Wednesday, November 29, 2006

ICT project

Project description
This project aims to improve quality of life and alleviate poverty among disadvantaged rural populations through greater access to context-specific education programmes using ICTs.
Implementing agenciesAsia-Pacific Programme of Education for All (APPEAL) and Community Learning Centres in the region
Region/country coveredAsia-Pacific
DurationApril 2002-July 2005
Context/problem being addressed
The Education For All 2000 assessment exercise confirmed that, in spite of significant progress in many countries, there are still serious shortfalls, particularly with the lack of coordination and support for education of out-of-school children and the provision of literacy and continuing education for youth and adults. In the Asia and Pacific region, there are 625.4 million adult illiterates accounting for 71 per cent of the world’s illiterate population. Of that number, 64 per cent are reported to be girls and women. Furthermore, a large proportion of these illiterates are adults, youth and unschooled children of ethnic minorities and disadvantaged sections of the population who live in rural and remote areas and urban slums.
On the other hand, some countries in the Asia and Pacific region have made significant progress in literacy during the last two decades. Many countries are recognizing the importance of continuing education (CE) as an essential extension to literacy to promote human development and lifelong learning. CE is expected to become even more urgent and important as it provides the main vehicle for learning to cope with the rapid changes that are taking place in the new century. CE must be seen as a productive investment resulting in positive returns, not only in terms of economic growth, but also in improvement of quality of life and the overall development of society. CE is of particular importance to out-of-school youth and neo-literate adults.
In attempting to respond to the needs in the region, UNESCO’s Asia-Pacific Programme of Education for All (APPEAL) has supported member states in systematizing the non-formal education curriculum, training personnel and developing learning materials. Since the late 1990s, APPEAL has also has been promoting the concept of Community Learning Centres for generating grassroots based interest and participation in literacy, basic education and continuing education activities for disadvantaged people.
To respond more effectively to the diverse learning needs among and within member states, this project will take advantage of the power of ICT to contribute to promote EFA and encourage the application of alternative strategies to APPEAL activities. Using the potential of ICT, the project will also explore more effective use and delivery of existing resources and develop new resources to widen access to and improve the relevance and quality of learning.
ObjectivesThe long-term objective is to improve the quality of life and alleviate poverty among disadvantaged rural population groups through the provision of greater access to context specific education programmes using ICT.
Strategies
· Situational analysis and formulation of strategies for using ICT for community development. This is to make researchers grasp the socio-economic conditions of people’s lives in order to identify community needs and to formulate concise strategies for the utilization of ICT in the community.
· Community empowerment through capacity building using ICT, ie. to encourage and assist community people, particularly in disadvantaged population groups, to empower themselves through learning programmes in the application of ICT and capacity building.
· To support and upgrade the facilities that will enable the community people to access ICT for receiving information and knowledge on issues such as health, HIV/AIDS, environment, population education etc. for improving the quality of their lives.
· To build the capacity of community people in developing their own ICT programmes for community development and poverty alleviation Improving the planning and management of CLC personnel through ICT to enhance the capacity of managers and facilitators and NFE personnel to integrate ICT into learning processes and to formulate, manage, and monitor ICT programmes in education through the training and application of ICT products based on APPEAL resource materials.
· Information/experience sharing through ICT to continuously document, compile and share the different experiences of utilizing NFE materials, training and management as well as innovative practices, using ICT through the APPEAL network including the Clearing House of UNESCO Bangkok.
· Policy on ICT for NFE - After the project experiences have been collated, the policy makers will be encouraged to engage in policy dialogues for developing an ICT friendly policy in NFE and lifelong learning.
· Building on existing knowledge, initiatives and results saves time as well as human and financial resources. UNESCO Bangkok will implement this project, calling for UNESCO internal cooperation and the participation of external institutions and specialists. An intersectoral approach will be implemented while keeping a clear education focus.
Activities
· A survey will be undertaken in the countries concerned to grasp the socio-economic backgrounds, identify community needs and existing resources and the potential for ICT programmes for NFE.
· Collected data/ information will be studied and analyzed by APPEAL in cooperation with NFE and ICT experts to prepare a guideline for the strategies and action plan.
· The planning of project details will be undertaken at the APPEAL-ACCU planning meeting, with heads of DNFE, ARTC and LRCs from selected member states in the region. This annual meeting provides NFE personnel both from GOs and NGOs with the opportunity to share their experiences, brainstorm new approaches for the ICT project and jointly develop strategies and action plans for the project among the member states.
· A draft training guideline will be designed from the outcomes of the planning meeting in order to structure the capacity building workshop.
· The Capacity-building Workshop for NFE Personnel for Community Empowerment will be designed using the above guidelines and conducted at the regional level. The ultimate goals of this approach are for the community people to access information / knowledge through ICT, design and manage their own activities, develop their own materials etc.
· Each participating country will prepare an ICT project using the selected CLCs as well as new sites to demonstrate the ICT programmes to develop and deliver NFE progammes.
· Based on the outcomes of the regional Capacity Building workshop, district and community level personnel will be consequently trained and empowered in the use of ICT, and given the ability to design and manage content-specific programmes using ICT in their CLCs.
· Pilot projects will be organized in selected CLCs. The community people will organize a project from its planning to evaluation by themselves, in cooperation with NFE specialists at the district level using ICT.
· The 5 participating countries will draw up their innovative experiences including materials developed and documentation on the process of training and materials development. This information will be shared between CLCs in the member states through the Clearing House and Literacy Database.
· A regional workshop will be organized to provide a forum to share the materials developed and other project experiences
· The Expert Meeting on Material Development and Training will be organized jointly with the capacity-building workshop at the regional level. This meeting will examine how to convert the existing APPEAL resource materials for NFE stakeholders as well as other resources on the NFE programmes into various ICT (digital) formats for wider, direct and more interactive use by CLC managers, facilitators etc.
· Based on the Expert Meeting on Material Development and Training, APPEAL, in cooperation with experts, will develop prototypes of ICT materials, if necessary, or adapt/convert user-friendly materials for use in NFE. Training manuals on how to effectively use these materials at the district and community levels will be produced.
· Capacity building programmes for CLC and NFE managers will be conducted at the CLCs using APPEAL resource materials with ICT, such as MANGO, handbooks, etc. as well as content-specific materials developed in the meetings.
· Review Meeting/Planning Meeting
· The impact of activities will be compiled and analyzed. These documentations will be shared through publications and websites using the Literacy Database and the UNESCO Bangkok’s Clearing House and audio-visual materials such as videos.
· Online training programmes will be designed to provide interactive learning using the internet and CD-Rom. An internet discussion forum will be conducted to gain wider inputs and analyses to improve the projects using the UNESCO Bangkok Clearing House.
· The project experiences in the country will be presented to the decision makers for formulating a policy on ICT for NFE, particularly in remote rural areas, through national seminars, study visits, research monographs, video documentaries etc.
· The policy of ICT for NFE in the participating countries will be shared during the APPEAL-ACCU planning and policy meeting in order to review the situation and promote awareness on this matter among the NFE directors.Back to top
Expected results
· The following data and information at national, district and community levels to be collected and analyzed in order to examine how ICT can play an effective role in community empowerment: Problems and needs of NFE, Infrastructure, diffusion of ICT hardware/software and their usage for NFE activities, Case studies on effective ICT application for NFE activities.
· Guidelines for the strategies and action plans of the ICT projects for NFE programmes prepared.
· Planning and policy meeting for ICT projects for NFE programmes organized at the APPEAL-ACCU planning meeting. Needs, resources and potential roles of ICT for NFE in this region discussed in the meeting.
· Joint Action plan produced.
· A draft training guideline for capacity building workshop designed.
· Capacity-building Workshop for NFE Personnel for Community Empowerment organized at the regional level. NFE personnel at national level to gain the following knowledge and skills: Concept of the community-oriented ICT project, Appropriate and Effective selection and utilization of ICT tools for community empowerment projects, concrete ideas/methods how to use ICT for CLC management.
· Action proposals for the ICT project with community people submitted to APPEAL.
· Capacity-building workshops for NFE personnel for community empowerment at district and community levels. Participants to gain the same knowledge and skills as the regional/sub-regional workshops mentioned before.
· Training manuals and curricula applying to the local contexts developed and distributed in each participating country.
· Community-oriented ICT pilot projects in CLCs organized. The process of planning and implementation of the project recorded. The pilot projects evaluated with the participatory methods by
· community people and internal/external NFE experts.
· Reports compiled and translated into English
· Review meeting of phase 1 (5 countries) organized. In conjunction with the review meeting, training workshop for the phase 2 (another 5 countries) organized.
· Continuing monitoring and evaluation conducted
· Existing contents-specific materials collected and studied
· The Expert Meeting on Material Development and Training organized at regional/sub-regional levels. The following outstanding issues examined in the meeting: Effective conversion of training resource handbooks into various ICT formats for direct, effective and more interactive use of the resource materials for CLC managers and facilitators, Effective and rapid training methods using the resource handbooks through ICT tools, Effective use of contents-based materials through ICT, Effective use of MANGO, PLANET, APPEAL Computer software etc.
· Prototype versions of ICT materials developed or concerted. The training manuals and curricula through ICT developed.
· In some participating countries, national editorial meetings organized and vernacular language versions of the APPEAL ICT materials as well as its training manuals adapted
· Capacity building workshops for CLC and NFE managers organized at district/community levels.
· Materials and manuals used by communities and monitoring and evaluation conducted using the existing framework of CLC projects.
· Project outcomes/experiences reviewed at the APPEAL-ACCU planning meeting, where the heads of DNFE of participating countries will report the impact of the application of ICT for NFE.
· All reports and other documents such as main findings from evaluation, resources developed under the project stored as database and shared through UNESCO Bangkok web-clearinghouse and the Asia-Pacific Literacy Database.
· On-line learning programmes designed to provide interactive learning using the internet and CD-ROM.
· Internet discussion forum conducted in the UNESCO Bangkok Clearing House Website
· Formulation of the policy on ICT for NFE encouraged through national seminars, study visits, research monographs, video documentaries etc.
· The policy on ICT for NFE formulated and approved in some countries in the region.
· The policy will be introduced, and ideas regarding the policy shared at the APPEAL-ACCU planning and policy meeting.
For further details, please contact:
Kiichi Oyasu
Programme Specialist in Literacy, Asia Pacific Programme of Education for All (APPEAL)
UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education P.O. Box 967, Prakanong Post Office Bangkok 10110 Thailand Tel: (66-2) 3910577Fax: (66-2) 3910866E-mail: k.oyasu@unescobkk.org

