education. To summarize the various agreements on poverty issues that is seriously hindering the CWDs from accessing education. Poverty is not only affected on the accessibility of basic education for CWDs but also for other children. In other the school drop-out CWDs case, many of them are suffering from an unrecorded or undiagnosed disability. If the community aware more about the disability issue, they could try to improve education for those children, but right now the illiteracy rate of this population is so high and that caused an economic burden on countries. In the failure to include those CWDs, most of the community members are ignoring an important step in our attempt to eradicate poverty. Poverty and lack of knowledge on disability issues are the major problems accessing education for CWDs. Poverty would stand out on top as there are livelihood opportunities for parents who are poor and having CWDs in the family. The researcher agrees with the respondents that because of the perceived added costs of health related problems, the problem is relatively deeper when the CWDs are involved. More than half of the population of PWDs lives in rural areas detached from the benefits of information and communication, transportation, and certain advanced technological facilities. Indeed the high cost of equipments, coupled with the rampant poverty predetermines the near or total absence of instructional materials. There does not seem to be a policy to ensure the massive distribution of these materials. School infrastructure The lack of matching infrastructure necessary for the integration was identified as a key challenge to all inclusive education services. Most of the schools infrastructures are not comfortable for children with physical and visual disabilities. There are many environmental barriers for wheelchair movement. In schools that are at least two stories high, there is no way to climb up the stair by children in wheelchairs or using crutches. Parents of physically disabled children have to be carried up stairs and the doors are also not large enough for wheelchairs to pass through. Lack of classroom adaptations hinders the movement of children with disabilities including the furniture of the classrooms and accessible toilets. These barriers are so difficult to access IE. A key problem is the lack of clear policy guiding I/LNGOs interventions in education for students with disabilities. Another barrier is the lack of reliable information and statistics which could back up planning and funding processes. All schools are under the Ministry of Education, but the development issues of CWDs are still under the DSW. Existing policies related to education and disabilities were found to be contradictory to each other. Appropriate policy formulation adaptation is required to overcome the barriers. Moreover, the budget for education is the basic need and awareness of duty bearers and duty holders need to be promoted along with its legal and policy development. It is somehow, inclusion is not a subject of Teachers training college, training methods tools are not available in Myanmar. Insufficient knowledge of inclusive teaching methodologies, lack of public awareness about the needs and opportunities of this target group and lack of funding to support inclusive education for CWDs are all preventing these children from receiving an education and being included in wider society. It is found that to be depended upon the individual teachers or school principals interest to initiate and include in the mainstream education system. Most of the services are available only in Major City such as Yangon, Mandalay and Sagine where 27% of PWDs are aware of existing social services, while only a third of those ever contacted the agency. Isolation and negative attitude by peers According to the EFA strategy, all schools are found to be enforcing IE process regarding the CWDs but there are no insulting them, special support for them, no strenuous work for them. In some cases, some non-disabled children perceive some CWDs as contagious and fear that they will transmit from those disabilities. Some superstitious parents of non-disabled children want to prevent their children from making friends with CWDs. This is one factor that upsets one of CWDs. Information and awareness sector As to the awareness of NGOs who provide services for PWDs, 14.7% know of their presence but just over 1.7% of those who are aware of the services had ever contacted NGOs. Concerning special institutions, 20.2% of PWDs have knowledge about special institutions but only less than 1.7% of them ever had contact with them. Only 14.6% of PWDs know about the existence of organizations for and of PWDs whereas only 2.5% of them ever been involved with those organizations. Participation of PWDs in IE policy is not a big problem for physically disabled persons. The big problem is IE and vocational training for ID. Government, I/LNGOs and DPOs need to do a lot of it. Unavailable trained teachers in adopting students with disabilities The lack of enough trained teachers has predetermined that CWDs lack the specialized care they need. This could be explained by lack of awareness and disability related facilities like ramps, special toilet