Business Studies

international | anti-capitalism | news report

Thursday September 04, 2003 18:16

by Fergus

cabal-douser at ziplip dot com

Back to School

Lesson 1. The two great drivers of globalisation are trade and investment.

In the case of trade, take note of next weeks manifestations as the World Trade Organisation meets in Cancun, Mexico.

Here in Ireland, this week marks a return of globalisations co-pilot.

With the summer holidays over, Investment in the form of education, returns to the classroom.

Offering the gift apple of 'giving something back to the community', big business in Irish schools wants the teacher as pet and access to a young captive audience.

FUTURE RECRUITMENT

Chief Executive Officer, Joanne Richardson of the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland (ACCI) believes that industry has to go out and sell its values to students.

ACCI, Shell, McDonalds and TedCastle Oil Products are some of the member companies sponsoring Junior Achievement/Young Enterprise Ireland.

A kind of doctrinal-teacher association, it was introduced to Ireland in 1995 with "one vision - where the world turns for economic education" as its mono-cultural themetune.

COST EFFECTIVE POLICY

Junior Achievement Inc. (JAI) was founded in America in 1919 as an after-school programme to teach young people business skills, over the years it developed using volunteer business people.

By 1974 it was found to be more cost effective for business people to teach in the classrooms during normal school hours where they could reach a greater number of students.

STOCKHOLDERS IN THE CLASSROOM

Starting with programmes for five year olds, JAI teaches children how they can impact the world around them as individuals, workers and consummers. For older children, advanced programmes introduce the concepts of how to start businesses in the US free enterprise system.

For example, the 'Our Nation' programme for ten year olds outlines the following.
"In this programme students role play business ownership, interview for jobs, produce a product using different methods of production, create product advertisement and conduct an annual stockholders meeting."

GLOBAL EXPANSION

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, interest in JAI has grown.
Junior Achievement International (JAIntl) was established in 1994 to develop and serve programmes outside the US.
It is now an an organisation that annually trains over 2.2 million students in over 112 countries.

INDUSTRIALISATION IS FUN

JA began in Ireland eight years ago.
Raelene McAteer is its border counties project manager. "We have 19 sequential programmes from senior infants in the primary school up to 6th year," she explains. "These are delivered by volunteers from companies whom we train to deliver our programmes in the classroom. They use the materials we provide and adapt them to include their own experiences."

During the 2002-2003 school year 10 MBNA (the Leitrim based US credit card bank) volunteers worked with teachers in four schools.

One of the programmes taught to senior infants is called 'Our City'. Its about the town they live, play and go to school in, it talks about industries, and gets them thinking about jobs and the kind of job they feel they might like to do.

CLIMATE CHANGE

JAIntl is a registered non-governmental organisation, supported by international corporations, foundations, individuals and development organisations.

With the opening of markets worldwide through trade agreements (e.g. WTO) and the resultant shifts in power from governments to corporations, JAIntl sees itself as having an important role to play in the globalisation process.

To promote pro-business climates in countries, to attract foreign investment.

To promote economic literacy - the general populace will not support economic reform if it does not understand the risks and rewards.

To teach the next generation of entrepreneurs, managers, policy makers and voters the value of free enterprise.

I WANT TO BE A CORPORATE WHORE

Junior Achievement/Young Enterprise Ireland has offices in Louth, Dublin, Waterford, Limerick/Clare and Cork, with an annual budget of $1.2 million, this year its programmes plan to reach 30,000 children in Ireland.

Links

http://www.ja.org
http://www.jaintl.org

and check out our very own cute n'fluffy

http://www.juniorachievement.ie

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