The Department for Education has finally confirmed that financial education would be part of the English national curriculum comprising lessons on public finances. For the very first time, students would be taught how to manage their finances so that they do not fall prey to any sort of monetary complications later in their lives.
Financial Mathematics – a new chapter
According to members of the department, financial education would also be given in subjects like Citizenship and Mathematics for students in secondary schools. However, ‘Financial Mathematics’ would be the area which would be emphasised for the first time. Students would be asked to solve problems related to Percentage Change and Simple Interest. With this, students would learn how to make plans for financial decisions while attending citizenship classes.
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“It is especially welcome to see the link between personal finance and public finances restored to the final programmes of study for Citizenship education,” said PFEG chief executive, Tracey Bleakley. Young students will learn about public expenditures, taxations and everything about personal finances apart from money management.
Financial education aims at a wider audience
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MyBnk charity founder, Lily Lapenna said, “All of us who have fought for financial education to be accessible to all young people can celebrate today. The priority is now to support teachers in providing quality and focus on reaching all young people including those not in formal education and post 16.” Well, this was a strong indication towards promoting financial education.
As per the researchers from IPSOS organisation, it was found that:
88% of the adults agree that financial education should be an integral part of the schools
Although France was recorded to have the lowest percentage in the demand of pursuing financial education in schools, the percentage was 63
Finance degree holders can expect bright career prospects
As far as the importance of a finance degree in the job market goes, it has been ranked among the top 30 undergraduate degrees in terms of potential pay package. Reports from an online salary database, PayScale, say:
Starting median salary of professionals revolves around $48,000
Median salary of professionals in midcareer is over $85,000
Thriving career routes for new graduates had been pointed towards financial analysts, financial advisers, securities sales agents and real estate brokers
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With such a heavy demand of pursuing financial careers all over the globe, working professionals now seem to be more inclined towards seeking online education. Even accredited universities are now coming up with online master’s and bachelor’s degree in finance along with affordable payment modes and easy learning strategies for both students and working adults.
In fact, online finance courses are now preparing individuals to get into the nitty-gritty of their field with knowledge in portfolio management, international finance and even risk management. So, even if one who is working and hence planning to go for higher studies in finance can always join an accredited business school online. Accept it or not, your career prospects would reach heights in almost no time.
In the pursuit of getting their dream job, many people even oblige to work for nothing. It’s the time that they should voluntarily say no to unpaid internships, in order to completely stamp it out.
Today, it does not seem to baffle us any more when we are asked of unpaid internships. The insensitive debate over whether the interns deserve to be paid does not make any sense.
You may feel disheartened but not surprised, as many young people are oblivious to the fact that most unpaid internships are illegal and not acknowledged by many businesses. Many interns are unaware that they officially obliged to national minimum wage.
Most people readily take on wearying unpaid work because they think it as an essential step towards career building. In the present days, young people willingly submit themselves to unpaid work solely to achieve their goals.
A number of job boards have joined the ranks and made outstanding progresses by banning the unpaid positions. Graduate Fog and Intern Aware, among others are some of the burning examples.
Unpaid internships must be considered as illegal, rather than highlighted as a moral grey area for the ignorant young people, or to remind an inexperienced start-up unintentionally overlooking the law. Moreover, there is need for the government to engage with unpaid internships.
Employers are not allowed to choose which parts of the law they have to abide by and which they can casually take no notice of. The employment legislation clearly states that anyone needed to work for a set number of hours, who is given tasks and who contributes to the growth of a business, is classified as a worker and therefore is liable for the national minimum wage. This rule is meant to be followed by all businesses, irrespective of size or profits, other than charities.
Though one may say that every graduate is not considered as deserving job candidate just upon leaving university, it is very shaky, unpleasant ground to deprive a young person of their legal rights.
The employment legal set-up is simple, elegant, though it appears that it is a stretch for those who believe considering a worker as an intern is awfully clever and who cunningly sidestep the law.
