“Without learning, education will fail to deliver on its promise to eliminate extreme poverty and create shared opportunity and prosperity for all.“
World Development Report 2018 calls for greater measurement, action on evidence
WASHINGTON, September 26, 2017 – Millions of young students in low and middle-income countries face the prospect of lost opportunity and lower wages in later life because their primary and secondary schools are failing to educate them to succeed in life. Warning of ‘a learning crisis’ in global education, a new Bank report said schooling without learning was not just a wasted development opportunity, but also a great injustice to children and young people worldwide.
The World Development Report 2018: ‘Learning to Realize Education’s Promise’ argues that without learning, education will fail to deliver on its promise to eliminate extreme poverty and create shared opportunity and prosperity for all. Even after several years in school, millions of children cannot read, write or do basic math. This learning crisis is widening social gaps instead of narrowing them. Young students who are already disadvantaged by poverty, conflict, gender or disability reach young adulthood without even the most basic life skills.
“This learning crisis is a moral and economic crisis,”World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. “When delivered well, education promises young people employment, better earnings, good health, and a life without poverty. For communities, education spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion. But these benefits depend on learning, and schooling without learning is a wasted opportunity. More than that, it’s a great injustice: the children whom societies fail the most are the ones who are most in need of a good education to succeed in life.”
The report recommends concrete policy steps to help developing countries resolve this dire learning crisis in the areas of stronger learning assessments, using evidence of what works and what doesn’t to guide education decision-making; and mobilizing a strong social movement to push for education changes that champion ‘learning for all.’
According to the report, when third grade students in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were asked recently to read a sentence such as “The name of the dog is Puppy” in English or Kiswahili, three-quarters did not understand what it said. In rural India, nearly three-quarters of students in grade 3 could not solve a two-digit subtraction such as “46 – 17”—and by grade 5, half still could not do so. Although the skills of Brazilian 15-year-olds have improved, at their current rate of improvement they will not reach the rich-country average score in math for 75 years. In reading, it will take 263 years.
These statistics do not account for 260 million children who, for reasons of conflict, discrimination, disability, and other obstacles, are not enrolled in primary or secondary school.
While not all developing countries suffer from such extreme learning gaps, many fall far short of levels they aspire to. Leading international assessments on literacy and numeracy show that the average student in poor countries performs worse than 95 percent of the students in high-income countries—meaning such a student would be singled out for remedial attention in a class in those countries. Many high-performing students in middle-income countries—young men and women who achieve in the top quarter of their groups—would rank in the bottom quarter in a wealthier country.
The report, written by a team directed by World Bank Lead Economists, Deon Filmer and Halsey Rogers, identifies what drives these learning shortfalls—not only the ways in which teaching and learning breaks down in too many schools, but also the deeper political forces that cause these problems to persist.
To not assume that if there is education, there will be learning.
Learning is not the same as teaching. Learning happens when the learner makes the action of learning the primary responsibility of the learner, just as teaching is the primary responsibility of the teacher.
You can have teaching and no learning as the article above here illustrates. We need to accept that is possible.
Yet one could have learning in the absence of teaching.
Learning takes the student much farther along, with less resources, than any amount of teaching can do for the the learner. School and principals and student grades improve at the rate the learner seeks out learning. Infrastructure is not the primary driver of learning. Curiosity and the willingness to learn is.
In the world of learning, we stop using the word ‘student’ and switches its reference to ‘the learner’.
The student goes much farther in their journey of learning when they have piqued their curiosity about what they are learning. That is an almost mesmerized attention to learning. They are learning because they want to rather than they have to.
All children have this innate capacity to be curious. Often it goes unnoticed by the parent as it typically happens in their absence and not in their presence or is picked up when the child does something ‘wrong’. And so as adults, most of us miss seeing it as it happens. We have all gone through it ourselves but we abandoned the notion of what it is, when we got what we had wanted as a result of that process or were punished for exercising it.
What is the true nature of a child’s mind that piques their interest and become mesmerized (be they clean (or unclean) interests) to want to learn? Totto-Chan is a book written in modern times set within the context of World War II in Japan, that explores classic ideals such as curiosity, innocence, shyness, inquisitiveness, confusion, happiness and sorrow that represent some of these traits (all of which are emotional, and less mental, spiritual and physical) in nature) that promotes the mind of the child to want to learn.
A learner then soon discovers that being on the journey of discovering and learning is far more exciting to be on than arriving at their destination (having learned and scored grades). The learner then can’t wait to get on to the next big journey and it did not matter to him whether his scored grades or he did not. That is not relevant to the learner.