facilities, learning materials by the parents. Teachers can integrate the virtue of education levels, roles and responsibilities by being exposed the requirements of CWDs in the community. In almost all schools, the students with disabilities allow to sit in front of the classrooms. Nevertheless in some schools, there was no effort to support for CWDs in this regard. The researcher noticed that one student with hearing disability was sitting at the back of the classroom that worsen her learning skill. When the researcher asked her class teacher about it, she said that the child had not told her about it. Teaching method Another problem faced by CWDs is the traditional methods of teaching and learning that has little scope for addressing diverse learning needs of students, lack of continuous assessment of individual learners, and a serious shortage of assistive devices and learning materials all act as major barriers to CWDs. There is no special curriculum for CWDs in mainstream schools but there are some special schools for CWDs, which unfortunately those schools are not located in and around the rural area. If CWDs can able to access formal education in the mainstream schools, they can gain not only education, but also the opportunity for social inclusion with their non-disabled friends that are so important to practice for their life-skills. Summarizing the interview with one student with intellectual disability from special school shared his feeling that he wanted to attend the school and he would like to live with his friends. If he stays at home, he feels so lonely and bored because he has nothing to do at home. He wants t

Feature extraction using crossing number (cn) and ridge tracking technique

Feature extraction using crossing number (cn) and ridge tracking technique PROPOSED ALGORITHM: FEATURE EXTRACTION USING CROSSING NUMBER (CN) AND RIDGE TRACKING TECHNIQUE The various steps involved in feature extraction are as given below: 3.2.1 ADAPTIVE BINARIZATION The enhanced greyscale image is converted to a binary image using adaptive binarization [1]. Global thresholding is not used for binarization because of possibilities of non-uniform illumination on the surface of scanner. Thus using adaptive binarization with a window size of 91 x 91 (This size was finalised after a number of trial and errors). The algorithm can be outlined as follows: Algorithm: Adaptive binarization Input: Enhanced greyscale image e(x,y). Output: Binarized image bin(x,y). For each pixel (i) of e(x,y) Compute local mean (ml) in the 91 x 91 neighborhood of the pixel. If ml > e(xi,yi) then, bin(xi,yi) = white. Else bin(xi,yi)= black. End For. - 3.2.2. THINNING The binarised image is skeletonised using medial axis transformation (MAT)[1] to obtain a single pixel thin ridge structure. The thinning algorithm can be outlined as follows: Assumptions: Region points are assumed to have value 1(white) and background points to have value 0(black). Notations: 1. The 8 neighbour notation of a centre pixel p1 is as shown. p9 p2 p3 p8 p1 p4 p7 p6 p5 2. n (p1) is the number of non zero neighbours of p1. I.e. n (p1) = p2 + p3 + †¦. + p9. 3. t (p1) is the number of 0-1 transitions in the ordered sequence p2, p3,†¦p9,p2. Algorithm : Thinning Input: Binarized image bin(x,y). Output: One pixel thinned image th(x,y). Steps: 1. W.r.t the neighborhood notation a pixel p1 in bin(x,y). is flagged for deletion if the following conditions are satisfied; 2 ≠¤ n(p1) ≠¤ 6 . t(p1)=1. p2 V p4 V p6 = 0 p4 V p6 V p8 = 0 2. Delete all the flagged pixels from bin(x,y). 3. W.r.t the neighborhood notation a pixel p1 in bin(x,y) is flagged for deletion if the following conditions are satisfied; 2 ≠¤ n(p1) ≠¤ 6 . t(p1)=1. p2 V p4 V p8 = 0 p2 V p6 V p8 = 0 4. Delete all the flagged pixel from bin(x,y). 5. Go to step 1 if bin(x, y) is not same as the previous bin(x, y) (indicating that single pixel thickness is yet not obtained) 6. Assign the image bin(x, y) obtained from step 4. to th(x, y). Thus one iteration of the thinning algorithm consists of applying step 1 to flag border points for deletion deleting the flagged points; applying step 3 to flag the remaining border points for deletion; and deleting the flagged points. The basic procedure is applied iteratively until no further points are deleted, at which time the algorithm terminates, yielding the skeleton of the region. 3.2.3 ESTIMATING SPATIAL CO-ORDINATES DIRECTION OF MINUTIAE POINTS. Minutiae representation is by far, the most widely used method of fingerprint representation. Minutia or small details mark the regions of local discontinuity within a fingerprint image. These are locations where the the ridge comes to an end(type: ridge ending) or branches into two (type: bifurcation). Other forms of the minutiae includes a very short ridge (type: ridge dot), or a closed loop (type: enclosure). The different types of minutiae are illustrated Figure 1. There are more than 18 different types of minutiae [2] among which ridge bifurcations and endings are the most widely used. Other minutiae type may simply be expressed as multiple ridge endings of bifurcations. For instance, a ridge dot may be represented by two opposing ridge endings placed at either extremities. Even this simplification is redundant