Activities:
· The Expert Meeting on ICT for Non-formal Education - 28 April – 2 May 2003
· Regional Workshop on ICT for Community Empowerment through NFE: 22-25th June 2004
Resources
· Electronic resources on ICT in NFE and development programmes

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Great Leaders

Leadership intrigues me. Good leadership, that is. There are different opinions as to what really makes a good leader, but something that they all have in common is their ability to do what they think needs to be done no matter what. Good leaders listen to advice, but they stick to difficult decisions regardless of the opinions and threats of others.
The victory experienced by the Jewish people at Hanukkah was mainly due to good leadership. Many of the people were giving into the oppression of the ruling foreigners. They went along with the Emperor's plan of religious and cultural assimilation even though it was against the very foundations of their God-given faith. That is until Mattitayu the priest said, "No."
Mattitayu and his five sons revolted against the powerful oppressors. Though victory wasn't immediate (it took several years before the people gained their freedom) it started with this one man.
What was the secret of his leadership? Hundreds (maybe thousands) of books have been written in the past several years that claim to reveal the secrets of leadership. Each one attempts to provide us with the psychological and managerial tools to overcome our environments so that we can rise effectively to face the obstacles of life and succeed (in whatever way the particular author defines success).
I wonder if these leadership techniques in modern management literature would have helped Mattitayu or any of the greatest leaders of history.
So what makes great leadership? What enables a human being to lead people out of some of life's most horrible circumstances?
You may not agree with me, but I think that it is the leader's willingness to die for their cause that makes all the difference.
For Mattitayu to be able to stand up to his oppressors as he did, he had to be willing to die. Otherwise there would be a point where he would have given in just like many of his contemporaries. He too would have become an oppressed follower. But once he accepted that his resistance might result in his own death, and he was willing to resist anyway, he became a true leader.
Not every cause finds leaders risking death, but certainly they must continually risk significant loss - loss of job, prestige, relationships, money, and so on. As long as other things can dictate their decisions they are no longer true leaders.
This is how Yeshua leads us. Because he was willing to die on our behalf, he was also able to set us free from our greatest oppressor- death.
By giving his life, he released us from the guilt of our sins. Through him we no longer face the threat of eternal damnation. Instead, from the moment of our receiving him into our lives, we are transferred from the oppression of evil to the freedom of God's goodness.
Just like Mattitayu, Yeshua stared our oppressors in the face and said, "No." It cost him his earthly life, but it was worth it.

What makes a good leader?

The leadership qualities that are required to make a good leader can vary in different companies, teams and situations.
This can be illustrated in both art and modern leadership models. For example, the fact that leadership qualities are dependent on context is demonstrated in the play The Admirable Crichton and the film Twelve O'Clock High.
For example, in "The Admirable Crichton", written in 1902, the Lord and butler swap their roles as leader and servant as the situation changes. On a desert island, the butler's practical skills are essential for survival, whereas the Lord's knowledge of English politics is of no value.
In the film "Twelve O'Clock High", produced in 1949, as a squadron starts to suffer increasing losses during the war, the leader's people-oriented approach starts to fail. He is replaced by a dictatorial bully who turns the squadron round and restores their pride (in modern setting, such leadership behaviour would often be regarded as unacceptable).
Leadership Styles
Some people have one style of leadership, which is fine if they can find a situation that requires that style of leadership.
Flexible leadership, however, involves being able to adapt your leadership style according to the situation and the state of the team - eg: taking charge when a team is forming but playing the role of coach when a team is managing itself well.
The different types of leadership required for different team states are described on our Tuckman page. The different leadership styles for different situations are described on our leadership styles page.
Also, the need to change one's leadership style according to the circumstances is one of the fundamental principles underlying popular models such as Situational Leadership (develop by Blanchard and Hersey in the late 1960s). And there are many other examples that go much further back, to biblical times and other periods of recorded history.
Perspective
How you approach leadership qualities will depend on whether you are looking at the subject from the perspective of an organisation or an individual.
Organisations aim to improve their performance by selecting and developing individual potential. At the outset, the needs of the organisation are usually well-defined but the individuals, who may become leaders, are unknown. The organisational task is therefore one of:
identifying the profile of people who will enhance organisational performance
selecting individuals whose character, skills and potential closely match that profile
developing those individuals so their potential becomes a reality
That is, an organisation develops a framework to assess people and develop those who are chosen.
An individual's perspective, however, is very different: the aim is for the individual to develop into a position of leadership. You are who you are, and if your profile does not fit that of the organisation you are working for, then your task is to:
understand your own attributes or potential
find a new role or organisation where your profile will be valued
Conclusion
Organisations need to find people who have what they are looking for. Individuals need to find organisations who are looking for what they have to offer.

Leadership Development

As a leader going into the battle of business, you will only go as far as your team. No matter your intelligence, your dedication, tenacity and expertise, without a supporting team, you will not succeed. And without leaders in that supporting team, you will fail.
One of the most important daily tasks of a leader is to develop leaders. Leader development for many is a challenge. It requires you to trust others. It requires you to allow others to perhaps fail in order to learn. Can you accept that? Are you willing to accept a small failure to develop a future leader? Can you get out of the way and perhaps watch a subordinate exceed your expectations? Are you willing to lift others to your level or are you trying to distance yourself from subordinates to distinguish yourself?
A good friend of mine was a founder and CEO of a top call center. He succeeded by building leaders at all levels and now writes a blog about call centers and what he has learned. I recently read a great anecdote on his blog discussing life in a call center. Just a sampling of this call center employee’s thoughts paints a vivid picture of a disconnect between employee and the leadership that should exist at the company.
“No reviews, no warnings, no goals, no leadership….they didn't have the guts to lay it out, I had to ask for real criticism.”
I don’t know the entire story but it feels like an employee desperate to do the job he was hired for – and perhaps even more, if he could find a leader in his organization to provide him feedback, direction and focus.
To empower others, you have to trust and be willing to take a risk. You have to want to get to know your employees and find what makes them tick. In my experience as a CEO, I spent a considerable amount of time finding opportunities to help those around me succeed and to help them catch a glimpse of their potential. A leader will do this. As your employees understand that you know them they will feel your trust, then they will come to experience the growth that accompanies that trust and you will find you have developed your most loyal employees.

Function and leadership

One approach to leadership identifies the fact that leaders play many roles within an organization. Hence what the leader does may well depend on the functions that the leader is performing at the time.
Krech et al (1962) identified fourteen functions that the leader may take:

Leader's function and Actions


Executive

Coordinating group activities and overseeing the setting of policies and goals.

Planner

Deciding how the group will achieve its goals.


Policy maker

Establishing policies and goals.


Expert

A source of expert information.
External group representative
Speaking for the group with others.
Controller of internal relationships
Determining the social structure of the group.
Purveyor of rewards and punishment
Controlling members by punishing and rewarding.
Arbitrator and mediator
Resolving disputes in the group.

Exemplar
Behaving in a way that others should behave.
Symbol of the group
Acting as symbolic embodiment of the group, its goals and its values.
Substitute for individual responsibility
Relieving individuals of the need and responsibility of personal decisions.

Ideologist
Being the source of beliefs and values.

Father figure
Focus for positive emotional feelings of individuals and the object for identification and transference.

Scapegoat
Acting as a target for aggression and hostility. Taking the blame on behalf of the group.

THE IMPACT OF DEPENDENCY THEORIES FOR THE UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEVELOPING ECONOMIES.

According to the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dependency theory is the body of social science theories by various intellectuals, both from the third world and the first world that creates a world view which suggests that the wealthy nations of the world need a peripheral group of poorer states in order to remain wealthy.

UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Dependency theories have led to the underdevelopment of developing economies in the following ways: -

The capitalist system has enforced a rigid international division of labor, which is responsible for the underdevelopment of many areas of the world. The dependent states supply cheap raw minerals, agricultural commodities, and cheap labor and also serve as the repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent technologies and manufactured goods. These functions orient the economies of dependent states towards the outside: money, goods and services do flow into dependent states but the economic interests of the dependent states determine the allocations of these resources.

The poor nations provide natural resources, cheap labor destination for obsolete technology and markets to the wealthy nations without which the later would not have the standard of living and this would further lead to exploitation of raw materials exported to the developed countries hence leading to underdevelopment of developing economies.

First world nations actively, but not necessarily, consciously, perpetuate a state of dependency through various policies and initiatives. The state of dependency is multifaceted, involving economics, media control, politics, banking and finance, education, sport and all aspects of Human Resource development.

Dependency theories prescriptions lead only to more wealth for the capital owners and more poverty for the third world, meaning that their advocacy of restricted trade and self development leads to the same out come as mercantilist trade as experienced under colonialism, also dependency theory conflates free market economics with current capitalist economic trading arrangements, and thus assumes that free market international trade will not work.

These theories lead to interference of the dependent economies by dominant economies. Any attempt by the dependent economies or countries to resist the influences of dependency will result into economic sanctions and or military invasion and control.

The theory suggests dependent states should therefore attempt to pursue policies of self- reliance centrally to the neo- classical models endorsed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; greater integration into the global economy is not necessarily a good choice for poor nations. Often this policy of autarky, and there has been some experiments with such a policy such as China’s Great Leap and Tanzania’s Ujama policy.

According to the theory dependent countries are not behind or catching up to the richer countries of the world. They are not poor because the lagged behind the scientific transformations or the enlightenment values of the European states. They are poor because they were coercively integrated into the European economic system only as producers of raw materials to serve as repositories of cheap labor and were denied the opportunity to market their resources in any way that compete with dominant states.
On the hand however, dependency theories have an impact on the development of developing economies in the following ways.

Exportation of raw materials to dominant states that leads to foreign exchange and increase in productivity. Dependent states export raw materials though at a cheap price but later leads to foreign exchange, good international relations and economic corporation.

To a country like Uganda Kiira dam as constructed due to the fact that Uganda being a dependant state, the dam was constructed for generation of power to industries which were run in Uganda by dominant states, but in the long run the dam was turned into a source of power to Ugandan industries.