Once a learner discovers the joys of learning for its own sake (as opposed to ‘not wanting to fail’ or not making the grades for advancing to the next stage), the systems begins to realize it is becoming difficult for it to keep up with the pace at which learning is happening for the learner. The learner will keep exceeding the expectations that the teachers have set for them. The learner reaches his grades only by as far as he or she is willing to learn. Anyone else who believes that the effort to improve grades lies elsewhere, or with the teacher, is sorely mistaken and does so at the expense of incurring huge costs to the state (as highlighted by the article above here).
Now, the question is: Where would a child imbibe the values of learning? Or, where could the child lose such values? What would allow or encourage the mind of the child to become mesmerized by learning? True childhood means the curiosity that piques a child’s interest for learning. Would that be at the school or be at the home?
REQUIRED RESEARCH ANALYSIS
FOR DETAILS OF DATA REQUIRED FOR RESEARCH ANALYSIS FOR THIS SUBJECT, CLICK HERE.
Do you wonder what came of the billions (possibly trillions) spent by countries both as governments as well as private sector (including foreign direct) investors, across the world, decade after decade (let’s say, now going five decades) with the purpose of creating employment, and then learn to find that unemployment persists relentlessly , companies shut down at the snap of a global economic meltdown and national economic growths continue to take hits, year after year?
Is this story familiar?
Why does this happen?
I am not alluding that the money is siphoned off. That is not where I am going. But, yes, there is another kind of ‘siphoning’ happening.
In the meantime, of course, governments face angry faces of unemployed constituents and so nations react by wanting to see both governments and foreigners ‘continue to invest’ in it. Why does the issue persist?
Often, when an issue persists, it is a sign we have made the choice to avoid some difficult and hard decisions. These hard choices include questions such as what is causing our innate ability to be honest with ourselves, and that includes bearing criticisms, taking a hard look at ourselves (instead of cowing others into submission or hustling as needed), being patient, persistent and being sufficiently resilient to spring back from setbacks, diminish over time. All of which are factors that are critical to the ability of a country to succeed as a nation in growing its economy.
So, which one do you think comes first?
Nurturing our capacity to be patient, to persist and be resilient and being frugal (doing more with less (not spending no more than 10% of the margins for personal spending while the business is still trying to stand up on its feet (and generate its own income) is the first rule of business)) despite the odds stacked up against us?
OR
Needing to seek investments?
What is destroying our ability to grow these innate capacities for us? These and more questions are explored in this article.
Botswana’s new leader wants to shrink the civil service, sell state companies and cut red tape as he targets increased foreign investment.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi has identified reducing the country’s reliance on diamonds and creating jobs for the almost one in five workers who are unemployed as his top priorities since taking office six weeks ago. Private companies will have to take the lead, he said in a May 14 interview in his office in the capital, Gaborone.
“The government in and of itself does not really create jobs,” Masisi said. “It is not my desire to grow the public service any bigger; if anything, it is my desire to trim the civil service so we are more efficient, we are leaner, meaner, and we can do business and we are more attractive to the private sector for them to invest.”
THE OVERARCHING SYSTEMIC STRUCTURE OF UNEMPLOYMENT
THE STORY OF SUPPLY OF LABOUR
THE DIGITAL USE DIVIDE: A SPECIAL MENTION
THE STORY OF DEMAND FOR LABOUR
WHEN GOVERNMENTS INTERVENE
WHEN PRIVATE SECTOR INTERVENES
THE UNEMPLOYED DIGITAL USE (ICT GRADUATES) EXPERTS – WHEN THAT HAPPENS – A SPECIAL MENTION
BUILDING INDUSTRY SYNERGY: VALUE CHAIN MATRICES
THE UNEMPLOYED DIGITAL EXPERT (OR ICT GRADUATES) – A SPECIAL MENTION: WHY IT HAPPENS?
WHEN DEFINING THE TRUE NATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS
REQUIRED RESEARCH ANALYSIS
GENERAL TALKING POINTS OF INTEREST:
THE OVERARCHING STRUCTURE:
Systemically, the growing pool of unemployment today is as the result of the different rates of change that exists between the levels of annual births from as far back as twenty years ago and the capacity of annual jobs created today. Why twenty years? That is the average age before someone becomes ready to join the labour market. The changing rates of unemployment is determined by rate at which these two factors change over time relative to each other.