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Such insensitive ploys only disregards the functioning of the law, and a simple modification to define intern would probably do little to improve the prevailing scenarios, as companies would just devise alternate name.
In spite of HMRC’s efforts, the right to minimum wage is not being strictly enforced by the government. Unpaid internships have not been made a part of party policy. Our government is not willing to openly discuss the crucial matter. However, there are some political figures lending every possible help to condemn unpaid internships.
Moreover, there is a need to spread awareness among young people. They do not need to put up with this system and must have enough guts to defend their fundamental rights.
If you undertake an unpaid role, you are blatantly ignoring the illegal practices being run in the job sector and facilitating a company to use you as economically insignificant labour.
Online learning is otherwise a mode of education that lets students conduct their studies via some devices like computers, tablets and even smartphones, so they might miss out the essence of an in-person classroom – interaction. Educators, however, realised this matter quite beforehand, and devised several processes to make more use of interactive sessions, so that students do not feel secluded, and can be encouraged to participate more enthusiastically. Interaction for online classes can be of three types:
Learner-instructor interaction
Learner-content interaction
Learner-learner interaction.
Learner-Instructor Interaction:
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Learner-instructor interaction is very important to inspire active participation on online learners’ part. Interesting measures are taken into measure by eminent online learning providers to successfully implement it.
Weekly Podcast:
Online learners need to know what their instructors expect of them regarding their progression with course. One easy way many online course providers take to do this is creating a weekly podcast to model and explain the expectations from the online learners.
Online Discussions
Learning and engagement are seen to be low in absence of discussions (Journell, 2008). Arranging regular and involving online discussions is one of the most effective ways that many online education conductors implement to provide guidance and feedback by online instructors to the learners.
Regular Feedback
To provide regular feedback to the learners, instructors make extensive use of emails, blog comments, discussion board and podcasts. With these devices timely and individual feedback is made possible quite effectively.
Online Quizzes
Conducting an online quiz session, online instructors can launch a good interactive discussion. Not only, this enriches learners’ knowledge, but also creates a bond between the instructor and the students.
Learner-Content Interaction:
A good online learning programme balances the wealth of content with evading any overload on students. The subtlety of this balance is truly required for an ideal online programme and successful interaction between learners and learning materials.
Formative Assessment and Benchmark
Providing online learners with formative and benchmark assessments into Problem-based Learning, helps students monitor their progress towards learning results.
Guidelines to Online Content
Lucid and elaborate guidelines to understand online content is very helpful to the online learners to build a strong understanding between learning content and online learners in an interactive way.
Teaching and Assessing Collaborative Skills
In well-structured online learning programmes, expectations from the students for their collaborative projects need to be communicated clearly. Such guidelines make the content really interactive in informative manner.
Learner-Learner Interaction:
Many studies show that interaction among learners helps a lot for the progression in learning. Researchers highly recommend organising variety of groupings for interaction, like small group discussions or discussions including the whole class into the process, partner assignments and individual responses.
Twitter Chats
Involving only the course participants, Twitter Chats can be designed to provide an experience of real-time conversation among learners, thereby enabling them to gain new perspective and expertise.
VoiceThread
VoiceThread helps an online learner to create a multimedia slideshow, with his/her peers commenting on the slides. Other learners can respond by text, voice or video comments.
Watch2gether
Watch2gether allows online learners to enjoy a setting whereby they can watch a YouTube video together and at the same time engage in a synchronous chat to start a discussion on the topic viewed.
With these versatile interactive methods, online learning can be made more lively, more enjoyable and more engaging both on instructor’s and learner’s part. These interactive measures are integral parts of any good online learning programme that helps its students from a thorough knowledge on a topic with substantial interest invested to the learning process.
Like Rooda AlNeama many people are flocking around long-distance MBAs, for they find it an unparalleled and viable medium to have their business management qualification completely in their own terms. After having her undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University in her native land Qatar in 2008 she worked for Shell in Dubai, and then travelled to the U.S., India, and Korea with her husband who is a petrochemical engineer. With such a moving life she could not ever plan an on-campus MBA, which she could finally do with her distance MBA from a U.K.-based university.