since many matching algorithms do not even distinguish between ridge ending and bifurcations since their types can get flipped. The template simply consists of a list of minutiae location and their orientations. The feature extractor takes as input a gray scale image I(x,y) and produces a unordered set of tuples- M = {m1,m2,m3mN}. Each tuple mi corresponds to a single minutia and represents its properties. The properties extracted by most algorithms include its position and orientation. Thus, each tuple mi is usually represented as a triplet {xi, yi, ÃŽ ¸i}. The crossing number (CN) method is used to perform extraction of the spatial coordinates of the minutiae points. This method extracts the bifurcations from the skeleton image by examining the local neighborhood of each ridge pixel using a 33 window. The CN of a ridge pixel ‘p is given as follows CN=0.5 { i=18pi-pi+1 } p(9) =p(1) . For a pixel ‘p if CN= 3 it is a bifurcation point. For each extracted minutia along with its x and y coordinates the orientation of the associated ridge segment is also recorded. The minutia direction is found out using a ridge tracking technique. With reference to figure 3.3 once the x and y coordinates of the bifurcation point are known, we can track the three directions from that point. Each direction is tracked upto 10 pixel length. Once tracked we construct a triangle from these three points. The midpoint of the smallest side of the triangle is then connected to the bifurcation point and the angle of the resulting line segment is found which is the minutia direction. Assumptions: Ridges are assumed to have value 0 (black) and background points to have value 1(white). Notations: The 8 neighbor notation of a center pixel p1 is as previously shown. The algorithm for extracting the minutiae using the crossing number technique can be outlined as follows: Algorithm: Crossing number Input: Thinned image th(x,y). Output: Image with (x,y) coordinates and orientation thita of each minutia. Steps: 1. For every pixel p in th(x,y) compute the crossing number (CN) ; CN=0.5 { i=18pi-pi+1 } p(9) =p(1) . 2. If CN= 3, the pixel p is declared as a bifurcation point and its x and y coordinates, i.e. p.x and p.y are recorded. 3. The orientation at the bifurcation points p.ÃŽ ¸ is calculated using tracking algorithm. Fingerprint matching Process:- Each minutiae may be described by a number of attributes such as its position (x,y), its orientation ÃŽ ¸, its quality etc. However, most algorithms consider only its position and orientation information. Given a pair of fingerprints and their corresponding minutiae features to be matched, features may be represented as an unordered set given by I1 = {m1,m2.mM} where mi = (xi, yi, ÃŽ ¸i) I2 = {m1,m2.mN} where mi = (xi, yi , ÃŽ ¸i ) Here the objective is to find a point mj in I2 that exclusively corresponds to each point mi in I1. Usually points in I2 is related to points in I1 through a geometric transformation T( ). Therefore, the technique used by most minutiae matching algorithms is to recover the transformation function T( ) that maps the two point sets . The resulting point set I2 is given by: I2 = T(I1) = {m†1,m† 2,m† 3.m†M} m†1 = T(m1) m† N = T(mN) The minutiae pair mi and m†j are considered to be a match only if (xi-xj)2+(yi-yj)2≠¤r0 min( |ÃŽ ¸i − ÃŽ ¸Ã¢â‚¬  j | , 360 − |ÃŽ ¸i − ÃŽ ¸Ã¢â‚¬ j | ) Here r0 and ÃŽ ¸0 denote the tolerance window. The matcher can make on of the following assumptions on the nature of the transformation T Rigid Transformation: Here it is assumed that one point set is rotated and shifted version of the other. Affine Transformation: Affine transformations are generalization of Euclidean transform. Shape and angle are not preserved during transformation. Non-linear Transformation: Here the transformation may be due to any arbitrary and complex transformation function T(x,y). The problem of matching minutiae can be treated as an instance of generalized point pattern matching problem. In its most general form, point pattern matching consists of matching two unordered set of points of possibly different cardinalities and each point. It is assumed that the two pointsets are related by some geometrical relationship. In most situations, some of the point correspondences are already known (e.g. control points in an image registration problem [5,4,6,7])andthe problem reduces to finding the most optimal geometrical transformation that relates these two sets. However, in fingerprints, the point correspondences themselves are unknown and therefore the points have to be matched with no prior assumption making it a very challenging combinatorial problem. There have been several prior approaches where general point pattern techniques havebeen applied. Some of these have been discussed here. Ranade and Rosenfield [8] proposed an iterative approach for obtaining point correspondences. In this approach, for each point pair mi, mj they assign pij , the likelihood of the point correspondence and c(i, j, h, k), a cost function that captures the correspondence of other pairs(mh,m_k) as a result of matching mi with mj. In each iteration pij is incremented if it increases the compatibility of other points and is decremented if it does not. At the point of convergence, each