When the numbers of Jobs Created Today < Children ‘created’ from twenty years ago cause the number of persons that are unemployed adds on to an existing pool.
WHEN Growth Rate of Births From Twenty Years Ago (A)
IS GREATER THAN (>)
Growth Rate of Job Creation Today (B)
= GROWING RATES OF UNEMPLOYMENT Today (C)
A = SUPPLY OF LABOUR
B = DEMAND FOR LABOUR
And so, Growing Unemployment = When Growth of A > Growth of B
Meanwhile Growing Employment = When Growth of A < Growth of B (it would now have the capacity to absorb increasing immigrant employment).
And of course, Full Annual employment = When Growth of A matches the Growth of B
SUPPLY OF LABOUR
The factor that contributes to the supply of labour in any nation is the rate of births. Yes, it is dependent directly, on the number of students who graduate from the education system but how wide that pipe is, would depend on the rate at which the nation populates or replaces itself.
It would, however, not be completely accurate to say that had the overall population numbers not increased substantially over the years, that it must mean that the rate of births has not increased. It could mean instead that the rates of attrition (deaths or migration) or somewhat higher than the rates of births. Hence, the theory would have to be tested before being confirmed that it is so.
Couples within an intact marriage often would have a better chance at influencing the rates of births within their combined capacity to provide for the children. However, in an impaired marriage (and I am not referring to visual or hearing impairment) or a marriage where the couple has lost or is losing their ability to be committed to each other, as a couple they begin to produce children outside of the marriage.
As males become increasingly sexually active with several partners (or with the same partner), he then tends to produce more female progeny. A higher proportion of females within the system would mean a higher propensity of the population to increase its birth rates and therefore even further female offsprings (testament to polygamous communities typically living off on arid lands). It does so, at times, at runaway rates i.e. populate at rates faster than their capacity to provide for it.
Of course, when the males present their progeny within an open system (marriage or a polygamous community), where everyone sees the number and the gender of children he has produced, it is much more evident as a community and as a nation the impact such behaviours will have on unemployment and job creation in the future. When he is, however, unable to do so or such information is limited to immediate family members or the village, impacts of such acts become less discernible to the nation as a whole. Governments seem to be caught unawares of the extent of the issue till the election times are upon them.
THE DIGITAL USE DIVIDE: A SPECIAL MENTION
The Digital divide is a term that typically refers to the gap between demographics and regions that have physical access to modern information and communications technology, and those that don’t or have restricted access. This technology can include the telephone, television, personal computers and the Internet.
But I would like to make a special case for this divide here. The Digital Use Divide. One perhaps that was brought on by man’s own decision to avoid the hard choices when he had to make them.
Think back to the time when we were choosing to decide to whom should a topic such ICT to the population? The old ones? The young ones? Which one did we choose? We thought, it was easier to teach ICT to young minds. Teaching the old ones would be like trying to teach old dog new tricks. It will be painful and take a long time. That is harder. It takes time and resources’. Well, moulded, we sure did.
Except, what becomes the consequence of this choice? It meant that the old ones except in the case of passive use of the ICT are fearful of engaging ICT actively for purposeful and creative uses. They did not want to come across as incompetent or worse, stupid. So what will be the result of older generation trying to work with the younger ICT graduate? What would we do? Did you say, we could ‘push them away’. This way the older ones can avoid dealing with the pain of that fear of using ICT.
Figure 3: Digital Use Divide
Adding, to this, persons who would typically venture into small businesses in the private sector or set up their own businesses would be persons (typically the parents of the millennials) who did not do as well in school particularly in the areas of mathematics and science. They have found it difficult to keep a job since they are not able to do most jobs that are common in the new knowledge economy.
On the other hand, an ICT graduate would have had a much easier time with these subjects, and appear to come across as the ‘know-all millennials who do not care for the ones who do not understand maths and science subjects’. They would then be perceived as a threat to the older ones. These experiences, can often push the wedge in the divide between the two, even further, and often generations apart, from each other.
The trick for now may lie in the young ones learning to make a very conscious, but not obvious, choice to ‘hand-hold’ the older generation along in crossing this bridge of divide that exists now between them. Very patiently and learning not to tread on tender emotions, when doing so. Should the two generations figure ways to build that trust between them, we could possibly enter a new era of interacting between the owners and enablers of the economy that would enable them to expand their market, manufacture bases and export capacity to the region, all of which requires the ICT environment to flourish.
