Education and Development: Era of Hope and Disillusionment

It seems almost superfluous to have to highlight formal education as a social and moral institution (historically that has been its main role) but for the fact that after the Second World War greater consciousness on the part of rich industrialized countries spawns fresh concepts and notions that education is an economic enterprise. The human capital concept popularized by the Chicago School of economics as reflected in the works of Schultz and the seminal work of Denison catapulted education into the forefront as an engine of economic development for the so-called Third World countries. Heavy physical capital investment, with the exception of Japan and Germany, which is thought to be a sufficient stimulus for economic development in classical economic theory fails to deliver the goods. The frantic search for an efficacious solution to Third World Poverty unearths the forgotten dimension of educated and trained manpower as the missing variable in the economic development equation. Education becomes the new faith for Third Worlds in their attempts to banish poverty and join the rich industrial clubs. Needless to say, the new faith which holds sway for more than a decade ends in disillusionment (reflected in the Belagio Conference of 1974) for trained manpower is a necessary but not sufficient condition for national development. The complementarity and substitutability of physical and human capital have been overlooked. But whilst the human capital formation theory holds sway, formal education becomes predominently an economic enterprise and correspondingly its function as a social and moral enterprise is reduced in importance.     

Relaxation and guided imagery as an intervention for children with asthma: A replication

Asthma is a pervasive inflammatory disorder of the bronchial airways that causes the normal functioning of the airways to become overreactive. This disorder affects approximately 8 million children in schools per year and accounts for a significant amount of absences. Researchers have speculated that pharmacological interventions are alone insufficient or overaggressive in treating asthma, and numerous studies have demonstrated a connection between emotions and asthma. It has therefore been suggested that psychological interventions may be appropriate for this population. One such intervention, relaxation and guided imagery (RGI), that incorporates mental representations as well as the senses in a process of relaxing all the parts of the body has been shown to be effective with children with asthma. The current study served as a replication and extension of this previous research. The purpose of the investigation was to examine the effectiveness of RGI with an elementary school sample as well as determine the overall improvement in happiness, anxiety, and quality of life of the participants. Results demonstrated that RGI significantly improved the lung functioning of 3 out of 4 participants in the study. Furthermore, overall happiness improved for 1 participant in the study, state anxiety decreased for 2 of the 4 participants, and trait anxiety decreased for all 4 participants. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 707–720, 2005.     

Feasibility of the MTAI as a Selection Instrument for Pre-Service Teacher Education — A Pilot Project

The Institute of Education is the only institution in Singapore that trains and prepares individuals for the task of teaching. In order to ensure that its products, the teachers, are of a respectable calibre, not only should the training programme be reviewed regularly, but also the method of selecting trainees.