Business Education Resources
A New Paradigm Shift With Vision : The Economy, Business, Our Resources And Stakeholders
In review of President Ernest B Koroma`s tenure his goal, mission and vision has been dynamic without reservations or any prejudices advancing the change concept which has been essentially embraced by the greater majority as a collective initiative for a common destiny is mainstream. He continues to make tremendous improvements within two years in office walking the talk so far so good, with results better uplifting the country with a new sign of hope from the lowest ebb and doldrums it was before his election to office.
He may have suffered setbacks by force majeure, but greatly due to the selfishness of partisan politics, deceptions by so called friends parading his corridors for personal gains and emoluments, foes and opponents both inside the country and outside in the Diasporas making situation difficult for his leadership, as it has become the order of our body politics in rivalry, which he continues to contain and judge prudently with temperance directing him and justice being his guide. Notwithstanding such adversity he continues to exploit his vision in meeting his obligations by statements of pledges made before his presidency. In this light, we must all be committed as sierra Leoneans for the general welfare and well being of our country to embrace his agendas for change as the way forward and better option with collaborative efforts for success in general. Likewise we must also revisit other good ideas and initiatives for deliberations with stake holders and partners since no one person has a monopoly to knowledge. By such gesture in bridging the gap with tolerance, we can guide our nation out of the self inflicted perpetual poverty, miseries, complacency, mediocrity with evil intents. A nation not united cannot stand the test of present global challenges, which demands unified efforts and support the only way to progress and development.
Sierra Leone is not a poor country, but it is the people who are poor in body, mind and spirit because past leaders and those entrusted to make the difference to change for their welfare were poor in ideas, vision, in generosity and lacks compassion. When one chooses to go into politics, it must be with the intentions of serving the people sincerely not the people becoming servants of the politicians, as justifications for inimical acts and self aggrandisements.
Recently it has been announced that oil commonly known as black gold has been found in Sierra Leone. Yes it is right to celebrate and thinking positively to what it can do for the nation and its suffering people. It is too premature to start building hopes without concrete and solid foundation in clear cut policies and agendas directing and favouring the country and its people solidly embedded. Oil has become a curse as well as a blessing to many producing nations globally and we cannot be an exception to this phenomenon. It is a commodity whose irresistible appetite globally can salvage the economy of Sierra Leone with the credence it deserves in transparency and proper management and disbursement of its proceeds in equitable manner in a nutshell can transform the economy. But sadly this does not happen over night and in even five years from now. It takes rigorous planning very conscientiously to get it right. Ghana has also found Oil over five years ago in commercial quantity and is still working out modalities between its government, the explorers’ and stake holders. However this is another opportunity for the country to get the rude awakening of the fact that we ought to go back and make amends and corrections to our many mistakes in other historic events visited unto the country and its people which have left many negatives and few positives effects on the economic system. Never the less with this development in its germinating form, government should regain control by all means of Oil Refinery, restructuring it to start processing crude Oil once again as an initial starter, while in conjunction creating and floating an Oil company with greater shares owned invite strategic partnerships, create and float share holdings possibilities for citizens, local investors both in the country and in the Diaspora who are interested to invest their money. This should be the starting point for everyone including the people of the country to be comfortable in collaborative participation not selected few as was in the past to many economic projects that may lead to chaos in the future.
With hindsight for instance, what have we done with our gold, diamonds, rutile, iron ore, titanium, coffee and cacao, palm oil, ginger and the fishing industries’ to mention just a few? It has brought us the worst nightmare and misery any nation could pray for not to happen. So what is making us abhorring the myopic thinking that it will be better and different this time without addressing and properly auditing the past predicaments of similar nature in our assets misappropriation? There are many more questions than answers to the equation of wealth and minerals of Sierra Leone that needed to be forensically audited critically for posterity, so that transparency and proper fiscal management and even distribution across board should be the guiding principles and benchmarks. Where did we go wrong in the first place, and why and how we did end up the way we are without significant progress to hold on to from the past? The impact on our infrastructures, projects and developments, security and sovereign integrity is nothing good to write home about. If we fail to do so now, a generation will take the bull by the horn in time to come holding our conscience in memory responsible, when we would have gone with the wind with nothing positive left in the annals of history to be the legacy for the children of tomorrow.