Remote learning can really be a valid alternative business schools can offer to mentor students for entrepreneurships. “You have to lead your own learning”, as says AlNeama. “If you’re on campus, you can always ask for help from your peers. If you’re working on a start-up, you have to lead your own research, I’ve had to do that here.” And, now when she is completing her MBA she has already attached to her entrepreneurial projects. Shortly, she will have her involvement in Turn8, which is a Dubai-based start-up accelerator. She is also striving with her social media start-up Crowd Analyzer, parallel to her MBA. These entrepreneurial project involvements made her dissertation-writing on entrepreneurship in emerging markets much easier.
Hooked up with three Egyptian entrepreneurs Ahmed Saad, Bahaa Galal, and Mustafa Othman, AlNeama’s Crowd Analyzer is aimed at developing a social media analytics tool that deals with the differences in Arabic dialects, and to measure consumer sentiment, and functional processes of governmental agencies, for working with big brands.
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Independent Learning
Distance MBA through online studies gives her such flexibility of study, that she could plan and organise her entrepreneurial planning. Pursuing an online MBA, one is about 90% on his/her own. Of course, there is continuous teacher- support round the clock. But, one has to keep up his preferred pace with his chapters, assignments, and threaded discussions. The difference with on-campus MBA is in the flexibility of schedule that is fixed in on-campus programmes, but very-easy-to-cope-with modes with the online mode. For development of entrepreneurial mindset and infrastructure liberty of study-timing is indispensable.
Stress-Free Learning
Acquiring MBA degree through online, one relieves oneself from physical as well as financial stresses. It is very necessary to stay healthy over the period of the studies, and studying in the comfort of home, one gets the constant opportunity to stay healthy. Being healthy, one can always think something additional apart from his usual course of routine. And in this case an online MBA student can plan his entrepreneurial works parallel to his study.
Financially also, MBA in online mode is considerably less stressful. The huge monitory investment one needs to make for an on-campus MBA is far too high than this one. The huge savings one makes by going for a distance programme can be better utilised as initial capital for his entrepreneurship.
Equally Valid with Proper Accreditation
A distance MBA having all the necessary accreditation ensures that its student get equal validity with their degrees and qualification. So, one need not panic whether his qualification will be regarded as the valid one before the world.
Recently, a testimony on behalf of legislation proposing the comprehensive development of media literacy education in Kindergarten through 12th grade was heard by the Massachusetts Legislature’s House-Senate Joint Committee on Education. Diane Levin, Professor of early childhood education at Wheelock College has shown her strong support of legislation. She said, “I testify in strong support of this legislation because of my deep concern about how media and technology are affecting today’s young children and changing what and how they learn.” (Source: goo.gl/5oN4k5)
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Diane Levin is concerned about the role of media and technology in the lives of today’s young children and has been a part of the years of research on the issue. The modern day educators and policymakers are complete failure in adopting the changes and have failed to take into account these changes in respect to their work with children and families.
While she was indulged into the research, the work led her to a recently released book, Beyond Remote-Controlled Childhood: Teaching Young Children in the Media Age. The book tries its best to empower early childhood educators do according to the proposals of Massachusetts legislation.
If the legislation is passed, Massachusettthe country’s first state the wisdomhas wisdom and foresight to get rid of the blinders the educators and policymakers of today are wearing. They are unsuccessful in considering the impact of media and technology on the optimal development and learning of children.
Media and Technology: Transforming Childhood
It is a fact that media and technology have completely transformed the childhood. A lot of time is being spent by today’s children on different kinds of screens. According to recently released study, most children between the age group of 0 to 8 years spent an average 3 hours each day with different kinds of screens.
Lives of many children are getting affected by the technology. Diane Levin adds that the term remote-controlled childhood gives a hint on how the time, ideas and behaviour of today’s children are conditioned and controlled by on-screen activities, programs created by others have gained control of children’s lives in the modern times.