Dependency theories make the dependent country to depend on donations or increase in donations, which are used to develop their economies. For example a country like Uganda survives much on foreign aid and donations, which may sometimes be conditional, or unconditional where by the country has to use this money for development purposes.


It is believed that International Political Economy developed or originated from the OPEC (oil embargo) and trade relations. In other words it was developed from International Relations
On the other hand, Political economy can be described as a study of production, the acts of buying and selling and the relationship that emerge to the laws customs of the government.


Foreign investments can be described as a situation where by an individual or group of individuals from a different country invests or runs a business in a foreign country.
Foreign investments have got both merits and demerits for a country like Uganda and these are as follows;
One of the requirements for economic development in a low-income economy is an increase in the stock of capital. A developing nation like Uganda may increase the amount of capital in domestic economy by encouraging foreign direct investment occurs when foreign firms either locate production plants in the domestic economy or acquire a substantial ownership position in a domestic firm.

Foreign investment may encourage economic growth in the short run by increasing aggregate demand in the host economy. In the long run the increase in the stock of capital raises the productivity of labour and leads to higher incomes and further increases to aggregate demand.

Investment by Multi National Companies allows developing economies to share in the considerable benefits of the global economy. Official incentives, trade barriers and other regulatory policies, though can result inefficiency and waste.

Foreign investments can foster innovation productivity and an improved living standard. Therefore, government seeking those advantages would be advised to favor policies of openness, rather than regulation, when it comes to investment. This will help in developing or improving the standards of living of Ugandans hence a high Gross National Product.

Foreign investments will increase the productive capability of the rural poor. Infrastructures such as roads and electricity will immediately help the poor access other resources but for more long term benefit, if education basic and vocational becomes more widely available, the poor will be more capable of course, the possibility of this happening will depend on the governments’ money use of funds generated from investment that is efficient tax collection and use of public funds.

Foreign investment in a country like Uganda brings to the country not only capital and foreign exchange, but also managerial ability, technical knowledge, administrative organization, and innovative in produces and production techniques all of which are in short supply. These benefits are not immediately apparent in the economy because it takes time to develop.

Foreign investments bring technology, improved productivity, competition in domestic markets, small, medium and micro enterprises. Small, medium, and micro enterprises development can tackle poverty because they are closer to poor people both in urban and rural areas in terms of low level of human resources or skills and also in terms of geographic location.

On the other hand, below are the demerits of foreign investments to a country like Uganda.

Many developing economies have attempted to resist direct or foreign investment because of nationalist sentiment and concerns about foreign economic and political influence. One reason for this sentiment is that many developing countries have operated as colonies of more developed economies. This colonial experience has often resulted in a legacy of concern that foreign investment may serve as a modern form of economic colonialism in which foreign companies might exploit the resources of the host country.

In recent years however, restrictions of foreign investments in many developing economies Uganda inclusive have been substantially reduced as a result of international treaties, external pressure from the World Bank or IMF or Unilineal actions by governments that have come to believe that foreign investment will encourage economic growth in the host country. This has resulted in a rather dramatic expansion in the level of foreign investment in some developing economies.

Another demerit comes through “ technology transfer” the transfer of technological knowledge from industrial to developing economies. Many economists argue that this transfer of technology may be a primary benefit of foreign investors benefit from it while it’s of a disadvantage to a country like Uganda.

A number of studies have shown that foreign firms are more productive than their domestic counter parts but also that diffusion of best practices into the domestic economy is possible depending on the effective functioning of the domestic markets and absorption capacity of the host economy.

Foreign investment can lead to unemployment. In the long run most investment firms or individuals come with their own employees to the host country whereby the investor can either be granted or buy any company of his choice and people who have been employed in that host country will loose jobs and hence leading to unemployment.

Environmentalists are concerned that the growth of foreign investment in developing economies may lead to deterioration in the global environment since investment is expanding more rapidly in countries that have relatively lax environmental standards. Technology transfer from the developed economies however, may also result in the sound production techniques than would have been adopted in the absence of foreign investment.

To crown it all, foreign investment is advantageous to a country like Uganda, basing on an International Political Economy perspective in that it increases or contributes to economic growth and development through increasing aggregate demand of the host country. However, there has been several demerits of foreign companies in that they can exploit resources of the host country.

THE IMPACT OF DEPENDENCY THEORIES FOR THE UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEVELOPING ECONOMIES.

According to the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dependency theory is the body of social science theories by various intellectuals, both from the third world and the first world that creates a world view which suggests that the wealthy nations of the world need a peripheral group of poorer states in order to remain wealthy.

UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Dependency theories have led to the underdevelopment of developing economies in the following ways: -

The capitalist system has enforced a rigid international division of labor, which is responsible for the underdevelopment of many areas of the world. The dependent states supply cheap raw minerals, agricultural commodities, and cheap labor and also serve as the repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent technologies and manufactured goods. These functions orient the economies of dependent states towards the outside: money, goods and services do flow into dependent states but the economic interests of the dependent states determine the allocations of these resources.

The poor nations provide natural resources, cheap labor destination for obsolete technology and markets to the wealthy nations without which the later would not have the standard of living and this would further lead to exploitation of raw materials exported to the developed countries hence leading to underdevelopment of developing economies.

First world nations actively, but not necessarily, consciously, perpetuate a state of dependency through various policies and initiatives. The state of dependency is multifaceted, involving economics, media control, politics, banking and finance, education, sport and all aspects of Human Resource development.

Dependency theories prescriptions lead only to more wealth for the capital owners and more poverty for the third world, meaning that their advocacy of restricted trade and self development leads to the same out come as mercantilist trade as experienced under colonialism, also dependency theory conflates free market economics with current capitalist economic trading arrangements, and thus assumes that free market international trade will not work.

These theories lead to interference of the dependent economies by dominant economies. Any attempt by the dependent economies or countries to resist the influences of dependency will result into economic sanctions and or military invasion and control.

The theory suggests dependent states should therefore attempt to pursue policies of self- reliance centrally to the neo- classical models endorsed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; greater integration into the global economy is not necessarily a good choice for poor nations. Often this policy of autarky, and there has been some experiments with such a policy such as China’s Great Leap and Tanzania’s Ujama policy.

According to the theory dependent countries are not behind or catching up to the richer countries of the world. They are not poor because the lagged behind the scientific transformations or the enlightenment values of the European states. They are poor because they were coercively integrated into the European economic system only as producers of raw materials to serve as repositories of cheap labor and were denied the opportunity to market their resources in any way that compete with dominant states.
On the hand however, dependency theories have an impact on the development of developing economies in the following ways.

Exportation of raw materials to dominant states that leads to foreign exchange and increase in productivity. Dependent states export raw materials though at a cheap price but later leads to foreign exchange, good international relations and economic corporation.

To a country like Uganda Kiira dam as constructed due to the fact that Uganda being a dependant state, the dam was constructed for generation of power to industries which were run in Uganda by dominant states, but in the long run the dam was turned into a source of power to Ugandan industries.

Dependency theories make the dependent country to depend on donations or increase in donations, which are used to develop their economies. For example a country like Uganda survives much on foreign aid and donations, which may sometimes be conditional, or unconditional where by the country has to use this money for development purposes.


It is believed that International Political Economy developed or originated from the OPEC (oil embargo) and trade relations. In other words it was developed from International Relations
On the other hand, Political economy can be described as a study of production, the acts of buying and selling and the relationship that emerge to the laws customs of the government.


Foreign investments can be described as a situation where by an individual or group of individuals from a different country invests or runs a business in a foreign country.
Foreign investments have got both merits and demerits for a country like Uganda and these are as follows;
One of the requirements for economic development in a low-income economy is an increase in the stock of capital. A developing nation like Uganda may increase the amount of capital in domestic economy by encouraging foreign direct investment occurs when foreign firms either locate production plants in the domestic economy or acquire a substantial ownership position in a domestic firm.

Foreign investment may encourage economic growth in the short run by increasing aggregate demand in the host economy. In the long run the increase in the stock of capital raises the productivity of labour and leads to higher incomes and further increases to aggregate demand.

Investment by Multi National Companies allows developing economies to share in the considerable benefits of the global economy. Official incentives, trade barriers and other regulatory policies, though can result inefficiency and waste.

Foreign investments can foster innovation productivity and an improved living standard. Therefore, government seeking those advantages would be advised to favor policies of openness, rather than regulation, when it comes to investment. This will help in developing or improving the standards of living of Ugandans hence a high Gross National Product.

Foreign investments will increase the productive capability of the rural poor. Infrastructures such as roads and electricity will immediately help the poor access other resources but for more long term benefit, if education basic and vocational becomes more widely available, the poor will be more capable of course, the possibility of this happening will depend on the governments’ money use of funds generated from investment that is efficient tax collection and use of public funds.

Foreign investment in a country like Uganda brings to the country not only capital and foreign exchange, but also managerial ability, technical knowledge, administrative organization, and innovative in produces and production techniques all of which are in short supply. These benefits are not immediately apparent in the economy because it takes time to develop.

Foreign investments bring technology, improved productivity, competition in domestic markets, small, medium and micro enterprises. Small, medium, and micro enterprises development can tackle poverty because they are closer to poor people both in urban and rural areas in terms of low level of human resources or skills and also in terms of geographic location.

On the other hand, below are the demerits of foreign investments to a country like Uganda.

Many developing economies have attempted to resist direct or foreign investment because of nationalist sentiment and concerns about foreign economic and political influence. One reason for this sentiment is that many developing countries have operated as colonies of more developed economies. This colonial experience has often resulted in a legacy of concern that foreign investment may serve as a modern form of economic colonialism in which foreign companies might exploit the resources of the host country.

In recent years however, restrictions of foreign investments in many developing economies Uganda inclusive have been substantially reduced as a result of international treaties, external pressure from the World Bank or IMF or Unilineal actions by governments that have come to believe that foreign investment will encourage economic growth in the host country. This has resulted in a rather dramatic expansion in the level of foreign investment in some developing economies.

Another demerit comes through “ technology transfer” the transfer of technological knowledge from industrial to developing economies. Many economists argue that this transfer of technology may be a primary benefit of foreign investors benefit from it while it’s of a disadvantage to a country like Uganda.