All the stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with Africa’s gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores. Our capital flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Africa provides more than 60 per cent of the world’s gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries – the basic economic might of the foreign Powers – comes from our continent. In Sierra Leone we are blessed with many of these minerals resources than even others who are making steady progress like Rwanda for example who do not have a single mineral potential but human resource capacity and have been through a war far devastating than ours making rapid progress in their socio economic development and especially business capacity outsourcing in manpower.
We must start looking at all options but focused on some of our industries which can impact directly on the economy by reviving them rather than doing away with for pittance. This would not only increase the country’s foreign exchange earnings but also offer job opportunities and openings to the large army of unemployed youths both educated and many other who are not. By this strategy we can build vocational training formulas to develop skilled labour force. If the Government because of financial constraints cannot get these factories running again, it should target and invite private investors to form partnerships rather than going for outright sales to infrastructure which at the end would have to be developed all over again. If past governments had recognized the legacy and purpose for building assets and infrastructures as a viable investment for the future, things would have been better managed than they are today. This is one of the many ways the Youths of the country can be empowered with a clear foundation convincingly to join government in building a joint venture future as stake holders and partners relying on the fortunes of the country and the wise channelling or its assets rather than been boisterous, rebellious and recalcitrant being used as political tools seasonally when it comes to electioneering. The youth must be groomed as stakeholders not pawns in a political chess game and as foot soldiers. In this light Sierra Leone will be focusing on being the prime supplier/distributer of manufactured goods to other African countries. Our objective should be aspiring to reduce import for consumption and looking at local production for export and domestic consumptions.
The time is now ripe to implement these plans with the assistance of finding strategic partners who will teach us to fish and process it within our shores rather than always going for the easy option of a bowl in the hand for alms from donors and aid providers which takes away our integrity and capacity to be self sufficient. China and India is ever ready to cooperate with Africa towards development as partners and the time is ripe with the right government in place to engage in barter trading effectively with strategic planning in place; bartering what you have for what you need. This has been the first methodology for the practice of trade and commerce since time immemorial. Many countries developed through this pattern from historic generations to present day. We must now embrace BARTER TRADING as part of our formula for the future we want to see in Sierra Leone. Even run down industries in the UK and other European countries are now rehabilitated by China and Indian and other businessmen through bartering business strategies. Government should create the right environment and provide the conducive policy frame work meeting 21st century solutions for mutually beneficial co-operation with interested partnerships as stake holders in joint venture projects were all parties emerges winners. It is imperative on the need for Sierra Leone to be master of her own destiny, rather than depending on foreign Aid investment and build its own local industries, oil companies, agro industries to meet the needs of her people. Today it is the focus of every other country to earnest its potential through its resources rather than just given it away for virtually pittance.