point mi is assigned to the point argmaxk(pik). While this is a fairly accurate approach and is robust to non-linearities, the iterative nature of the algorithm makes it unsuitable for most applications. The hough transform [9] approach or the transformation clustering approach reduces the problemof point pattern matching to detecting the most probable transformation in a transformation search space. Ratha et al [10] proposed a fingerprint matching algorithm based on this approach. In this technique, the search space consists of all the possible parameter under the assumed distortionmodel. For instance, if we assume a rigid transformation, then the search space consists of all possible combinations of all translations (Δx,Δy) , scales s and rotations and ÃŽ ¸. However, to avoid computation complexity the search space is usually discretized into small cells. Therefore the possible transformations form a finite set with Δx ÃŽ µ {Δ1x,Δ2x . . .ΔIx} Δy ÃŽ µ {Δ1y,Δ2y . . .ΔJy} ÃŽ ¸ ÃŽ µ {ÃŽ ¸1, ÃŽ ¸2 . . . ÃŽ ¸K} s ÃŽ µ {s1, s2 . . . sL} A four dimensional accumulator of size (I Ãâ€"J Ãâ€"K Ãâ€"L) is maintained. Each cell A(i, j, k, l) indicatesthe likelihood of the transformation parameters (Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl). To determine the optimal transformation, every possible transformation is tried on each pair of points. The algorithm used is summarized below for each point mi in fingerprint T . for each point m_j in fingerprint I for each ÃŽ ¸k ÃŽ µ {ÃŽ ¸1, ÃŽ ¸2 . . . ÃŽ ¸K} for each sl ÃŽ µ {s1, s2 . . . sL} compute the translations Δx,Δy Explicit alignment: An illustration of the relative alignment using ridges associated with minutiae mi and mj ∆x∆y=∆xi∆yi-s1cosÃŽ ¸k -sinÃŽ ¸ksinÃŽ ¸k cosÃŽ ¸kxjyj †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦(1) d Let (Δix,Δjy) be the quantized versions of (Δx,Δy) respectively. e If T{mi} matches with m_j increase the evidence for the cell A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl] A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl] = A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl]+1 3.The optimal transformation parameters are obtained using (Δ*x,Δ*y, ÃŽ ¸*, s*) = argmax(i,j,k,l) A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl] References: Gonzalez, Woods, and Eddins. Digital Image Processing using matlab. Prentice Hall, 2004. D. Maltoni, D. Maio, A.K. Jain, S. Prabhakar, Handbook of Fingerprint Recognition, Springer, 2003, ISBN 0-387-95431-7. R.Thai, Fingerprint image enhancement and feature extraction. Australia. Anil Jain, Salil Prabhakar, Lin Hong, and Sharath Pankanti. Filterbank-based fingerprint matching. In Transactions on Image Processing, volume 9, pages 846-859, May 2000. Anil Jain, Arun Ross, and Salil Prabhakar. Fingerprint matching using minutiae texture features.In International Conference on Image Processing, pages 282-285, october 2001. L. Hong, Y. Wang, and A. K. Jain. Fingerprint image enhancement: Algorithm and performanceevaluation. Transactions on PAMI, 21(4):777-789, August 1998. L. Brown. A survey of image registration techniques. ACM Computing Surveys, 1992. A. Ranade and A. Rosenfeld. Point pattern matching by relaxation. Pattern Recognition, 12(2):269-275, 1993. R. O. Duda and P. E. Hart. Use of the hough transformation to detect lines and curves in pictures. Communications of the ACM, 15(1), 1972. N. K. Ratha, K. Karu, S. Chen, and A. K. Jain. A real-time matching system for large fingerprint databases. Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 18(8):799-813, 1996.

How Do You Define Patriotism? Essay -- Definition of patriotism

Patriotism   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Patriotism is defined as a love for or a devotion to one’s country. With the events that happened in America on September 11th, patriotism has been in everyone’s mind and heart. Young men and women have been enlisting in the armed forces to support America. Americans are flying flags on their cars and homes to show their patriotism. Millions of Americans are donating money and blood in support of the victims of the attacks. I would define patriotism as a loyalty and commitment to America and the people in our country.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One way to define patriotism is to look at an example of my enlistment in the Army and the training that I received in Basic. I decided to join the Army in 1996 after an unsuccessful attempt at college. I decided I wanted to serve my country by defending our freedom in the event that a war should happen and help other countries abroad defend their freedom also. It was in Basic Training that I was taught hand-to-hand combat, how to accurately fire a M16 machine gun, ground tactics and camouflage. The training I received prepared me to be ready to defend America. I was committed to serve and protect the country where I lived. I was displaying my patriotism for America by defending the freedoms that I and other Americans have in this country.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another way to define patriotism is to look at the effect the attack on September 11th had on how Americans show their patriotism. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon aff...