It would also mean opening opportunities up for several other careers such as sales, accounts, finance and marketing to take off in the industry. Should we, however, not be successful in doing so, we face the risk of riding off into a bleak future of seeing the pool of ICT unemployed graduates grow or eventual dwindling of numbers willing to enter the study of the profession or a draining of their talents out of the industry or worse off, the country. That would present a loss of investments by the country in their learning and therefore a possible alternative future for the country.
What is your view?
Now, going back to the point on the supply of and demand for labour, just a bit. The trick is both, the supply of labour (bearing of children) and the demand for labour (creation of jobs), is essentially ‘managed’ by the same person, the man in his 30s to the 50s. When he figures how he would create more jobs than children, he, more than anyone else effectively wipes out unemployment for his country. Not the government.
DEMAND FOR LABOUR:
– WHEN GOVERNMENTS INTERVENE
When governments create jobs (in government) to absorb the unemployed, they do so at the expense citizens pay to the state coffers or from revenue of sales of raw materials extracted from the ground. It typically behaves as a cost to the overall system with low returns.
Additionally, these jobs do not fundamentally change the structure of the economy, in particular develop the primary sector of the economy i.e. the production of natural raw materials by its citizens. This sector not only has the greatest capacity to absorb employment that will be needed for sustained growth of the economy over time compared to manufacturing or industry and service sectors, but it serves as the fuel that will keep the economy burning to some extent, literally, and therefore growing its GDP (the ROI on government and private sector spending).
Investing without the need to sustain the investment is a sign that the country is primed for investments in the sector as a result of solid growth of the supporting industries. However, should a country after, tens of years (decades) of investment injections by corporations and nationals from both within and outside the country and in-spite so, continues to rely on such injections to sustain its growth, it then speaks to a fundamental breakdown of the supporting set of industries (primary for industries and, manufacturing for retail) needed to support sustained growth of the ones above it.
– WHEN PRIVATE SECTOR INTERVENES
Notice as in a pyramid (see figure below) the layers at the bottom of the pyramid of economic structures provide much greater capacities to absorb employment than the ones above it. The math is easy. If there are 30,000 personnel in the services sector, then we are looking at say, 100,000 persons that would be needed within the agriculture raw material production strata to grow and support the layers above it. The services and the government sectors will not be able to absorb 130,000 persons when there is little persons and materials to sustain the growth profitably from within the primary industries. Also refer to Figure 1 below for reference of a country till in recent times that has absorbed large numbers of the population within the primary economic agriculture sector.
The private sector creates new jobs when it has the capacity to generate revenue (notice I did not say funding) in a sustained manner at rates faster than the costs of production of the organization. When the change between the two grows a margin such that the growth in the margins itself is sustained, then the organization is able to create new jobs in a sustained manner for the economy. This does not, however, happen when its development is based on the principles of socialist economic systems where we strive for equality in the distribution of wealth (that poses risks of rising costs). It only happens when the rates of growth of revenues inclines and rates of growths of costs decline.
What would influence that? The current set of employees do. From management and that includes the boss to the cleaner. Companies do not create employment. Employees do. When everyone in the company helps to grow (rather than consume) the margins, they, in turn help the company create margins that help it to expand and therefore recruit more employees in the future.
When we understand that, in principle, anyone could start anything from anywhere. There right there is how new jobs become available to us today from the past. However, when a new employee joins asking what is it in there for them, or carving out their own niche, that’s a warning bell. It is the start of that company not only losing potential new employees but stand to lose their current jobs. When there is unemployment today, this suggests that this has been happening from the past.
THE UNEMPLOYED DIGITAL EXPERT – A SPECIAL MENTION – WHY IT HAPPENS?
When graduates or trained ICT personnel continue to stay unemployed within the nation, it is a sign the following are happening:
A numbers mismatch. This is a case of where there are more graduates created (SS) than there are jobs inherently (naturally as in a free market system, as opposed to forced employment creation (those created by government in response to appease an unhappy voting public)) available for the sector.
Skills mismatch. Where the employers are unsure or even feel threatened to hire ICT graduates. This is a case where employers do not understand what ICT graduates can do (refer to the digital divide segment above, where this elaborated further) for them or what that job would do to affect the bottom-line of the organization. This gap is particularly noted in the small, medium and micro-businesses. If these businesses make up the majority of the populace, then ICT graduates who come from that same populace (who are children of that population), will inevitably find themselves at the short-end of the stick. Their parents are unlikely to open jobs to them, except on compassionate (for socialist reasons) grounds, unless the parent sees a very experienced ICT personnel (who is at this juncture is not a graduate) who can convince they can and will change the bottom-line for the organization. The small businesses make up the major employers of any country. Each one of them may not be anywhere close to the size of your national network chain employers, but they are more important as a combined system in terms of numbers and impact. If this sector does not change its mind towards ICT employment, doing anything else to change it will not make any significant difference to the country.