A number of studies have shown that foreign firms are more productive than their domestic counter parts but also that diffusion of best practices into the domestic economy is possible depending on the effective functioning of the domestic markets and absorption capacity of the host economy.

Foreign investment can lead to unemployment. In the long run most investment firms or individuals come with their own employees to the host country whereby the investor can either be granted or buy any company of his choice and people who have been employed in that host country will loose jobs and hence leading to unemployment.

Environmentalists are concerned that the growth of foreign investment in developing economies may lead to deterioration in the global environment since investment is expanding more rapidly in countries that have relatively lax environmental standards. Technology transfer from the developed economies however, may also result in the sound production techniques than would have been adopted in the absence of foreign investment.

To crown it all, foreign investment is advantageous to a country like Uganda, basing on an International Political Economy perspective in that it increases or contributes to economic growth and development through increasing aggregate demand of the host country. However, there has been several demerits of foreign companies in that they can exploit resources of the host country.

THE IMPACT OF DEPENDENCY THEORIES FOR THE UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEVELOPING ECONOMIES.

According to the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dependency theory is the body of social science theories by various intellectuals, both from the third world and the first world that creates a world view which suggests that the wealthy nations of the world need a peripheral group of poorer states in order to remain wealthy.

UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Dependency theories have led to the underdevelopment of developing economies in the following ways: -

The capitalist system has enforced a rigid international division of labor, which is responsible for the underdevelopment of many areas of the world. The dependent states supply cheap raw minerals, agricultural commodities, and cheap labor and also serve as the repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent technologies and manufactured goods. These functions orient the economies of dependent states towards the outside: money, goods and services do flow into dependent states but the economic interests of the dependent states determine the allocations of these resources.

The poor nations provide natural resources, cheap labor destination for obsolete technology and markets to the wealthy nations without which the later would not have the standard of living and this would further lead to exploitation of raw materials exported to the developed countries hence leading to underdevelopment of developing economies.

First world nations actively, but not necessarily, consciously, perpetuate a state of dependency through various policies and initiatives. The state of dependency is multifaceted, involving economics, media control, politics, banking and finance, education, sport and all aspects of Human Resource development.

Dependency theories prescriptions lead only to more wealth for the capital owners and more poverty for the third world, meaning that their advocacy of restricted trade and self development leads to the same out come as mercantilist trade as experienced under colonialism, also dependency theory conflates free market economics with current capitalist economic trading arrangements, and thus assumes that free market international trade will not work.

These theories lead to interference of the dependent economies by dominant economies. Any attempt by the dependent economies or countries to resist the influences of dependency will result into economic sanctions and or military invasion and control.

The theory suggests dependent states should therefore attempt to pursue policies of self- reliance centrally to the neo- classical models endorsed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; greater integration into the global economy is not necessarily a good choice for poor nations. Often this policy of autarky, and there has been some experiments with such a policy such as China’s Great Leap and Tanzania’s Ujama policy.

According to the theory dependent countries are not behind or catching up to the richer countries of the world. They are not poor because the lagged behind the scientific transformations or the enlightenment values of the European states. They are poor because they were coercively integrated into the European economic system only as producers of raw materials to serve as repositories of cheap labor and were denied the opportunity to market their resources in any way that compete with dominant states.
On the hand however, dependency theories have an impact on the development of developing economies in the following ways.

Exportation of raw materials to dominant states that leads to foreign exchange and increase in productivity. Dependent states export raw materials though at a cheap price but later leads to foreign exchange, good international relations and economic corporation.

To a country like Uganda Kiira dam as constructed due to the fact that Uganda being a dependant state, the dam was constructed for generation of power to industries which were run in Uganda by dominant states, but in the long run the dam was turned into a source of power to Ugandan industries.

Dependency theories make the dependent country to depend on donations or increase in donations, which are used to develop their economies. For example a country like Uganda survives much on foreign aid and donations, which may sometimes be conditional, or unconditional where by the country has to use this money for development purposes.


It is believed that International Political Economy developed or originated from the OPEC (oil embargo) and trade relations. In other words it was developed from International Relations
On the other hand, Political economy can be described as a study of production, the acts of buying and selling and the relationship that emerge to the laws customs of the government.


Foreign investments can be described as a situation where by an individual or group of individuals from a different country invests or runs a business in a foreign country.
Foreign investments have got both merits and demerits for a country like Uganda and these are as follows;
One of the requirements for economic development in a low-income economy is an increase in the stock of capital. A developing nation like Uganda may increase the amount of capital in domestic economy by encouraging foreign direct investment occurs when foreign firms either locate production plants in the domestic economy or acquire a substantial ownership position in a domestic firm.

Foreign investment may encourage economic growth in the short run by increasing aggregate demand in the host economy. In the long run the increase in the stock of capital raises the productivity of labour and leads to higher incomes and further increases to aggregate demand.

Investment by Multi National Companies allows developing economies to share in the considerable benefits of the global economy. Official incentives, trade barriers and other regulatory policies, though can result inefficiency and waste.

Foreign investments can foster innovation productivity and an improved living standard. Therefore, government seeking those advantages would be advised to favor policies of openness, rather than regulation, when it comes to investment. This will help in developing or improving the standards of living of Ugandans hence a high Gross National Product.

Foreign investments will increase the productive capability of the rural poor. Infrastructures such as roads and electricity will immediately help the poor access other resources but for more long term benefit, if education basic and vocational becomes more widely available, the poor will be more capable of course, the possibility of this happening will depend on the governments’ money use of funds generated from investment that is efficient tax collection and use of public funds.

Foreign investment in a country like Uganda brings to the country not only capital and foreign exchange, but also managerial ability, technical knowledge, administrative organization, and innovative in produces and production techniques all of which are in short supply. These benefits are not immediately apparent in the economy because it takes time to develop.

Foreign investments bring technology, improved productivity, competition in domestic markets, small, medium and micro enterprises. Small, medium, and micro enterprises development can tackle poverty because they are closer to poor people both in urban and rural areas in terms of low level of human resources or skills and also in terms of geographic location.

On the other hand, below are the demerits of foreign investments to a country like Uganda.

Many developing economies have attempted to resist direct or foreign investment because of nationalist sentiment and concerns about foreign economic and political influence. One reason for this sentiment is that many developing countries have operated as colonies of more developed economies. This colonial experience has often resulted in a legacy of concern that foreign investment may serve as a modern form of economic colonialism in which foreign companies might exploit the resources of the host country.

In recent years however, restrictions of foreign investments in many developing economies Uganda inclusive have been substantially reduced as a result of international treaties, external pressure from the World Bank or IMF or Unilineal actions by governments that have come to believe that foreign investment will encourage economic growth in the host country. This has resulted in a rather dramatic expansion in the level of foreign investment in some developing economies.

Another demerit comes through “ technology transfer” the transfer of technological knowledge from industrial to developing economies. Many economists argue that this transfer of technology may be a primary benefit of foreign investors benefit from it while it’s of a disadvantage to a country like Uganda.

A number of studies have shown that foreign firms are more productive than their domestic counter parts but also that diffusion of best practices into the domestic economy is possible depending on the effective functioning of the domestic markets and absorption capacity of the host economy.

Foreign investment can lead to unemployment. In the long run most investment firms or individuals come with their own employees to the host country whereby the investor can either be granted or buy any company of his choice and people who have been employed in that host country will loose jobs and hence leading to unemployment.

Environmentalists are concerned that the growth of foreign investment in developing economies may lead to deterioration in the global environment since investment is expanding more rapidly in countries that have relatively lax environmental standards. Technology transfer from the developed economies however, may also result in the sound production techniques than would have been adopted in the absence of foreign investment.

To crown it all, foreign investment is advantageous to a country like Uganda, basing on an International Political Economy perspective in that it increases or contributes to economic growth and development through increasing aggregate demand of the host country. However, there has been several demerits of foreign companies in that they can exploit resources of the host country.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The Paradox of Curriculum Innovation and Implementation in a Liberalized Higher Education System in Uganda: A Challenge to Makerere University.