She further says that modern day’s educators have to understand and work to thwart the remote-controlled behaviour and learning in order to successfully promote the optimal learning in children.
Inclusive media literacy and education
The comprehensive media literacy education for young children should depend upon the following factors:
Broad-based learning that focuses on the entire ways media affects today’s students. A comprehensive learning to counteract RCC, PSDD and CDD should be introduced.
Promote training programmes for educators so that they build up a complete understanding on how media affect the learning in children and what should the strategies be to thwart them.
Strategies should be formulated to help the families and parents deal with media more effectively and incorporate media and technology based learning in the lives of their children more efficiently.
Media literacy programme: more important than ever
The comprehensive media literacy education programmes are already being offered in many countries. The children in these countries are faring well in comparison with the children in US. Mandatory media literacy education for all the children and comprehensive media literacy education training for teachers can be the most obvious and extensive ways to ensure successful inception of media and technology based learning programmes in the schools.
One of my cousin sisters, Julie Simpson, was very keen about getting a degree in Psychology. She stays in the USA with her parents and since childhood, she had dreams about coming to the UK, living with me and to pursue her psychology degree from a reputed UK university. According to her, UK people have the best fashion sense and also the universities are the topmost in the whole world. Well, I won’t disagree to this though!
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However, as her luck had it, she met with an accident just a few days before her coming to London and went in coma for almost 5 weeks. Her parents were devastated, and me being her favourite cousin sister, was not able to concentrate on my work at all. Luckily, she woke up one fine day but the doctors told her parents that she won’t be able to walk ever in her life.
She was stoned and as she was a very ambitious girl since a kid, she was totally depressed when she came to terms with the fact that moving to the UK and getting a degree in Psychology from there will not be possible anymore. But I was there beside her and the idea which I gave over the phone changed her life forever.
Julie’s Wish, My Command!
When she was shifted from her hospital to her place, I called her up one day and congratulated her. She was totally shocked at my behaviour but I told her that I wasn’t joking. I congratulated her because she was now a part of one of the most reputed UK universities and was a student of psychology. She was totally out of her wits and asked me to explain, and I did.
Being in the education sector myself, I knew that how online education has helped so many learners around the globe. So, why not my own cousin! Hence, I myself registered her name with one of the most reputed distance course providers in UK and congratulated her over the phone. She was happy but she was also not sure about the online degree as she had always wanted to earn the same from a regular UK university.
I told her that how online education is becoming the latest trend in the global education system and how all the reputed UK universities are offering their courses now online. She was convinced and she successfully completed her course in psychology online, from home.
Skills She Gained From Her Online Psychology Degree
She learnt to see the world in a different manner: As she was quite depressed with her condition, her online psychology course helped her tremendously to overcome that feeling. She became much more aware of her inner self and got to know herself in a much better manner. She became much more confident after completing the course.
She met a lot of people through the virtual world: Her online course let her befriend a lot of people around the globe. She interacted with them, exchanged thoughts with them, she studied with her co-learners, interacted with her educators via video chats, social networks, etc. She realised that she is not less or inferior to anyone and her physical disability is nothing but a condition of her health.
She incorporated Critical Thinking: Her online course let her become a critical thinker. She became much more aware of her surroundings. She knew how to carry out various studies and researches. She was a totally different person after the course.
Julie’s Present!
It’s been almost a year that she completed her psychology course online and believe it or not, she is now working with one of the most reputed hospitals in the USA as a Consultant Psychologist. She works from home and counsels her patients who visit her at her place. She earns almost what she had dreamt of earning as a psychologist and she truly believes that her online psychology degree course was a blessing in disguise for her!
Working professionals need to keep upgrading themselves to make sure that they don’t fall behind in the rat race. The job market is becoming more and more competitive by the day, and to keep pace with your competitors you have to stay ahead of the game. If you are if the sector of business administration and the like, a postgraduate degree in the same subject will work wonders for your career. There is one very prestigious degree you can opt for, that will assure you a good job in the future. The name of the degree is an MBA.