africa Essay -- essays research papers

African Cultures   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Africa has more than 800 languages native to its continent. African cultures are so diverse that they are different from any other culture of the world. African cultures contain many different languages. African languages range from common French to languages unheard of to most people such as Swahili. African arts are much different than American arts. Their art involves much more creative pottery, masks, and paintings. Africa has a very interesting culture. Reasons being the people are very creative and like to express their individuality. The most diverse cultures in the world belong to Africa. There are more than 800 languages spoken in the continent of Africa. Most Africans speak two or three languages, their primary language, or â€Å"mother-tongue†, and a second or third language to communicate with people from other close by areas (Fetzer A-102). African languages are broken up into four individual categories: Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afro-Asiatic, and Khosian. The most commonly heard two categories are Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan. Both of these groups can modify the meanings of words by the tone of the speakers’ voice. Niger-Congo languages are spoken of the people in West Africa, below the Sahara desert, Southern and Central Africa. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken mainly in Central Africa. Afro-Asiatic languages are mainly spoken in Northern and Northeastern Africa. This group includes Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, and Arabic. Khoisan languages are spoken mostly in Southern Africa by Bushmen, members of traditionally roaming hunting people, and Hottentots, members of pastoral people of Namibia and South Africa. Khoisan languages are communicative through clicking sounds (Fetzer A-102). Some South Africans speak Afrikaans, a language that was developed from Dutch. Europeans in African speak Portuguese, French, and English (Fetzer A-102). English is becoming very recognized in the countries of Africa. The 1991 South African Census concluded that 45% of the people in South Africa have a speaking knowledge of English. It also concluded that 10% refer to English as their â€Å"mother-tongue†. The most common languages in South Africa are Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu, and Swahili (African Languages). Zulu is one of nine Bantu languages spoken in East Southern Africa. Approximately 8.8 million people speak t... ... language of Africans (African Individuality).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ceremonies are held when someone changes their social status and social relationship with those in the community. There are about six ceremonies in ones life. The first is their birth, the second is their maturity, third is their marriage, fourth is their child bearing, fifth is their elderliness, sixth is their death. Ceremonies are simply socially approved methods of participating in pleasurable events (African Individuality).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Africans view body modifications as beauty. Body modifications, such as piercing, have been practiced in Africa for centuries. People there believe that one is not fully human and cannot be distinguished from animals if not pierced. Piercing is brought with royalty and portrays courage of a person (African Cultures Piercing). African cultures are different from any other culture in the world. The languages of Africa are unique in their own way. The arts of Africa are beautiful and different from any other arts in the world. African people are creative and like to express their individuality. Africa is a very original continent with lots of culture. africa Essay -- essays research papers African Cultures   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Africa has more than 800 languages native to its continent. African cultures are so diverse that they are different from any other culture of the world. African cultures contain many different languages. African languages range from common French to languages unheard of to most people such as Swahili. African arts are much different than American arts. Their art involves much more creative pottery, masks, and paintings. Africa has a very interesting culture. Reasons being the people are very creative and like to express their individuality. The most diverse cultures in the world belong to Africa. There are more than 800 languages spoken in the continent of Africa. Most Africans speak two or three languages, their primary language, or â€Å"mother-tongue†, and a second or third language to communicate with people from other close by areas (Fetzer A-102). African languages are broken up into four individual categories: Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afro-Asiatic, and Khosian. The most commonly heard two categories are Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan. Both of these groups can modify the meanings of words by the tone of the speakers’ voice. Niger-Congo languages are spoken of the people in West Africa, below the Sahara desert, Southern and Central Africa. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken mainly in Central Africa. Afro-Asiatic languages are mainly spoken in Northern and Northeastern Africa. This group includes Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, and Arabic. Khoisan languages are spoken mostly in Southern Africa by Bushmen, members of traditionally roaming hunting people, and Hottentots, members of pastoral people of Namibia and South Africa. Khoisan languages are communicative through clicking sounds (Fetzer A-102). Some South Africans speak Afrikaans, a language that was developed from Dutch. Europeans in African speak Portuguese, French, and English (Fetzer A-102). English is becoming very recognized in the countries of Africa. The 1991 South African Census concluded that 45% of the people in South Africa have a speaking knowledge of English. It also concluded that 10% refer to English as their â€Å"mother-tongue†. The most common languages in South Africa are Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu, and Swahili (African Languages). Zulu is one of nine Bantu languages spoken in East Southern Africa. Approximately 8.8 million people speak t... ... language of Africans (African Individuality).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ceremonies are held when someone changes their social status and social relationship with those in the community. There are about six ceremonies in ones life. The first is their birth, the second is their maturity, third is their marriage, fourth is their child bearing, fifth is their elderliness, sixth is their death. Ceremonies are simply socially approved methods of participating in pleasurable events (African Individuality).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Africans view body modifications as beauty. Body modifications, such as piercing, have been practiced in Africa for centuries. People there believe that one is not fully human and cannot be distinguished from animals if not pierced. Piercing is brought with royalty and portrays courage of a person (African Cultures Piercing). African cultures are different from any other culture in the world. The languages of Africa are unique in their own way. The arts of Africa are beautiful and different from any other arts in the world. African people are creative and like to express their individuality. Africa is a very original continent with lots of culture.

