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城乡差距对于教育的影响
随着中国科学技术与经济实力的日积月累，中国的经济实力已经在全球取得了突破性的成绩。我们的社会主义价值观取得了极大的成就而正是因为我们国家有着以人为本的教育理念，推进素质发展。彰显出了教育对一个国家的重要性。
作为一个发展中的农业大国，知识的重要性不言而喻了，加强以及投资现代化教育成了现在的一大任务。据有关数据显示，我国的总人口为14亿，而所注册的农村人口就达到了8亿，约占总人口的57%，而农村与城市的人口之比更是达到了4：3。而现在，在一些农村，教育上的细小问题也在慢慢地暴露出来，这些问题不仅大大地限制了农村地区经济的发展，也将孩子们培养学习的兴趣，义务教育制度的实施增添了许多麻烦。而问题所在则是教育资源。教育资源，共分为两种，师资力量资源，以及教育器材资源。
1.师资资源：由于生活环境条件的艰辛，在2010-2013年间，乡村教师的流失量由427万降到了330万，短短的三年内,流失量就达到了142.5万，流失率高达30%。而这些原因并不是因为工资所造成的，据统计一名乡村教师的月薪可达到4511元，而城市教师的工资只有3500元左右。对此政府为鼓励乡村教师对其提供了许多的福利及政策，如一些城市直接聘请满30年教龄的乡村教师高级教师的荣誉称号。
2.教学设备：在大城市里，眼花缭乱的多媒体教学已经实现了多媒体的教学方式，电子白板几乎普遍出现在学生眼前，在城里孩子眼里已经变得索然无味的电子白板或许在乡村孩子眼里是一个缤纷五彩的新世界。
随着时间的推移，各种福利保障制度更加完善，我相信在不远的将来，农村孩子们也会体验到学习的乐趣。

Khao Yai National Park, a mere 200-km away from Bangkok, it is the most visited natural reserve and is situated at an easy access from the capital. It is ranked among the densest forests in the world, that is why it is now a UNESCO world heritage site and Asean National heritage site. It covers more than 2000 square kilometers of Tropical forest, grassy hill slopes and mountain stream valleys. Its natural beauty is simply breathtaking. Apart from driving through the magnificent forest and grassland landscapes, enjoying enchanting waterfalls and trekking on nature trails, camping, biking and bird or game watching are the principal activities in the park. Some of the other interesting activities in the national park are:

Wildlife: from dawn into the wee hours, Khao Yai National park offers exciting adventures like trekking through the mountain jungles and swimming in cascading falls. There’s rock climbing and rappelling, white water rafting and mountain biking as well as quiet bird watching and night safaris.

Golf: With its alpine climate and rolling terrain, the Khao Yai area is a location for golf. Khao Yai has eight golf resorts that combine the natural charm with contemporary amenities to give a perfect stay in this enchanting vicinity.

Adventure sport: Be it kids’ adventure, family fun, amazing thrills, team challenges or even fear factor activities; Khao Yai promises fun and excitement for families, corporate groups and team building activities. Visitors can enjoy life at the Greenery Resort with exciting activities like ATV, Zorn Ball, Thunder Hawks and Rock Climbing amongst other thrilling activities.

Vineyards and wineries: The farm and winery, which is, at the same time, a classy resort and a wellness spa, is located in the green field of vineyard, where Shiraz, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Syrah and Chenin grapes are cultivated. In order to disseminate the process of vine making, an educational tour of winery can also be organized.

Shopping: Khao Yai has big outlet malls and shopping arcades that can fulfill the day for shopping lovers.

Due to Khao Yai’s alpine climate and fertile soil, farms, ranches and vineyards have sprung up as well as recreation facilities, hotels, resorts and eateries.

Student: Chabuskhan Hamdalee

Dokdo: Korea’s Sovereignty and Territory

H.Yoo

A country is defined by its sovereignty and territory, and Dokdo lies at the heart of what defines Korea as a country. Japan started claiming Dokdo as part of its territory since the twentieth century. Japan, by taking advantage of its economic superiority over Korea, pursued tacit agreement with other countries to claim Dokdo. As a result, not a few countries have wrongly marked Dokdo’s position in East Sea, and there has been some distortion in the ownership of Dokdo. As a result, the relationship between Korea, which has historically held a negative view of Japan, and Japan has worsened. In this regard, Dokdo is a representative case of the long-standing conflict between the two countries arising from Japan’s colonization of Korea. In particular, Dokdo symbolizes Korea’s determination to never again be subjected to foreign control.