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An MBA is one of the most respected degrees in the world of business and commerce. If you are equipped with an MBA, getting a high salaried job will not be difficult. Students all over the world, these days, apply for MBA degrees to get better jobs. These degrees are even more popular in developing countries like Nigeria. Since students in these counties are not financially stable, taking up an MBA degree is not easy for them.
However, with the advancement of technology and growth of the education sector, MBA degree courses can now be studied online. There are many benefits of doing online MBA courses than just the cost factor. Here are a few advantages of studying MBA online.
Studying MBA Online Can Benefit The Family
When students who are a little older, or are married and have responsibilities, study MBA through traditional courses, they can’t give enough time to their family as they have to either stay away from them, if they study in another country, or because their MBA courses are so ‘heavy’ that they require undivided attention. This why their family feels neglected and the students keep worrying about them. If you study MBA online then you can spend more time with them as you won’t have to leave them and go anywhere.
Studying MBA Online Can Also Be Beneficial For Those Who Suffer From Medical Conditions
Students who suffer from medical conditions or are physically disabled can easily study MBA online. They won’t have to move around and the courses are designed in such a way that they won’t cause students any sort of additional stress. Therefore, these degree courses are perfect for people who have a medical condition but also want to do well in life.
Studying MBA Online Enables You To Work And Learn Simultaneously
Now you do not have to leave your current job to study your MBA course. Online MBA courses can be studied from the comfort of your own home, anytime during the day. You can also save on transportation and lodging. Since you’ll be working, you won’t even have to take a loan to pay for your tuition fee.
With such brilliant advantages, these days, any student who cannot go to a traditional college can easily opt to study for their MBA online.
Most people force out from studying MBA programs because of high tuition fees. While researching about the MBA courses they ask why MBAs are so high-priced. As most MBA programs are expensive, many students depend on the education loans for paying the tuition and living costs when in business school.
However, MBA enthusiasts can follow some ways and save on their MBA by getting to study similar quality programs at reasonable tuition fees. Here are a few tips to consider before signing up for the course and to save big on MBA degrees.
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Ask for scholarships and fellowships – Graduates interested in the MBA programs can apply for scholarships and fellowships, among other education funds. Scholarships and fellowships can sometimes help students get discounted tuition fees or even the free MBA course at the same time. You should research well on the internet and find out about everything about the MBA fellowships, grants and scholarships. Students must not leave out this opportunity, as they can save a hefty amount if selected.
Study online – As there are many well known universities and schools offering MBA degrees online, it is easy for students to enrol in an accredited online MBA program and earn a degree same to traditional ones in worth. Online degrees allow you to save lots of money, as you do not require relocating and quitting your job. Online learning is very much flexible due to which students can maintain their full time jobs with academics.
Get a job that pays – Some major companies pay their employees to go back to the schools to learn and acquire the new skill sets. Enrolling in MBAs has become a rage amongst the modern day students. There are a few companies that pay total whereas others pay part of the employees’ MBA fees, but either is a great deal for the students because of the high tuition costs associated with MBAs. If your current employer has no offer as such, you can always get them to talk on the issue or switch to other company offering such benefits.
Study part time – If you want to get the degree from brick and mortar institution but do not want to quit your day job, consider studying part time MBA program. There are several business schools offering part time MBA programs. As most part time classes are held on the weekends or in the evening time, you can still continue your studies along with the day job. This will help you at certain level to reduce the burden of student debt.
It is quite hard to find cheap and affordable MBA programs but one can save a huge amount by following the above mentioned tips.
The medium of learning has been undergoing some changes with the continuously changing ways of modern life. The simple and linear life of past has been replaced by a relentless run for money from the very early phase of life. The worldwide crisis over industry and economy has made a strong impact on our planning and doing things in life. Studying up to a satisfactory level of learning is not so common these days. Rather, students now more tend to involve in job after a certain minimum level of education.