When other graduates are employed gainfully, ICT graduates are better placed to be employed as well. They usually do not make a substitute for a missing production base, unless the ICT graduate is just as skilled in non-ICT-based jobs, such as cooking food products, as an example, in which case, they would then know how to mechanize the process. When they don’t. the job for which they are trained for, ceases to stay relevant.There is a systemic breakdown of the economic sectors within the country. ICT sector employment does not create or conduct the actual jobs needed to generate revenue within the economy. They facilitate an existing process to become more efficient particularly when the volumes of trade are significant. The presumption is a process or a window exists that needs to be made more efficient between factors of production and management of production. This is caused by two interrelated factors:
This means sales and revenues are generated particularly in a vibrant manufacturing and agriculture sectors. However, when markets are dull (as in what happens when there does not exist a strong set of primary and secondary economic sectors) and the economy is not hiring factors of production (jobs in other sub-sector, e.g. milling, cooking, producing furniture, clothes, and so on) in the first instance, and in which case, this window for the ICT sector becomes narrowed significantly.
So which one is your reason?
BUILDING SYNERGY OF INDUSTRIES: VALUE CHAINS
The easiest way for an opposing political party to bring a ruling government down is, noteworthy enough, not at the elections. It is slowdown, low productivity and tool down at the workplace, often by employees that are party to the opposition. This fundamentally does one thing. It works at gradually eroding the synergies needed in an economy to keep the economy well-oiled and running effectively. These are its value chains.
This does not change because the ruler is no longer at the helm and had to leave office to his opponent. All it does do is the see the camps trade places. But nothing changes fundamentally until, the lines between the ruling and the opposition fade away and the people of all creeds and parties decide to join their hands, hearts and minds as one. A broken industry value chain is a sign of the breaking down of its people of the nation.
WHEN DEFINING THE TRUE NATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS
Governments and nations can only consider patch works of correcting unemployment as a nation when it looks at the narrowest definition of unemployment. To consider working with the real rate of unemployment, it would require understanding the state of unemployment that exists at its fullest extent within the nation. Refer to Figure 3 to determine such a figure. Remember as always, it is not the primary responsibility of governments to absorb these numbers, if they are high.
These numbers need to be understood as a nation and dealt with as a nation to turn the issue around. The ruling party or the government can bring it to the awareness of the nation but it is still the responsibility of the nation in deciding together what it will do next as a nation.
To note, unemployment in the region cannot be ruled out as part of the unemployment structure within the country. We cannot run away from this reality. A true picture of the country needs to include the true picture of unemployment in the region that needs attention.
Homelessness, crime, substance abuses, domestic violence, divorce rates, growing single-parent households and reliance on government programmes are just making up the tip of this ice-berg.
As it appeared in the Botswana Sunday Standard on June 2, 2013
“A relationship does not need the “baggage” we bring to it from our respective pasts. Yet it serves to remind us they are there, if we are still carrying them. Leverage the relationship to work at unloading our baggage together.
The act of doing so clears misunderstandings and brings the two even closer. Every time.
Conflicts in a relationship are not bad. 90% of the time they are the result of reasons from our pasts.”
In last week’s segment of this column, we concluded it was not as easy for one to enjoy sexual fidelity for oneself till one learns to enjoy “emotional fidelity” with one’s partner. It is easy to miss this point in the “heat of the moments” but it is hard to ignore this inter-relationship over time.
When emotional fidelity or intimacy is missing between couples, it brings all relationships to an eventual standstill. It’s usually not just sexual infidelity that causes relationships to crack up. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
What is emotional fidelity or intimacy and what does it look like? What allows a couple to grow it between the two? Does it happen by accident or is it open to nurturing? Or does it happen because it is propped up by obligations as a result of the physical relationships that exist between and around them?
Emotional fidelity happens for its own sake and requires effort exclusively on the part of the couple. Nobody (a child, parents, or wealth) can help do that step for them. Fortunately or unfortunately.