Ever since Japanese rule, Japan has maintained its dominance over Korea, and because of Japan’s continuous efforts to restrain and limit Korea’s progress and claims, Korea have had difficulty expressing its views in international relations. The conflict over Dokdo and the nomenclature the “Sea of Japan” instead of “East Sea” exemplify this situation. However, Korea has vigorously claimed ownership of Dokdo because it clearly understands that any sovereignty must defend its territory at all costs. Given this directive, Korea has engaged in a wide range of campaigns and movements at the global level to address its conflict with Japan and claim rightful ownership of Dokdo. Not only the government and nongovernmental organizations but also celebrities and even ordinary citizens have taken active part in promoting various campaigns to expose the truth behind Dokdo, including the “Do You Know Dokdo?” campaign, which is designed to disseminate across the world the fact that Dokdo belongs to Korea, not Japan. In addition, Dokdo has three registered residents: a married couple and the Dokdo lighthouse keeper are registered residents of the island. Dokdo is not a place suitable for comfortable living because of harsh conditions of East Sea, including its frequent typhoons and isolation. However, these people reside on the island because they consider it their duty to the country to exert ownership of the island. Although Japan has recently engaged in some military provocation toward Dokdo, this residence makes any such efforts more difficult and solidifies Korea’s claims.

Although there is still a long way to go, these efforts have had considerable influence on the global community, which has started to acknowledge the issue and sympathize with Koreans. For example, a new law enacted in July 2014 in the State of Virginia requires school textbooks in the state to use the name “East Sea” alongside “Sea of Japan.” This would not have been possible without the participation of numerous individuals dedicated to the cause.

These activities raise the question of why Korea and Koreans are so adamant about their ownership of Dokdo. I believe that this fundamentally arises from their innate desire to never again be manipulated or controlled by any foreign power, especially Japan. That is, Dokdo may simply mean some economic and political benefits for Japan, whereas the territory symbolizes freedom for Korea.

Freedom is something no true Korean would forgo at any cost.

J. Xia

Canada is hit hard by the Great Depression. Suffering from the economic depression, Canadian people face the problem like lacking food, unemployment and increasing rate in suicide. The government had changed and made lots of different policies during 1930s, but the economy condition is still not positive from the Canadian perspective- So, what is the next step the government is going to take?

When the depression began, Mackenzie King was the Prime Minister and he believed the crisis would pass, refused to provide federal aid to the provinces, and only introduced the moderate relief effort. Whereas, in the next election, Bennett defeated King and became the Prime Minister in 1930. The Liberal Party is defeated by the Conservative party. Bennett was a successful western business man and campaigned on high tariffs and large scale spending. He made three policies as a Prime Minister. F irst, he spent 20 million to the provinces, but there was few jobs created. Second, he rose the tariffs so the trade between foreign country became expensive and it would improve the finance in Canada. At last, he created work campus. They were located far in the woods; men worked for 20 cents a day; food was terrible and beds were full of insects. When Bennett became the Prime Minister, most Canadian people believed that he would lead them to overcome the depression. Therefore, Bennett had lots of pressure and each of his decision was highly attended. In the first four years, he did not spend too much federal aim on the recovery of economy. However, some Canadians started to doubt his policy and called for more spending on the recovery. In 1935, Bennett put more aid on the depression, but some Canadians started to change their minds and wanted King to be the Prime Minister in the following years. Some people criticized that Bennett was too radical and was a trouble maker. The result of the election was not surprising- King became the Prime Minister again. The Liberal Party came back! In 1935 the Liberal used the slogan “King or Chaos” to win a landslide. Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U.S., the Mackenzie King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. Some experts said it marked the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations and reversed the disastrous trade war of 1930-1931, lowing tariffs, and yielding a dramatic increase in trade, and it revealed to the prime minister and the president that they could work together well. Moreover, King equalized payments to ensure all provinces could offer the same social services. Most people agreed that it was much more beneficial than the policies of Bennett.

Moreover, during the Great Depression, the government prohibited the immigrants to come into Canada because they already could not satisfy with their own citizens, they had no reason to let other people to immigrate to Canada. What action made most people aware was they started to send foreign people go back. Some people support this decision because it made more available resources and money for Canadians, but some people opposed the action because it was too cruel for those people especially who were in Asia. The data showed that about 10000 immigrants were deported by the government. Experts said the immigration policy would continue until several years of the economy of Canada get recovered.

In addition, the effects of unemployment were very severe because employment insurance and welfare payments did not yet exist. 1 in 5 Canadians depend on government relief. Therefore, pogey in Canada was lower than the lowest paying jobs to discourage people from wanting to be on it. Men had to wait in line for hours and declare their financial failure publicly so it was too cruel for some men that they would like to choose suicide rather than be insulted in public.