Abstract
Due to economic liberalization policies in Uganda, higher education has been democratised. As a result, private universities which compete with Makerere in terms of places and quality of courses are being established. However, Makerere being the oldest and well established university has more students applying for self-sponsorship. Accordingly, the number of private students has increased to about 14,000 a year. Therefore due to pressures of social demand and economic liberalisation, Makerere University continues to accept more students. This paper will examine how Makerere University has responded in carrying out curriculum innovation and implementation strategies to meet the rapidly increasing student population and market demands. Curriculum innovation in this paper will be considered as a process whereby Makerere University designs new courses and redesigns the old ones so that graduates can compete favourably for the job markets. Implementation is the way the designed and redesigned courses are being taught to the students by the lecturers. Our argument is that the success of liberalisation in Makerere University will depend on the designing, redesigning and implementing of the courses to meet the changing job market.
Introduction
Economic liberalization policies in Uganda were introduced after having been recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank under the facility called Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). SAPs are policy reform strategies designed to reduce the role of the public state sector vis-a-vis the private business sector in the management of the economy. Accordingly, all forms of state controls and subsides must be dissolved; Uganda must fully liberalize its economies, privatize state owned enterprises, implement retrenchment in the public services and pursue cost-sharing and private or self sponsored programmes in the state owned tertiary institutions, (Kiiza, 1997). As a result, the Education Policy Review Commission (EPRC) (1989) recommended cost-sharing in tertiary institutions. According to the EPRC, "students and their parents should assume full responsibility for meeting all non-instructional expenses such as the cost of transportation to and from their homes, pocket money, feeding and dependants’ allowances". (EPRC, 1989:89). With this recommendation, expenditure was shifted from higher to primary education so resulting in the introduction of Universal Primary Education, (UPE).
In response to the IMF and EPRC recommendations, the government introduced cost-sharing in Makerere University in 1990/91 academic year. All pocket allowances were abolished. Students took full responsibility of stationery and books. The university set up a book bank scheme under which students would borrow reference materials to read and supplement what they have learnt in the lectures. Every newly admitted student had to pay a registration fee of 50,000 Ushs to the university. The university started only meeting the expenses of feeding, accomodation and teaching the students. Thus, with this approach, the students and their parents or guardians were sharing the cost of their education with the government.
In 1995, Makerere University introduced private sponsorship scheme, also called self-sponsorship in addition to cost-sharing. Privately sponsored students have to meet all the university requirements on their own. In other words, unlike those on cost-sharing scheme the privately sponsored students have no kind of financial or material assistance offered to them by the government. In addition to the registration fee of 50,000 Ushs, the privately sponsored students have to pay fees, the amount of which depends on the nature and type of the course being offered in the particular institute, faculty or school. Unlike undergraduate students who are either on cost-sharing or self-sponsorship scheme, all postgraduate students are self sponsored.
Before the introduction of cost-sharing and self-sponsorship, the university could take only a limited number of students out of those who qualified to join after doing ‘A’ level or mature age entrance examinations. This was due to the fact that the government could not meet the cost of all the students who qualified. In addition, the university had limited resources to cater for all the students who qualified. Thus, selection for entry to the university purely depended on the strength of the mark the student scored after sitting ‘A’ level or mature age entry examination. In other words the higher a student scores in these examinations, the higher the chances of being admitted to the university.
In spite of the introduction of cost-sharing and self-sponsorship, selection and entry into the university depend entirely on the strength of the student’s score at ‘A’ level or mature age entry examinations. The higher the student’s score, the higher the chances of being admitted on government sponsorship. In this case the student will be on cost-sharing scheme. Those who qualify to join the university but do not attain the required grade to be admitted on government sponsorship are the majority. They are free to apply and be admitted on private-sponsorship scheme.
As a result, entry into Makerere University for any course is revolving around two issues, that is "qualifications" and "ability to pay". With democratisation of higher education, economic liberalisation policies and the ever increasing demand for higher education particularly in Makerere University a lot of students apply to join on private sponsorship. According to Gashishiri, (2002), "Makerere University is a dream land for every school going Ugandan. A parent’s prayer is that her child makes it to the hill, gets out with a degree and leave the rest to fate. Many people still think that a University education especially that at Makerere is a prerequisite to the good life". For example, the New Vision of 15th July, 2002, reported that the number of private students has increased from last year’s 10,000 to 14,000. Caught up between the pressures of social demands on one hand and of economic liberalisation policies on the other, Makerere University continues to accept more students than before but the facilities have not necessarily been improved accordingly. It is now common to find more than 150 students in a lecture room with a capacity of 100. Lecturers have more students and more teaching hours, (Kasirye, 1999). This paper will examine how Makerere University has responded with quite radical attempts to carry out curriculum innovation and implementation strategies so that it moves in line with the rapidly increased student population and in the light of economic liberalization policies. More focus will be on curriculum innovation and implementation at undergraduate level although in some cases, postgraduate level will be mentioned. The paper is divided into four sections namely:
(i) Curriculum innovation in the light of Economic Liberalization Policies.
ii) Curriculum implementation in light of increased number of students.
iii) Examination setting processing and certification in light of increased student enrolment.
iv) Summary, Conclusions and Suggestions.