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The reason is pretty clear. One tries to secure his means of living first. So, higher education remains an unfulfilled dream for many. And, once one enters into his work life, it gets really difficult for him to look back once again to start anew. Even if one plans to study further, his work schedule does not allow him to do so. Educationalists have noticed this problem area quite some time back when they initiated a new style and mode of learning, better known as distance learning. Technology with its huge innovations has given this alternate mode of education a new and better shape. Nowadays, distance learning can be done online by the students of every sort, from diverse circumstances and from every economic zone.
The UK’s Excellence In Designing Distance Programmes
Now, talking about online distance education, countries in which it underwent rapid developments, like the US and the UK are far ahead in their online programme designing. For obvious reasons, as top UK universities hold the legacy of golden age, as well as the credits of producing legends, and are still retaining a considerable supremacy over the world, online distance learning in the UK has developed more than any other universities of the world.
Numerous Benefits With This Mode Of Learning
The benefits of their online programmes are multifaceted. A person from any part of the world, and belonging to the most humble economic class can plan his distance learning from the reputed UK universities. It takes just a fragment of cost which one needs to incur to going for a regular campus-based course from UK universities. Secondly, he needs to pay only for the module he is taking. He does not at all have to pay the entire course amount at once.
A working person can easily make his work commitments undisturbed, and study alongside. With 24/7 availability of course materials and tutors online he can study according to his convenience. With the high-tech learning devices like video tutorials, video conferencing for group discussions these fully accredited online programmes from UK universities are so experience-enriching that one gets easiest ways to rise in career with his learning.
If you are stuck in the middle of your career and looking for the good career opportunities to take your career to the next level, enrolling in an MBA programme is a right decision. An MBA degree provides you opportunities to move ahead in your career and boost your salary. Having an MBA degree means you are a certified master in business administration.
The MBA qualification put you on the competitive edge to grab the lucrative opportunities coming along your career way. Nowadays, online learning has caught up in the education sector and students have options to decide whether they want to pursue MBA at brick and mortar colleges or modern and virtual classrooms.
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A few prospective learners are concerned about the acceptance of online MBA degree in the job market, to tell them that several recent job market surveys mention that online degrees are widely accepted by the recruiters, encourages them to take up the online courses. However, online MBA programmes are useful and advantageous if you have taken up the course from accredited universities, like UK universities.
Look Up At A Few Benefits Of Studying MBA Online
Online MBA Courses Are Flexible
Many working professionals see their career hit a roadblock because of lack of higher educational qualifications. Always remember that professional development is very much related and directly proportional to academic qualifications. Online MBA is the best way to earn higher qualifications without compromising with your professional commitments. Moreover, online classes can be accessed as per your suitability to time and assignments can be submitted online. Online MBA offers various flexible options to the learners and make them feel at ease for entire course duration.
Friendly Online Environment
Most online MBA courses take into consideration various factors that best suit the working professionals as well as young students. Though one might think that they will lose the face-to-face interaction with faculty and fellow students, the chance to build the network at online platform is something more rewarding and fruitful.
Availability Of Plenty Of Accredited Online MBA Courses
Many people have the wrong notion of online MBAs being the scam created by diploma mills, though it is vastly incorrect. The major accreditation bodies are AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS. Most online MBA courses are accredited through these bodies. The popularity of online courses has made many top business schools offer accredited programs to the students from across the world.
Most Online Programmes Offer Same Curriculum As Traditional Programmes
The major online business schools offer the same curriculum as on-campus courses and bring on the same faculty to teach online learners. So, students must shed their hesitance and enrol in online MBA courses without worrying about their credentials.
Affordable Tuition Fees
As online MBA courses do not involve greater infrastructure cost, tuition fees tend to be at the lower levels. Moreover, students can save additional money spent on the commuting and relocation. Hence, online distance learning courses lead to a significant savings on your part.
Therefore, enrol in an online MBA course to advance your career and bag lucrative job opportunities. Make sure to take up the course from accredited institutions only.
Online Education Courses For Caribbean 