Path to Veterinary Technician Essay

Every person lives to bring self-satisfaction to their life- to find a purpose. Sometimes that self-satisfaction comes from leadership jobs such as being a politician, and sometimes that feeling comes from humanitarian jobs like being a psychologist. However, that incredible feeling of self-satisfaction can also come from careers that don’t directly involve helping people, but involve helping animals. For some, that career might be to become a veterinary technician. It takes effort for one to achieve a dream and obtain that self-satisfaction, and understanding the road one must take to become a veterinary technician is just as important as understanding the road one takes after achieving it, because new and exciting paths open up after that goal is reached. What exactly does being a veterinary technician entail? Think of a nurse, but rather than assisting a doctor and helping human patients, they assist veterinarians and tend to animals. That being said, a veterinary technician must enjoy being around animals and have a desire to help those in need. A veterinary technician will usually perform clinical work, such as blood tests, urinalysis, they can expose and develop x-rays, assist in a variety of diagnostic tests and more while under supervision of a licensed veterinarian. The typical patients helped by a veterinary technician are cats and dogs, but in reality, a veterinary technician can tend to any type of animal. According to VeterinaryTechnican. com, many veterinary technicians work in a clinical setting such as an animal hospital or private veterinarian’s office. Additionally, many of them work in zoos, aquariums, and research facilities (2012). A veterinary technician can also become a specialist with additional schooling to perform procedures such as anesthesia, surgery, dental work, behavioral training and more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that while many veterinary technicians find satisfaction from their job, it is also an occupation that can prove to be physically and emotionally demanding, as well as dangerous. Their statistics show that full-time veterinary technicians experienced a work-related injury and illness rate that was much higher than the national average (2011). Reasons for this can be because the veterinary technician is vulnerable to being bitten, scratched, and lunged at by an animal, as well as being exposed to viruses that they animals might be carrying. When someone considers careers, one of the first things that will come to mind is the required education. Questions such as, â€Å"How many years of schooling do I need? † and â€Å"What schools are the best options for me? † need to be explored fully before making a decision. The path to becoming a veterinary technician begins with high school courses, such as Biology, Math, and Science. For continued education, there are several colleges that offer veterinary technology programs that are accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). A veterinary technician program must be accredited by the AVMA in order for the student to become a veterinary technician. Typically, AVMA courses take around two years to finish, granting the student an associate’s degree. Some colleges have created AVMA accredited courses that take about four years to complete, which will reward a bachelor’s degree upon completion. VeterinaryTechnician. com states that after the student receives their degree, the student must pass a state-administered licensing exam, after which the student can start working with veterinary technicians as a trainee (2012). Naturally, the time spent being a trainee depends on the amount of hands-on experience that the student had prior to becoming one. Now that the expectations for college have been set, a person must figure out how to finance their continued education. Being able to finance college in order to get the career started is one of the most frustrating and difficult things in the United States. College normally costs thousands of dollars and often leads to a lifetime of debt. What the majority of students do not know, however, is that there are scholarships for just about anything that can pay for most or all of the schooling! NCVTSA. org says that several awards are available from the National Association of Veterinary Technicians, but there are also private awards available (n. d. ). One of the top scholarships for this cause is the American Kennel Club and Hartz Veterinary Technician Scholarship Program. This particular scholarship is available to full-time students who attend an AVMA accredited college. In order to be considered for the scholarship, the student must be a student member of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians (NAVTA). Another good scholarship is called the American Kennel Club Veterinary Technician Student Scholarship, where several scholarships are given each year totaling to $25,000. The student must also be a NAVTA member to qualify, and the application requirements include a brief essay explaining their interests, education, research and work experience, as well as recent college transcripts submitted by April each year. Those are only two of the several veterinary technician scholarships available. Especially in this economy, an additional concern that a person might have before they begin their career is how stable the job market is and how well the job pays. No one would want to spend multiple years and waste thousands of dollars on schooling to realize that it is nearly impossible be hired into the career that they signed up for. However, there is good news for veterinary technicians. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job outlook will increase by 36% by the year 2018, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. Pet owners are becoming more affluent and are more willing to pay for advanced veterinary care because many of them consider their pet to be part of the family. The Bureau further stated that there are relatively few veterinary technician graduates each year, and fewer than 3,800 students move onward to become veterinary technicians. Thus, the market is not overflowing with recent graduates trying to become employed. While the job market may be stable for veterinary technicians, the career does not pay a substantial amount. A standard licensed veterinary technician earns from $31,000 to $35,000 a year. If a veterinary technician decided to further their education and become a specialist, depending on the specialty that they would focus on, they can earn a much higher income. For example, a veterinary technician anesthesia specialist earns, on average, $48,000 a year. Like many aspirations to feel self-satisfied, becoming a veterinary technician will take time, dedication and work to obtain. It may not require as much schooling as a psychologist and it may not pay as well as a politician, but earning that feeling of self-satisfaction is what counts in a career. Understanding the road to self satisfaction is just as important as understanding the road taken after the goal is reached, because life as a veterinary technician never stays the same and offers so many different paths to choose from.