When I do arrive at this stage of my sessions with participants in understanding the interrelationships between fidelity and prevalence of HIV/AIDS, and I present the question, “What is emotional fidelity or itimacy?”, I get the following responses, each time, without fail:
Trust (that I expect my partner trusts me, or I should be able to trust him)
Care (that my partner cares for me)
Loyalty (that my partner is loyal to me)
Compassion (that my partner shows compassion to me)
Sexual pleasures (that my partner allows me to reach that pleasure for me)
Passion, lust (that I must enjoy these)
Respect (that my partner should respect me)
Love (that my partner should love me) … we should love each other, but that I’d love him when he shows his love me.
Listens (that my partner listens to me)
…. And so on, more or less in that order.
Interestingly, while the list appears seemingly innocent, take a closer look at it when we include the words that appear in parenthesis. These are usually not voiced in the first instances. What do you notice?
We had hoped these emotions would happen for oneself rather than for our partner. So it would be not be a case by as much of compassion that I present to my partner as much as compassion that I expect my partner shows me. It is not by as much the respect I accord to my partner, by as much as what I expect my partner to accord to me. If they do it for me, then I shall do it for them. Then it becomes mutual. Otherwise. No!
Yet, relationships thrive, when the attention is on meeting the emotional needs of my partner rather than of myself (and, don’t read this part alone aloud to your partner! (smile). Read the whole article together, if that is possible).
What are the emotional needs of my partner? Would they be the same as mine?
Let me present two words here. “Care” and “Trust”. Both words describe emotions. But which word describes best an emotion that when that need is met for her, helps her feel even more so like a woman. And a man a man. Both emotions are needed, but which one stands apart for each gender?
Would that emotion be care or trust for a woman? Most can agree and men are quite clear of it each time, that a woman feels most like a woman is when she sees “her man cares for her”. Yes, mothers ‘take care of their sons and daughters’. But when the daughter grows up and she has her own children, and may take “care of her son”, she is happiest when she receives care from her husband or boyfriend.
And a man feels at his best, when he sees that his woman “trusts him”. Sometimes, as women we do to others what we expect them to do for us. And so, she may end up ‘taking care of him’, thinking should the more she ‘cares for him’ that more he would ‘take care of her’.
But a man does not need care from his woman. Otherwise he sees his mother in his woman. He needs our trust which would allow him to grow and feel more so like a man. The less he enjoys the trust from his woman, the less he learns to feel like a man. And therefore “stays as a ‘boy’ to be taken care of”. This stunts his emotional development as a man.
How can we be sure these are indeed what best describes the emotional needs of the respective genders? How do we tell? Think what we notice happen in our own relationships?
Also men and women keep different scoring systems. When a man does an act of ‘giving’ to his woman, the score he accords for his act depends on the size of the gift. If say the man takes his woman for a vacation, in his books he has scored a lot of points.
But the woman keeps a different scoring system. Be it the gift is big or small, she accords one point. So, if the man brings her 24 roses or 1 rose, to her she accords 1 point for that act of giving he made to her.
So here’s the trick. Instead of giving her 24 roses (and his book he records 24 points) at one time, bring her one rose but do it 24 times over a period of time. That will be 24 points in her book. What does this mean? What is more important to her is not the size of the gift but rather the consistency in the act of giving.
She could sometimes come across as being ‘expensive’ but all she is trying to do is ‘to make up for the acts of giving that were not done in the past. Hard as it seems, women can be easy. We would need to understand the other genders’ emotional needs first for a more cordial relationship.
The physical needs of the two genders may be similar. We all need warmth, food and shelter. But when we attempt to cross the relationship into the emotional realm, and attempt to meet the emotional needs of the opposite gender, we meet in the differences, and not in the similarities.
So it is easy to get away by saying “he is not my type” or “she is not my type”. It is actually truer than we believe it to be.
“Women mistakenly expect men to react and behave the
way women do, while men continue to misunderstand
what women really need.” Dr Gray
– Author of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”
So who would need to start meeting the needs of the other gender first? Would it be that the woman shows trust in her man first, before he begins to accord care to her. Or would it be vice-versa?
And then there are five other types of emotional needs that are different for men and women. What do you think they are?
What do you see is the impact of couples who are able to meet and build emotional intimacy with each other on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country? What would prevent them from building such levels of intimacies?
These will be the subject of the column’s discussion for next week. Happy discussing and discovering with your family and friends!
Ms Sheila Damodaran works as a systemic strategy development consultant currently developing her practice with national planning commissions in southern Africa. She welcomes comments and queries for her programmes at https://www.facebook.com/SystemicThinkingColumnist or call DID: 3931518.
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