Curriculum Innovation In the light of Increased Number of Students and Economic Liberalization Policies.
To cope with the increased number of students applying and being admitted on one hand and compete favourably for the available job market on the other, a lot of restructuring has taken place in Makerere University. Many institutes and departments have been established from the existing faculties and schools. With the exception of the Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation established from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, no new ones have been formed.
In addition, only one school has been formed, that is school of Postgraduate Studies whose major function is handling postgraduate students in terms of registering but not teaching or supervising them. As far as institutes are concerned, many of them have been established. For example Institute of Psychology from the school of Education, Institute of Languages from the Faculty of Arts, Institute of Economics from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Environmental Science and Natural Resources and Institute of computer Science from the Faculty of Science. The Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) has been elevated to an Institute of Adult and Continuing Education. (I.C.A.E) formerly, Makerere University had four institutes namely Institute of Public Health attached to the School of Medicine, Kabanyolo Agricultural Research Institute attached to the former Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics attached to the Faculty of Science and the Makerere Institute of Social Research which is independent. The Faculty of Commerce has been merged with National College of Business Studies, Nakawa and elevated to Makerere University Business School. It has been shifted from Makerere to Nakawa Campus. Within these institutes, faculties and schools, establishment of new departments is more or less a continuous process.
Various new courses have been designed and old ones restructured within the departments, institutes, faculties and schools. For example, the Faculty of Arts which used to offer only one degree at undergraduate level, that is Bachelor of Arts, is now offering nine degrees. The former Faculty of Commerce, now Makerere Business School used to offer only Bachelor of Commerce degree but is now offering ten degrees and various diploma courses, (Academic Registrar’s Office, 2002). Most, if not all the designed courses are geared towards the demand in the available job market. Although this is a healthy innovation, it has its negative side effects. For example, some departments, institutes, faculties and schools with courses whose demand in the job market is limited or not there at all, have ended up having fewer or no students at all, while those with high expectations of job market have so many students applying to join them. According to Gimuguni, (2000), the increase in students at all levels has been attributed to high social demand for higher education due to the quest for success in life attached to attaining of higher education, leading to a lucrative job. This has resulted into what we may call "popular and unpopular" courses at Makerere University. Lecturers which have popular courses are having it rough especially when it comes to teaching and marking because the students are too many. Although it may not be easy to prove, lectures of popular courses are at an advantage over those with unpopular ones. Those with popular courses have chances of getting more or extra pay in addition to their salary than those with unpopular ones. Such a situation may create some envy among the lecturers. In addition, we should note that one of the major functions of the university is to preserve worthwhile knowledge. Acquiring such knowledge may not necessarily be geared towards the available job market. This implies that courses which have such knowledge are unpopular and may eventually be extinct as a result of economic liberalization policies!!
However, departments within institutes, faculties or schools which have unpopular courses have tried to overcome the problem by redesigning their courses and designing new ones which are market oriented. Unfortunately this measure might end up creating some problems. Such institutes, faculties or schools might end up designing courses which are not suitable for them. For example a course which deals with environmental management issues should have been better designed by the Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, but you might find that it is designed by another faculty altogether". When it comes to teaching the same faculty which designed such a course goes to "hire" the lecturers from another institute or faculty. Surely does it make sense to design a course which you can’t teach properly and confidently? Such a scenario might also be taking place at postgraduate level whereby a masters or Ph.D. course is designed but the lecturers handling the students did not specialize in the masters or Ph.D. course they are teaching. Matters become worse when the number of students admitted for such a masters or PhD course is so big. When will such a lecturer get the time to supervise the big number of postgraduate students, moreover in a course where himself/herself did not specialise in during his/her training? May be this is why Karamagi (2002) sums it as follows, "Makerere must now strike a balance between upholding her integrity as an academic institution of repute and a commercial concern whose priority is money, money and more money". (The New Vision, Thursday, 7th November, 20002).
Curriculum Implementation In Light of Increased Number of Students.
As noted earlier, some institutes, faculties and schools have courses which are popular such that they have very large numbers of students. Most affected are the Institute of Economics, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Social Sciences, Makerere University Business School, and the School of Education where the author of this paper happens to be teaching. As the number of students admitted in Makerere University increases, so also should be the number of new buildings equipment for classrooms, offices, libraries and laboratories, but unfortunately this has not been the case. Gashishiri, (2002) commented in the Monitor as follows:
The Faculty of Arts for example has over 20,000 students registered to attend lecturers in the quadrangle. Initially this enclosure was meant to handle about 6,000 students. To see that today it handles five times more than this is a sorry state" (The Monitor, Monday, 19th August, 2002)."
While Karamagi, (2002) commented as follows in the New Vision; "While the physical facilities and the human resources at Makerere have not been significantly increased, the number of new courses introduced is amazing". (The New Vision, Thursday 17th November, 2002). The Monitor (2002) quoted one of the university registrar, that "according to their priorities, accomodation is not an issue, this should not be a problem as long as it does not affect the education process. Our chief priority is giving information to the students". (The Monitor, 19th August, 2002). This seems to imply that how and under what conditions this information has been given or whether the information has been properly understood by the students is not a big deal to the university.
Despite the increased number of students, Makerere has tried its level best to adjust accordingly so as to solve the problems of lack of space. For example in some cases lecturers use their offices as lecture rooms during certain hours. Available spaces in buildings have been turned into lecture halls. Some dining halls in students’ halls of residences qualify to be ones only during the night and meal times, beyond that time they are permanently turned into "lecture halls". In the School of Education, undergraduate students are first divided into day and evening groups. The day group contains students who are on cost-sharing and private sponsorship scheme while all the evening group of students are on private sponsorship scheme. Then the day group of students is further divided into groups 1 and 2 while the evening group of students is divided into group X, Y and Z. This implies in some cases, a lecturer teaching students a particular course unit in a particular year, has to repeat the same lecture five times in order to cover all the five groups namely 1, 2, X, Y and Z at different times and days in a week. Each group has at least 250 students. The day group starts lectures from 8:00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m, everyday from Monday up to Saturday, while the "evening group" starts from 2.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. Therefore the evening group is in theory but not in practice because evening hours have never started as early as 2.00 p.m.
When it comes to giving lectures, it is a challenge to both the lecturers and the students. Due to increased number of students, the learning process in some of the institutes, faculties and schools is purely teacher-centred. In most cases, if not all, the chalkboard, chalk, lecture notes and the lecturer himself or herself are the only teaching aids. Despite the fact that tutorials is an important component of the teaching process at university level, it is nearly becoming extinct in Makerere. This could be due to lack of space or tutorial groups are too large for effective teacher-student interaction. According to Gashiriri, (2002), "the situation at the university in the lecture rooms is pathetic with a lecture theatre that was initially planned to accomodate 30 students now taking in more than 150 at ago". (The Monitor, Monday, August 19th, 2002). To make matters worse, in most halls the number of seats available for the students are not enough. As a result, it is now common to find students coming for a lecture in a dining hall, turned "lecture theatre" 30 minutes earlier. The first impression one gets is that these students have a thirst for knowledge when in actual sense they are competing for the available limited number of seats. Mind you in some cases, during that time another lecture is being attended to by another group of students. In fact one should thank the Almighty God that Makerere has not experienced fire outbreak otherwise escaping would be very difficult. To minimise such confusion, lecturers, are advised to give a lecture within the first 45 minutes of the hour and the last 15 minutes are left for students’ movements. This has not completely solved the problem because some students have to move distance of over a kilometer within the campus so as to reach the lecture hall.
Since the number of students is so big, not everyone will hear however much a lecturer shouts when giving a lecture. When a lecturer is teaching and one happens to passby, he/she is forced to think that somebody is addressing a political rally. However, the affected institutes, faculties and schools have purchased some loud speakers which have been fixed in the halls but unfortunately they are not enough for all the lecturers. According to Ngu and Yunkep, (1992) such a measure might have been better suited to an audience attending a political or public rally, a musical concert or a play but could hardly be considered ideal for undergraduate lectures. The Sunday Monitor, (1998) quotes the Head of Mass Communication Department as follows: "But when you enter the economics class, you would be forgiven for thinking it is a political rally", (Sunday Monitor, November 14th, 1998).
The Department of Distance Education in the Institute of Adult and Continuing Education (IACE) offers three external degree programmes namely, Bachelor of Education (B. Ed), Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) and Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.). Students who are pursuing these degrees are not full time. They only come for face to face session during particular periods in the academic year. Unlike other departments, it completely has no space where students can attend lectures during face to face session. In addition it has a very limited number of lecturers to teach the students. Despite its large number of students, it has tried to overcome most of the challenges. For example it has purchased enough loud speakers for all the lecturers. During face to face session, it hires lecturers from the various institutes, faculties and schools to come and teach the students. In most cases it makes sure that face to face sessions take place during holidays, when the full time students are not at the university so that it can hire the rooms and dinning halls in the various faculties, schools and halls of residences. However a major challenge comes when the face to face session is taking place when the full time students are at the university. In this situation of having no or limited space at the university, the department hires space outside the university in the various secondary schools within Kampala. By this time, the students in the various secondary schools are normally in the holidays. A departmental vehicle is always on standby to transport the loud speakers and the needed materials to the hired places. Lecturers are given transport to go to the various places where lectures are supposed to be delivered. Problems are faced by the students. For example, they need to move up and down looking for the various places where lecturers are being given, they have to look for accomodation and feeding. Some of them are from upcountry in rural areas and they do not know all the places in Kampala.
Although the number of students has more than tripled since the introduction of cost-sharing and private sponsorship, none of the physical facilities have at least doubled. In the main library and the various school faculty and institute libraries, sitting space is too small to accomodate the students at the same time. For example the main library has a reasonable number of reading materials but the sitting space is too small to accomodate all the students at the university. The School of Education library has a sitting capacity of about 300 students. This contradicts with its number of undergraduate students which is about 4,000. The number of text books available is too small compared to the number of students. As a result, two situations have come up namely, if a student gets a chance of having a seat, in the library, he/she is likely not to get the text book. On the other hand if a student gets the textbook, he/she is likely not to get the seat. As a result most of the students rely on lecturer’s notes and they can’t read textbooks on their own to search for more knowledge. Although each department has a book bank, where students are expected to borrow textbooks, the number of books is too small to cover all the students.
Examination Setting, Processing And Certification In Light of Increased Student Enrollment.
After teaching the students, the next stage is assessing them by giving examinations, marking, grading and finally awarding them certificates. Assessing the students in Makerere is mainly in two stages. The first stage is by coursework which accounts for 30 marks and the second stage is by examination which accounts for 70 marks. The pass mark is 50%. At the end of the degree or diploma course, the students attend a graduation ceremony where they are officially awarded their degree or diploma certificates.
In 1997, Makerere introduced a semester system of teaching. The academic year was divided into two semesters and at the end of every semester, students have to sit for university examinations, each of which will contribute to the strength of the degree or diploma at the end of the course. Formerly, the academic year was made up of three terms. In all institutes, faculties and schools, students used to sit for coursework tests at the end of the term and examinations only at the end of the year. In fact in some institutes, faculties and schools, e.g. faculties of Arts, Social Sciences, Sciences and School of Education, whose degree course duration is three years, students did end of year examination in the first and final year only. During the second year, the students only used to do coursework tests. This implies second year of study was a "year of relaxation" since the students were never under pressure of examinations. The first year examinations never accounted much on the strength of the degree at the end of third year. Failing to pass a paper, could mean either passing by compensation whereby you are promoted to another year or repeating the whole year.
With the semester system, once a student fails a paper, he/she continues to the next semester but will retake the failed paper in the same semester of the next academic year. However, if a student fails five or more papers at the same sitting, he/she is discontinued. This implies a student can even reach third year when he/she has retakes sometimes called carry forwards of first or second year. In such a situation, students who have not passed the examinations in all the papers become overloaded after the end of the first year. This is because, in addition to the end of next year’s semester examinations, they are supposed to re-sit for the failed ones in the previous years. In such a case, the examination load will be too much for him/her, and the chances of passing will be low. With a situation of overload at the end of semester examinations the Faculty of Law tried to stop students from re-sitting the failed examinations until after the end of their degree course, (The Monitor, 2002). This implied to have an extra period of time after fourth year. But unfortunately this approach has financial implications especially to the privately sponsored students, who are about three times more in number than the government sponsored. They will have to spend some extra money. As a result there was some demonstration by the students doing Law. According to The Monitor, (2002); "The students were protesting a new policy preventing them from re-taking any failed paper alongside the regular study load. The students said the new directive forces them to spend five years instead of four - at the university." (The Monitor, November, 2nd 2002). When the demonstration threatened to turn violent, the Academic Registrar intervened and suspended the policy in a bid to calm the students, (The Monitor, 2002).
With the increased number of students, the academic registrar’s office has tried its level best to make sure that the examinations are thoroughly processed so that Makerere standards are maintained despite what is being written in the media. In fact any form of examination malpractices, once detected and proved correct, leads to expulsion of the party concerned, on the side of the student, lecturer or any other individual. Even cases have been reported in the media whereby prominent personalities such as members of parliament, Ministries, judges etc. being stopped from studying in Makerere or degree certificates being withdrawn from them later on, because they used wrong results. In fact chances of being expelled from Makerere or withdrawing its degree are 100% once an individual is proved beyond reasonably doubt that he/she entered using wrong examination results or is tampering with examinations, irrespective of what position you hold is the university or in the world.
Formerly, the examinations were centrally processed in the academic registrar’s office but now they have been decentralised. Each institute, faculty and school processes its own examinations after which the results are forwarded to the academic registrar’s office for further scrutiny by the Senate. However with the increased number of student enrolment, lecturers may fail to know the students well and hence the effective monitoring and evaluating of students, especially, in assessing them academically becomes a real big problem, (Gimuguni, 2000). Increased number of students taking examinations coupled with the increased number of programmes have generally reduced the effectiveness of staff in the management of examinations. The current unreasonable staff student ratio coupled with socio-economic problems overstrain the staff on the ground, (Ajidiru, 1997). To minimise such problems, lecturers with large number of students, have changed the format of setting examinations. Examinations are no longer dominated with the essay type questions. Instead, they have objectives, structured, short answer and one or two essay type questions.
During examination period, nearly every available space at the university is occupied with students doing examinations. Although, (Ajidiru, 1997) commented that in Makerere the examination "system has been invaded by corruption, unguided principles and malpractices to an extend that the quality management and administration of examinations have ceased to be an issue", (Ajidiru 1997:6), this is just an exaggeration. During examination time, institutes, faculties and schools, make sure that enough manpower is deployed so that the process runs smoothly without any weaknesses. However some delays in marking examinations may happen because of the large numbers of students. Commending on the delay in marking and release of results, Turyagenda (2002); had the following to say: "It is logical to blame this on the increased number of students ... there are many more papers to mark - yet the examiners to mark them and the time to do it in have not increased." (The Sunday Vision, 3rd November, 2002). This is one of the reasons the author of the previous article in the Sunday Vision thought had caused the delay and subsequent postponement of the graduation ceremony from a fixed date in the month of October, 2002 to an unfixed date in the month of November, 2002. With increased number of students, the Freedom Square could no longer accomodate at once all the students who graduate in a particular academic year. Previously Makerere used to have one graduation ceremony in every academic year but starting from the year 2000, it started having two graduation ceremonies, one in the month of March and the other in October. However, this year, as noted earlier the October graduation was postponed to November, 2000.
What we should note is that despite the increased number of students, and the harsh economic situation affecting the lecturers, there is evidence that Makerere has tried as much as possible to maintain its standards. Measurers are being put into place to make sure that standards do not deteriorate. As how the Vice Chancellor (2002) put it: "Our university still stands strong among others in Uganda and Africa at large in spite of how it is portrayed in the media as having a dwindling academic standard. Our teaching staff is equipped with over 600 PhDs and a reasonable number of Masters degrees whose role now is appreciated among students". Thousands of students struggle to enter Makerere, employers highly yawn for our graduates and our donors continue to give us more dollars". (The New Vision, November 12th, 2002). If a lecturer is not having a Ph.D. he/she is preparing a proposal or has already started it.
Summary, Conclusions and Suggestions.
Let us make it clear that there has never been a perfect system. The moment one believes that the system is perfect, it is likely to decline. That is the reason why we always try to maintain and at the same time improve on it. Although there are problems facing Makerere University, such as limited space, high enrolment of students etc. it has tried to maintain its standards. No wonder, up to now a lot of students come from the whole of East Africa and beyond to have their degrees from there. Presently to be appointed to work in Makerere as a lecturer you need to have a PhD, and as an assistant lecturer, you need to have a Masters degree. All this is aimed at maintaining the standards. However with increased student enrolment and economic liberalization policies, the following steps need to be taken:
1.cTeaching methods need to be modified, if possible modern methods involving the use of computers in teaching and learning need to be used.
2. Let the government grant Makerere University a "tax holiday" for at least two years. During that period all the money the government gets from the university should instead be used to put up building and all the necessary structures to accomodate the large number of students.
3. There should be a close working relationship between the employers of the graduates and Makerere University. In this case, whenever new courses are being designed, the employers should try to give their inputs on what they feel should be taught to the students. With this approach, there will be quality assurance mechanism.
4. Makerere University should increase its research grants to its academic staff so that they are uptodate and this will help them improve on their teaching and promotion purposes.
REFERENCES
Ajidiru J.S.H. (1997): Management And Administration of Makerere University Examinations. Unpublished Dissertation, Makerere University.
Gashishiri, S.B.(2002): "Bravado Aside, Numbers are Hurting Makerere" In The Monitor Monday, august 19th 2002. Kampala Monitor Publications.
Gimuguni, J. (2000): Increased Student Enrolment On the Quality of Education at Makerere University: A Case Study of the Faculty of Law. Unpublished Dissertation, Makerere Univeristy.
Karamagi, A. (2002): "Makerere Teetering on the Edge of a Deadly Precipice!" In The New Vision November 7th, 2002.
Kasirye, G. (1999): "Self-sponsorship and Equality in Makerere University" in Education and Social Change: Empirical Studies for the Improvement of Education in Eastern Africa. Ed. Juergen Hess. Bon German Foundation for International Development, Education Science and Documentation Centre.
Kavuma, M.R. (2002): "Makerere Law Students Strike". In The Monitor, Saturaday, November 2nd, 2002. Kampala, The Monitor Publications.
Kiganda, S. (2002): Makerere Boasts 600 Ph.Ds" In The New Vision, November 12th 2002. Kampala, New Vision Publishing Cooporation.
Kiiza, J. (1997): "Liberalisation Policies And University Education In Uganda. An Assessment of The Cost-Sharing Policy" In Makerere University Political Science Review Edited by Mujaju A.B, Kampala, Makerere University Printery.
Ngu, T.L and Yunkap Kwankam (1992): At What Price Higher Education in Africa? A Case Study of Higher Education Systems In Cameroon Dakar, International Development Research Centre.
The Monitor Newspaper, 24th November, 1998.
Turyagenda Tina (2002): "The Tower is Falling" in The Sunday Vision, Sunday, 3rd November, 2002 Kampala New Vision publications.
Uganda Government (1989): Education Policy Review Commission Report, Kampala Government Printer.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES TO THE EAST AFRICAN YOUTH?