The economy is getting better since King signed the treaty with the America and most Canadian people believe King will lead them to overcome the depression this time. Canada has suffered since the U.S. stopped to buy their wheat. Therefore, all Canadians put their hope on the treaty and believe the U.S. is the real factor that can save them. Hopefully, the Great Depression will pass soon and Canadian economy can get flourish again.

India is still a poor country, ranked 127 out of 177 in the Human Development Index, and therefore one must question the rationale of spending more than a billion dollars on a sporting event. I’m sure Danny Boyle would show something better of India than he showed in Slumdog Millionaire, only if this money were spent on more important issues like poverty, illiteracy and unemployment.

Therefore, I stand to challenge the very idea of hosting the Games. I would talk about the harm done and debate whether it has done us any good as against what it has taken from us.

A lot has been said about the Games aiding to our quest to build a strong image at the international level. But, we must not ignore the fact that proving to the world that we are very well capable of organising an international event of such a scale would do little good, when made to stand against our shortcoming of not having been able to provide food, clothing and shelter to the majority of our population.

Some people argue that the infrastructure developed for the Games shall serve its purpose over the coming years as well and hence the expenditure is justified. However instances from the past stand in sharp contrast to this. The ‘infrastructural wonders’ which were built in Delhi for the Asian Games, 1982 have not been able to serve enough purpose and are majorly underutilised, till date. The Players’ building – the large residential complex built during that time – remained uninhabited for 15 years, till it was reborn as the Delhi Secretariat. Not a single stadium has been maintained appropriately and they are thus, more often visited by rats and snakes than by humans. Thus it is quite apparent that these stadiums are simply given a facelift in the run up to an event but otherwise left in a state of disrepair.

India has been reeling under the threat of terrorism and it was not long ago that we suffered from the brutal Mumbai attacks. On top of that, we have not even been able to tackle the problem of internal militancy. An event of such magnitude and national importance, with thousands of foreign nationals coming in, made our country all the more prone to another terror attack. Lack of attendance at the Games may also be attributed to the same reason. An online poll conducted by tripadvisor.com found that 93% of the foreigners from the Commonwealth nations did not want to travel to India, out of which, 37% attributed their apprehensions to security concerns.

For weeks before the CWG, our own newspapers and media channels belligerently showed the abysmal situation of Delhi to everyone. Indians packed off for holidays when they realized that offices wouldn’t function during the days of the Games.

Countless people have been displaced due to the development works for the Games, undertaken at the otherwise untouched and underdeveloped areas of East Delhi and Yamuna River front. To ready the area, ‘illegal’ structures in the area have been demolished. This means that the slums that had spread in the area have had to go, regardless of the fact that low-income housing is practically nonexistent in the city and thus the slum dwellers have got no relocation.

Some avid supporters of the Games say that it was a great ‘learning experience’ for our Government and its officials and that things would just get better. This is also used as grounds to justify their opinion that we must now bid for the Olympics, as well. But the Asian Games, 1982 disprove this as well. Budgets were overshot and the quality was abysmal, even then.

Before hoping for a better performance in such endeavours in future, we must not forget that over the years, our love for mediocrity and corruption has only increased!

An overhead bridge collapsed, injuring 27 people and a bed buckled under the weight of a boxer, while the greedy politicians-turned-heads of the Organizing Committee feasted on the grant of ` 70,000 crores, issued by the Indian Government. Thus, the Games were simply another opportunity for our Government to showcase its talent for robbing the coffers of a poor country to the core and to reinforce the fact that blunders on its part could easily be swept under the carpet, in the hope that they would soon be forgotten.

The Indian contingent spent ` 40 crores on getting the message – “See You in Delhi” across at the closing ceremony of the Melbourne Games in an 11 – minute show. Considering that among other things, like A. R. Rahman being paid ` 5 crores to compose the theme song, I would say that the Games were an extremely expensive ‘PR’ exercise and simply an exercise in nationalism and politician-supported patriotism.

Let’s look at the larger picture now. Why couldn’t the grass root issues be taken care of before venturing into something as big as the Games and how important was it for an underdeveloped nation to go into such waters as these, while the majority of its population is still below the poverty line? Given the current economic situation, the country would have been better off without the Games and the money that has been spent on building the white elephants (stadiums etc.) would have been better utilised to build homes for the poor. The beauty of these stadiums would impress only those who are not conversant with the dismal state of the millions of people across our country, who live in conditions which would certainly be classified as unfit, even for cattle in the West.

I tried my best not to write much about the already talked about issue of corruption. But I came across something on the day the Games concluded and am tempted to share it here – ‘The Games went off well. Very well…Now let the Audits begin!’

Student: Vipul Joshi