Eight Years Wasted, the Economic Failures of the Bush Administration Essay

Eight years wasted. That is the description that befits the George W. Bush administration of the United States between 2001 and 2008. Nevertheless, this is not a case of unfair criticism of the Bush administration, as noted by Republican Senator John McCain who served in Bush’s era (Curl). According to McCain as he campaigned for the presidency in 2008, Bush spent a lot of the United States’ resources on the war in Iraq, which consequently led to a massive economic downturn (Curl). The most obvious impacts of Bush’s actions are reflected in the changes in rate of unemployment, inflation, money supply in the United States, and shifts in foreign exchange rates as well as interest rates (National Organization for Women). Unemployment The rate of unemployment has particularly been worrying since the period between 2000 and 2001 when Bush took the leadership of the United States (OECD). According to Shi and Stevens, the rate of unemployment has been fluctuating rapidly since 2000 when it was about 4. 0 percent (59). Within over a year of Bush’s leadership, the unemployment rate shot up to 5. 8 per cent in 2002 (59). Women and their families were particularly affected by the high rate of unemployment, as they would rarely make ends meet at the start of the Bush administration. In fact, according to the National Organization for Women, the year 2001 marked the period of massive job loss among women in over 40 years (National Organization for Women). Along this line, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research reported that in the period between 2001 and 2004, women workers lost over 300,000 jobs (National Organization for Women). In the same breadth, unemployment rates among single mothers rose of an already bad situation of 9. 5 per cent to a worse level of 10. 2 per cent (National Organization for Women). Statistics from GPO Access show a grim picture of the increasing levels of unemployment since the year 2000 when the United States presidential election that ushered in President George Bush was held. In the figures provided, overall civilian unemployment rate fluctuated from 4. 0 per cent in 2000 to 6. 7 percent in November 2008, which marked the end of the Bush administration (Table 1). Along the same line, the same trend in unemployment rate was noticed among different age groups, fa Another aspect of the Bush administration’s failure is an uncontrolled increase in inflation. At the beginning of the Bush administration in 2001, there was a notable decline in the prices of all items and services as compared to the preceding year. Perhaps this was because of the effort by Bush to fulfill campaign promises. The truth of the matter is that after 2001, the prices of all items went up, declining only slightly in 2003. Since then, there was a notable fluctuation in the prices but overall, the prices remained at an all time high. In fact, the 4. 1 per cent change in price of items (Table 2) was the highest margin to have been recorded since the 6. 1 per cent rate recorded in 1990 at the height of the Gulf War (Irwin and Dan. ). The high prices of commodities and services noticed during the Bush Administration not only affected the financial positions of many families but also influenced the people’s access to essential services such as healthcare (Atkinson and Hutto). According to Hanke, the 2003 United States census showed that any family of three lived on a mean of $51 a day. This figure was arrived at using an assumption that childcare and healthcare services were fully financed by the government (United States Department of Labor). Nevertheless, this was not the case for most families, as they had to rely on their own means to support themselves. In the context of high cost of commodities and services and with particular reference to childcare and healthcare services, many families had to spend as much as over 20 per cent of their incomes in pursuit of these services (Robinson). According the New York Times, the Bush administration cut funding programs for many essential programs such as childcare, which were particularly appropriate for single parent households (The High Cost of Health Care). This move was done as the administration aimed at improving and expanding other unpopular programs such as promotion of marriage (United States Bureau of Statistics). However, the downside of this point is that as focus was shifted to newer programs, the already existing programs suffered an even heavier blow in terms of the exorbitant costs that had to be incurred (The High Cost of Health Care). According to Shi and Gregory, the highest number of individual without healthcare services was recorded in 2003 (60). This is because most attention was diverted to acquisition of other essential commodities and services such as food and housing (The High Cost of Health Care). Yet president Bush still insisted on funding the war to oust President Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. This action can be considered as a case of misplaced priority because whereas President Bush was busy pursuing the United States foreign policy, local affairs (which perhaps needed more attention) were thrown into disarray. Money Supply During the Bush Administration, the supply of money increased, but with some fluctuations. For instance, the total value of the United States currency, traveler’s checks, demand deposits and other checkable deposits rose from $1087. 