We all continue to grow up under the umbrella of our individual nationhood or sovereignty. This poses a big challenge to us in terms of where each one ought to focus their loyalty. Below are some of the challenges the youths face in the quest to have an East African Federation:-
Education: The East African region as a whole has recorded higher literacy levels for both men and women than the average Sub Sahara Literacy levels. Kenya has higher literacy rates of men (90%) and women (78.5%) followed by Tanzania which records 85.2% for men and 69.2% for women. Uganda’s literacy rate for men is at 78.9% and 59.2% for women. The literacy levels in the three countries differ. Uganda emerged from a period of prolonged civil strife; Tanzania is waking up from socialist philosophy and Kenya from a system of ‘President for Life’ ideology. Will a united East Africa offer equal opportunities to all East African youth given this glaring differences in educational exposure? Should East African nations wait up to such a time when all her youth will be fairly on the same literacy levels before integration?
Economic Development: Kenya’s economy is the largest in the region despite the fact that her counterparts in East Africa are recording faster growth in recent years. It is estimated that Kenya’s share of the regional GDP declined from 37% to 33%, while that of Uganda grew from 23% to 32% and Tanzania remained fairly constant at 27%. How will the youth, say from Tanzania, cope with an onslaught of labor force from Kenya and Uganda? Are they going to get Tanzania youth out of business? Is an integrated market going to give Kenyan youth an upper hand over their counterparts in East Africa?
Politics: Tanzania is well ahead of her counterparts in this respect, changing political leadership is entrenched in the Tanzania political system. Will Kenyan and Ugandan youth cope with a system which offers opportunities for change of political leadership regardless of age as witnessed in Tanzania? How does the political climate play out in terms of how leaders are elected is it based on ideas, or the money one has to offer and how will youth in an integrated system cope?
Unity: Are our youth ready to be East Africans?
The Benefits of the Federation to the youth
Politics and Tribalism: In countries where the tribal and ethnic card is played out in terms of accessing jobs and other national favors, a united East Africa Federation will make tribalism irrelevant. East Africa is likely to end up with three major ‘tribes’: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, hence reducing tribal sentiments that have slowed social cohesion and development. Instead, tribes might be exploited for positive economic benefits such as Kikuyu youth setting up a Kikuyu restaurant in Kampala, and a Buganda restaurant in Dar es Salaam and a Hehe restaurant in Nairobi, all for purposes of promoting authentic African tribal foods
Market: Instead of the youth joining their parents to complain about lack of market for such products as coffee, tea, maize and cotton, they will finally have over 90,000 people to supply 90,000 cups of tea to every morning, as well as several Kilograms of Ugali each day. The point is, East African youth ought to approach an integrated market from the perspective of exploiting the economic opportunities offered instead of relying on the traditional model where the government was supposed to provide everything.
History: East African youth have a historical moment to participate in the shaping of the new African civilization, because ‘not everything has been invented yet.’
Conclusion
East African youth must be agitated against the present economic and political system that seems keen to focus on short term interests. We must be ready to treat obstacles to integration as challenges that ought to be overcome. Each problem afflicting people in East Africa, ranging from poverty, disease, illiteracy, political strife presents an opportunity for each youth to offer a solution thereby bringing gain to an individual as well as society. Let us all soberly seek to facilitate a well thought out Eastern African integration as a step towards African Unity.
Speech by James Shikwati, Director Inter Region Economic Network, at the DIRA talks in Dar es Salaam-Tanzania (14/06/06). The event was organized by Tanzania Youth Vision Association in collaboration with Friedrich Naumann Foundation and focused on The Role of Youth in the EAC Federation Process.