Dr Siaka Probyn Stevens was the President many hated for political reasons and vilified for partisan purposes was the architect of the great venture of BUMBUNA HYDRO PROJECT which is almost near completion that will turn the wheels of fortune for the country dramatically into a positive spin for energy and security beneficial to industries and other infrastructures thereby improving human resource capacity building. Even the Oil we are now talking about started with positive results made during his era in the early eighties nearly bringing Sierra Leone and Liberia into a border conflict for the possession of the area of SULAIMA which is the demarcation zone we now see on the exploration Oil map that would have been ceded if stance were not taken then by Stevens. Another typical example is what is now happening in the YENGA dispute between Sierra Leone and Guinea with the potential of triggering a border conflict because of mineral deposits the bigger story not dilated yet upon. There is no smoke without a fire. Let us try to be guided prudently by the events of our past history to avoid misinformation and disservice to the people unproductive elements within are waiting to capitalise on for political gains which may have the tendency to take the country back to its darkest days. Nigeria one of the five largest producers of oil in the world has not seen any positive benefits translated into the pockets of the citizenry but rather few greedy politicians and their business allies. It is now an albatross hanging on the neck of many governments affecting peace process and national security. History has shown that many wars are fought for material gains involving territorial and mineral assets influence and motivated by selfish and personal aggrandisement. We must start taking control of our own destiny as a sovereign country with integrity. The whole essence of this philosophy is for us to re-affirming seeing ourselves as equals and partners to any other race under the sun and doing our utmost best to chart a course suitable in building our nation on our own terms and not being afraid to control our destiny. This is the change present OBAMA envisage for the African people in his many speeches especially the one made on his historic visit to Ghana. It is not a crime to think and dream big for Sierra Leone, it is the only way forward better things can be attracted by the unifying forces of positivity. We must transform ourselves from a humiliated, exploited, disgraced and confused personality we made of ourselves as a nation to a RESPECTFUL GLOBAL CITIZEN capable of developing our potentials by enhancing and transforming our resources to human gains and capitals for national benefits.
A lost priority of Sierra Leone’s development is about the fact that the reality of issues has been woefully neglected. President Koroma’s vision and the people’s collective energies in ideologies are what the country needs and surely development will happen, “a paradigm shift”. It is worthwhile to note that the ideologies laid down in the 1960s that is perceived as outdated believe it or not is the “model of development” by which we still continue to rely on and adopted. Nothing actually new has happened that much since 1961. The late Siaka Stevens was a leader of vibrant national passion for development and self-reliance who embarked upon very costly nationwide infrastructure improvement scheme and in the same vein, gave credence to home-grown solutions towards insuring food security by strategic improvements in the agriculture sector including business ventures that saw many Sierra Leoneans entrepreneurs emerging taking their rightful places in the many businesses. In the late 70s most of the rampaging nature of multinational companies in pulling their resources and investments from Sierra Leone was to deliberately take us backward knowingly preparing the ground ripe for chaos because of our quest to take control of institutions and replicating their businesses. Dependency on aid, debt and increasing poverty became the order of the day in the absence of greater economic and political integration. While we should have been steadfast and persevered as a nation, we became divided politically, tribally and socially which started to erode our democratic process, structures and security. Many times we have made bad and unpatriotic statements on past leaders their effigy destroyed or burnt to ashes; mocked and scorned by the very people they use to govern. Not a very healthy signal for our unity and reflections into the future. But most of their memories have survived the test of times like many in other African countries. In the new African renaissance in general and Sierra Leone in particular, we must now place great emphasis on the presentation of history. Our history needs to be rewritten as the history of our society, not as the story of Diasporas adventures. The Sierra Leonean society must be treated as enjoying its own integrity; its history must be a mirror of its society, and our Diasporas contacts and affiliation must find its place in this history only as an individual African experience, even if as a crucial one. That is to say, the Diasporas influence and connection needs to be assessed and judged from the point of view of the principles animating our society and from the point of view of the harmony and progress of our people’s trials, tribulations and developments up to date.
When history is presented in this way, it can become not only an account of how our very elite brothers and sisters who took over the leadership in steering our destiny became more Europeanized in thinking and obligations than the very values, traditions and cultures were over sighted for reasons other than selfish tendencies and personal ego to the country’s detriment losing sight and flavours’ of their pedigree; it can then become a map of the growing tragedy and failures to be understood leading to final triumph of our society over adversity, calamities and misfortunes.
In this way, our country’s history and heritage can come to guide and direct our actions in politics, trade and business, social responsibilities and commitments with a common sense of obligations enhancing our democratic process. Finally we must begin to appreciate and recognise our past leaders and those dim to be heroes and learn to give them their due within our socio-cultural climate and what they stood for cannot be so easily wished away through partisan, tribal or social differences by a group of people.