4 billion to a high of $1473. 1 billion in October 2008 (GPO Access). The high supply of money does not imply that the United States economy improved in the period of eight years. Rather, it is an indication the value of the United States dollar could have depreciated (Crutsinger and Aversa). Thus, the large sums of money released to fund the war in Iraq in 2003 did not add any impetus to the United States economy (Crutsinger and Aversa). Instead, the economy became vulnerable with reference to a weak dollar against other world currencies. In spite of the increase in the sum of currency, there was an increase in debt of domestic nonfinancial sectors from $18,183. 6 billion in 2000 to $32,436. 5 billion in 2006 . This means that nonfinancial institutions increasingly had to borrow during the era of George W. Bush. It therefore no wonder that the United States was crippled by a great financial crisis only comparable to the Great Depression towards the end of Bush’s reign, the overriding factor being that the United States government had spent so much money on defense and war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of internal development. Foreign Exchange As mentioned above, there was a significantly high supply of money in the United States, which characteristically led to depreciation of the United States dollar. In addition, the period was characterized by a high rate of inflation, implying that considerably larger sums of money would be used in buying commodities that would have been bought inexpensively in the earlier period (Atkinson and Hutto). On the international scale, the high cost of United States commodities meant that importers had to pay lots of money to acquire the goods, which ultimately lowered the level of international trade between the United States and other countries (Table 3). Consequently, the United States dollar fluctuated against other world currencies such as the Japanese yen, the Sterling Pound, Chinese yuan and the Australian dollar (Atkinson and Hutto). For instance, the Sterling Pound exchanged at between $1. 9548 and $2. 0442 in 2007 (Table 3), which was a very large variation. The strong dollar against the yen between 2001 and 2002, which was the beginning of the Bush administration, discouraged importation by Japan from the United States (Atkinson and Hutto). At the same time, citizens of the United States opted to import valuable items such as automobiles at the expense of the locally manufactured ones, thus putting the United States automobile industry in the quagmire in which it is today (OECD). The consequence of this is that major competitors such as the Japanese automakers have adversely affected local automakers such as Ford, and the whole industry has been earmarked for revival in the Economic Stimulus Package (OECD). Interest rates Government bond yields and interest rates generally declined between 2000 and 2008. For instance, the value of bills at auction declined steadily from $ 5. 85 to $1. 01 in 2003, but steadily rose from $1. 38 to $4. 73 in 2006 (GPO Access). The low price of bonds meant that banks were in a position to purchase more government bonds, thus diverting their attention from other financial service users such as borrowers (Crutsinger and Aversa). Ultimately, banks were forced to impose high interest rates on the loans they offered to the public, implying that most small business holders and individuals were crippled by a massive credit crunch (Crutsinger and Aversa). The ensuing credit crunch adversely affected the United States economy particularly towards the ends of the end of the Bush administration (Crutsinger and Aversa). Banks were most affected by the financial woes and this necessitated the Bush administration to consider taking ownership of various banks in a bid to protect them from collapsing (Crutsinger and Aversa). This move was however also ill planned, as it would result in unnecessary government expenditure, resulting into higher inflation in the United States (Hanke). In addition, there was no assurance that with the government’s acquisition of the banks, their performance would improve (Hanke). Conclusion Even though the world witnessed a massive economic recession, the woes in the United States stemmed from the fact that the Bush administration spent excessively on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which generally weakened the performance of most local institutions. The underperformance in various sectors was shown in high rates of unemployment, high inflation, fluctuating levels of money supply and foreign exchange rates as well as high bank interest rates. The combined effect of the various phenomena led to a crisis in the entire United States economy, thus making the Bush administration one of the worst leaderships of the United States. References Atkinson Robert D and Julie Hutto 18October 2004. 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