“Nothing can stand between our highest ideal except the lack of understanding of our inner most power from GOD and the refusal to work with it collectively as a nation and as one people with a common destiny. Our own mental condition, the scope of our vision, our action and faith, determine exactly how much substance of any kind will be drawn to us physically and spiritually. Nature will give us just what in our innermost thought is projected…”
About the Author
Syl Juxon Smith is a Member of ASIS & WABA: Commercial Industrial Business Security Consult (Africa) CCTV SYSTEMS-ALARMS-ACCESS CONTROL SYSTEMS TENDER AND DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS HOME GROWN INTEGRATED SECURITY SOLUTIONS WITH EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA – Offering PR International Trade and Business Consult and Representation
What educational and work experience should one have to seek employment in higher education administration?
college or university level employment
jobs such as in following depts: athletic, admissions, development, recruiting, publications, human resources, etc. I would be interested in most jobs at the college level. I have a BS in business and MA in education.
It looks like your credentials are at least in the right direction, but depending on what you’re looking for, you may need more than that. If you’re looking for a general-purpose kind of position like HR or PR, this is not an academic position and you can probably apply for those directly. But things like admissions, recruiting, and administration will require some showing of a desire to be a part of the academy as such. This could be done by spending some time in a support position at a university, or by getting a masters in higher education administration.
But as you already have an MA, you’re probably looking to get a job, not another degree.
I wouldn’t probably waste too much time on the athletics positions. If you really wanted to do that, you’d already know whether or not you’re qualified and how to get those jobs. The people who are eligible already know who they are.
SIIA – Jeff Shelstad of Flat World Knowledge discusses the availability of open education resources
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Managing Finance and Resources in Education $36.05 This book is in New – Excellent condition |
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Resources for Writing for Publication in Education $7.75 No Synopsis Available |
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Interdisciplinary Education : A Guide to Resources $21.45 No Synopsis Available |
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Microcomputers in Education : A Handbook of Resources $21.94 No Synopsis Available |
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Energy Resources in Science Education $66.3 No Synopsis Available |
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Resources and Higher Education $25.35 No Synopsis Available |
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The Business of Education $27.25 No Synopsis Available |
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Business Education $17.55 No Synopsis Available |
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The Encyclopedia of Small Business Resources $1.89 This book is in Used condition |
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Prentice Hall Business Resources $58.6 No Synopsis Available |
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Sustainability Perspectives for Resources and Business $92.58 No Synopsis Available |
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Mba Resources For Business Professionals $1.3 No Synopsis Available |
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The Essentials of Human Resources Administration in Education $77.96 No Synopsis Available |
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The Big Book of Special Education Resources $38.9 This book is in New – Excellent condition |
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Resources in Education (RIE), 1982 : Index $43.88 No Synopsis Available |
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Managing Finance, Resources and Stakeholders in Education $74.82 No Synopsis Available |
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Providing Continuing Education With Limited Resources $5.36 No Synopsis Available |
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Mommy’s Little Human Resources Assistant Education / occupations Bib by CafePress $12 Visit our Job Shirts for more Mommy’s Little Human Resources Assistant shirts,Mommy’s Little Human Resources Assistant t shirts,job and office mugs, hat Education / occupations Bib Eeewww Baby, Baby Itrsquo;s okay to make a mess in our easy-wash 100% cotton bib. It provides great upper body coverage to protect babyrsquo;s clothes. The sturdy closure makes this one-size bib fit newborns to 36 months. 100% jersey cotto |
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Preparing the Business Plan : Resources for the Classroom $52.23 No Synopsis Available |
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Human Resources Business Process Outsourcing $70.66 This book is in Used condition |
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The Insider’s Guide to Small Business Resources $100 This book is in Good Used condition |