CLASSICAL ADLERIAN THEORY AND PRACTICE

"Classical Adlerian Theory and Practice" is a chapter in Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition: Philosophies of Life and Their Impact on Practice.
Overview
Over the half century since Alfred Adler articulated his theory of personality and system of psychotherapy, his ideas have gradually and persistently permeated the whole of contemporary psychology (Ellenberger 1970, 645-648). The shift of psychoanalysis to ego psychology reflected Adler's original thinking and Adler was "hailed by certain psychoanalysts as a precursor of the later developments of psychoanalysis" (Ellenberger 1970, 638). Adler's observation that "human beings live in the realm of meanings" reflects the social constructivist view of human behavior. An early feminist, he held that both men and women suffered from our society's overvaluing of men and undervaluing of women, and he believed the only positive relationship between men and women was one of equality. His earliest work in which he argued for the unity of mind and body was a precursor of psychosomatic medicine.
Even the findings of anthropologists, biologists, and physicists parallel Adlerian concepts. Adler's view of the interconnectedness of all living beings and their natural proclivities toward cooperation has been echoed by anthropologists (Ho 1993; Kim and Berry 1993; Maybury-Lewis 1972), and biologists (Augros and Stancui 1988; Hamilton 1964; Simon 1990; Trivers 1971; Wilson 1975). His concept of the style of life, where one central theme is reflected in every psychological expression, suggests the concept in physics of the hologram, wherein each part of a whole is an enfolded image of that whole (Briggs and Peat 1989). His concept of the final goal, a fictional future reference point that pulls all movements in the same direction, is similar to that of a strange attractor in chaos theory, a magnetic end point that pulls on and sets limits for a process (Nelson 1991). He believed in the fundamental creative power of individuals and their freedom to choose and change their direction in life; this is very similar to the biological process called autopoesis which is the autonomous, self-renewing, and self-directing nature of all life forms (Nelson 1991).
When sociologists, anthropologists, biologists, mathematicians, physicists, and psychotherapists begin describing remarkably similar dynamics, one wonders if we are on the brink of a new unified field theory. Forty years ago, Alexander Müller frequently referred to Adler's body of work as "philosophical anthropology," and held that it had the potential for providing the magnetic center that would draw other disciplines together (Müller 1992).
The scientific paradigm shift and intellectual climate of the 1990's might well be ripe for a re-discovery of Adler's original and full contribution to an understanding of human beings and their relationship to the world. He created an exquisitely integrated, holistic theory of human nature and psychopathology, a set of principles and techniques of psychotherapy, a world view, and a philosophy of living.
In this chapter, we will first describe Adler's view of the human condition and his ideas of personality development, including optimal development. Second, we will outline his explanation of how this process goes astray and results in psychopathology. Third, we will sketch the Adlerian levels of intervention which include not only psychotherapy but also preventive programs in the areas of parenting and education.
The Human Condition and Personality Development
The core of Adler's integrated complex of philosophy, theory, and practice was a vigorously optimistic, humanistic view of life. He offered a value-oriented psychology that envisioned human beings as capable of profound cooperation in living together and striving for self-improvement, self-fulfillment, and contribution to the common welfare. Indeed, Adler predicted that if we did not learn to cooperate, we would run the risk of eventually annihilating each other. Thus, if we were to distill his view of the human condition into one main idea, it would be the concept of the Social Human, inextricably interconnected with others and all of nature. The central problem that humans face is how to live on this planet together, appreciating what others have contributed in the past, and making life better for present and future generations.
Central Concept: Feeling of Community
Following from his view of the human condition, Adler based his psychology on the central concept of (in German) Gemeinschaftsgefühl. It is a difficult concept to translate adequately and has been translated by the phrases social interest, social feeling, community feeling, and social sense (Ansbacher and Ansbacher 1956, 134). Adler and many of his followers came to prefer the term feeling of community (Bruck 1978). It is a multi-level concept. Individuals may understand and put into practice some levels and neglect the development of others.
If people have developed social interest at the affective level, they are likely to feel a deep belonging to the human race and, as a result, are able to empathize with their fellow humans. They can then feel very much at home on the earth -- accepting both the comforts as well as the discomforts of life. At the cognitive level, they can acknowledge the necessary interdependence with others, recognizing that the welfare of any one individual ultimately depends on the welfare of everyone. At the behavioral level, these thoughts and feelings can then be translated into actions aimed at self development as well as cooperative and helpful movements directed toward others. Thus, at its heart, the concept of feeling of community encompasses individuals' full development of their capacities, a process that is both personally fulfilling and results in people who have something worthwhile to contribute to one another. At the same time, the concept denotes a recognition and acceptance of the interconnectedness of all people.
These ideas of Adler's also speak to the current discussion of the relationship between self and society. Unlike others, he saw no fundamental conflict between self and society, individuality, and relatedness, self interest and social interest. These are false dichotomies. The development of self and connectedness are recursive processes that influence one another in positive ways. The greater one's personal development, the more able one can connect positively with others; the greater one's ability to connect with others, the more one is able to learn from them and develop oneself. This idea has been rediscovered by recent authors (Guisinger and Blatt 1994).
Adler saw the connections among living beings in many different spheres and on many different levels. An individual can feel connected with another, with family, friends, community, and so on, in ever widening circles. This connectedness can encompass animals, plants, even inanimate objects until, in the largest sense, the person feels connected with the entire cosmos (Müller, 1992, 138). If people truly understood and felt this connectedness, then many of the self-created problems of life -- war, prejudice, persecution, discrimination -- might cease to exist.
The feeling of interconnectedness among people is essential not only for living together in society, but also for the development of each individual person. It has long been well known that if human infants do not have emotional connections with their caregivers they will fail to thrive and are likely to die.
Furthermore, individuals need to acknowledge their connectedness both to the past as well as to the future. What we are able to do in our lives depends very much on the contributions made in the past by others. A critical question that Adler saw facing each person was, "What will be your contribution to life? Will it be on the useful or useless side of life?"
The title that Adler gave to his system, "Individual Psychology," does not immediately suggest its social foundation. It does not mean a psychology of individuals. On the contrary, Adler's psychology is very much a social psychology in which the individual is seen and understood within his or her social context. Accordingly, Adler devised interventions not only for individual clients but also for families and schools.
In German, the term Individualpsychologie means the psychology of the unique, indivisible, and undivided person (Davidson 1991, 6). What Adler meant by this is that, first, Individual Psychology is an idiographic science. How an individual develops is unique, creative, and dependent on the subjective interpretations the person gives to life. Second, Adler meant to convey that an individual behaves as a unit in which the thoughts, feelings, actions, dreams, memories, and even physiology all lead in the same direction. The person is a system in which the whole is greater than and different from the sum of its parts. In this whole, Adler saw the unity of the person. In the symphony of a person's behavior, he discerned the consistent melodic theme running throughout. This theme may have many variations in tempo, pitch, or intricacy, but it is nevertheless recognizable. Thus, to understand a person, we must look at the whole person, not at the parts, isolated from one another. After we grasp the guiding theme, however, it is easy to see how each individual part is consistent with the theme.
Development of Personality
How do we come to develop this guiding theme? It is an active and creative process in which individuals attribute meaning to the life experiences they have faced. They construct out of this raw material the subjective reality to which they respond. Thus, they are not passive victims of heredity or environment (not objects) but active constructors and interpreters of their situations (subjects).
This process begins in infancy as children become conscious of felt insufficiencies in the face of normal, everyday tasks, especially when they compare themselves to older children and adults. As a result, they experience what Adler called inferiority feelings, which are the very normal reactions to the awareness of not being able to function in a way that we wish. Adler also described this as experiencing a "minus situation." These feelings become motivation for striving toward what he called a "plus situation."
Individuals strive in this direction because of the "creative power of life, which expresses itself in the desire to develop, to strive, to achieve, and even to compensate for defeats in one direction by striving for success in another. This power is teleological, it expresses itself in the striving after a goal, and, in this striving, every bodily and psychological movement is made to cooperate" (Ansbacher and Ansbacher 1956, 92).
Influenced by the German philosopher Hans Vaihinger, Adler held that individuals were not always guided in their actions by reality. They were also guided by fictions, or what they believe to be true, though these beliefs are largely unconscious (Vaihinger 1925). These ideas formed the basis of Adler's concept of the final goal. The final goal is a fictional creation of the individual--an imagined ideal situation of perfection, completion, or overcoming. Movement toward the final goal is motivated by a striving to overcome the feelings of inferiority. Although the final goal represents a subjective, fictional view of the future, it is what guides the person in the present.
In an active, courageous individual possessing a strong feeling of community, the striving toward the final goal to overcome inferiority feelings may be expressed as a life-long movement toward optimal development -- with full realization that there is no end point to this striving. This is quite similar to Abraham Maslow's view of individuals striving toward self actualization -- toward the full realization of their potential (Maslow 1970).
In dealing with inferiority feelings and developing the final goal, the influences of the family (both parents and siblings) as well as external social influences may be critical. Children learn to cope with and/or overcome difficulties in life through the support and encouragement of significant others who promote their development, cooperation, and interdependence. Adler considered the connection with and influence of the mother as the primary factor in the early development of the feeling of community. In our current social structure, fathers and caregivers are also recognized as important influences. With this positive foundation, children are likely to grow up to handle what Adler called the three tasks of life, work, community, and love, in a satisfactory way (Adler 1992a, 16-18). As a result, they are likely to develop the courage and ability to continue their growth and make a contribution to life. If, however, children do not receive the proper encouragement and support and, as a result, their feelings of inferiority become exaggerated, they are likely to be discouraged. They may adopt a final goal that is equally exaggerated to compensate for their deeply felt inferiority. Instead of developing themselves and overcoming difficulties, they pursue a goal of imagined superiority and consequently must avoid real tests of themselves. Their final goal would then be an egocentric one, on the useless side of life, rather than a goal of cooperation with others and a feeling of community. The final goal is the result of a process that is unique to each individual. Two persons with similar feelings of inferiority -- e.g., a deeply felt lack of intelligence -- may develop very different goals. One person's goal might be to enlist others in his or service, thus avoiding any tests of intelligence that might be failed. The other's goal might be to outdo all others thereby demonstrating her superior intelligence in all situations.
Adler called an individual's characteristic approach to life the style of life. In various writings throughout Adler's career, he expressed this concept as self or ego, personality, individuality, the unity of the personality, an individual form of creative activity, the method of facing problems, one's opinion about oneself and the problems of life, or the whole attitude toward life (Ansbacher and Ansbacher 1956, 174).
The style of life, then, becomes the way in which individuals approach or avoid the three main tasks of life and try to realize their fictional final goal. In healthy persons, this dealing with the tasks of life is relatively flexible. They can find many ways of solving problems and, when one way is blocked, they can choose another. This is not so for the disturbed individuals who usually insist on one way or no way.
Like others, Adler viewed the first five years of life as central in the development of personality. By that time, children have experienced enough to have adopted a prototype of their goal and style of life, although there can be some modification throughout the rest of childhood and adolescence. After that, these ways of conceiving of both self and the world seem to fashion for us a set of lenses through which we see the world. Adler called this the scheme of apperception. Individual perception, then, is limited, and there will always be a discrepancy between reality and the perception of it. For normal people, this discrepancy is relatively small; for psychologically disturbed people, the discrepancy is much greater.
In an optimal situation of development, adults will win childrens' cooperation, helping them to develop a sense of significance through contributing to others, minimizing their inferiority feelings, stimulating their courage, guiding them to be active, and helping them feel a part of the whole. These experiences will help children identify and develop their capacities and become cooperative, productive, and satisfied adults. They will be able to see and feel their interdependence with others and be challenged to develop sufficient courage to deal with difficulties, to connect intimately with others, and to improve themselves for the benefit of all. They may eventually be guided by universal values or principles -- perhaps of justice, beauty, truth, etc. They will be able to use their inferiority feelings as spurs for continued development. They will strive for superiority over difficulties rather than superiority over others. They will have solved the problems posed by the tasks of life in a mutually beneficial way.
This optimal development is different from what is commonly referred to as "normal" or "average." Although many people are reasonably cooperative, they may do just enough in relationships and in work to get by, living without deep commitment and passion and not functioning at their maximum potential. They may be somewhat bored and may endure chronic tension or "stress" without significant emotional or physical symptoms. When they face particularly difficult challenges, they may not have developed their courage and cooperation to the extent that they are able to cope adequately. At that point, they may experience a shock that might trigger psychological symptoms. Examples of challenges that might trigger such symptoms include layoffs, illnesses, marriage, having children, divorce, middle-age, children leaving home, or retirement.
One potential challenge for mental health professionals is to help these "normal" individuals develop themselves to the maximum -- to set an ideal of mental health that is seen as possible and inspiring, and to identify the steps needed to get there. This is described later in this chapter.
Adler's View of Psychopathology
Adler's view of psychopathology is deceptively simple. He conceived of psychological disturbances generally occurring in the presence of two conditions: an exaggerated inferiority feeling and an insufficiently developed feeling of community. Under these conditions, a person may experience or anticipate failure before a task that appears impossible and may become "discouraged." Adler tended to use this term as opposed to terms such as "pathological" or "sick." When individuals are discouraged, they often resort to fictional means to relieve or mask--rather than overcome--their inferiority feelings. What they are attempting to do is bolster their feelings of self by "tricks," while they avoid actually confronting their seemingly impossible difficulties. These tricks may give them a comforting but fragile feeling of superiority.
A man who was pampered a child may give up looking for work, become depressed, and then depend on parents or public assistance for support. Forcing others to provide for him may yield a secret feeling of power and superiority that compensates for his feelings of inferiority. Unprepared for the normal challenges that might lead to failure, he pays the price for his painful depression, but uses it to maintain his passive self-indulgence and protect himself from a real test of his capacities.
A woman who was abused by her father as a child may choose to reject and depreciate all men as vile creatures and never engage in a satisfactory love relationship. She may feel lonely, but she can always feel morally superior to all abusive males who are punished by her rejection. She would rather punish all men for the sins of her father, than conquer her fears and develop the ability to love one man.
At a more extreme level, a profound and devastating feeling of inferiority might lead to a grandiose psychotic delusion of being God.
What all of these situations have in common are adults whose inferiority feelings seem so overwhelming and in whom the feeling of community is so underdeveloped that they retreat to protect their fragile yet inflated sense of self. They employ what Adler called safeguarding devices to do this (Ansbacher and Ansbacher 1956, 263-280).
Individuals can use safeguarding devices in attempts both to excuse themselves from failure and depreciate others. Safeguarding devices include symptoms, depreciation, accusations, self-accusations, guilt, and various forms of distancing. Symptoms such as anxiety, phobias, and depression, can all be used as excuses for avoiding the tasks of life and transferring responsibility to others. In this way, individuals can use their symptoms to shield themselves from potential or actual failure in these tasks. Of course, individuals may be able to do well in one or two of the tasks of life and have difficulties in only one, e.g., in work, community, or love.
Depreciation can be used to deflate the value of others, thereby achieving a sense of relative superiority through aggressive criticism or subtle solicitude. Accusations attribute the responsibility for a difficulty or failure to others in an attempt to relieve an individual of the responsibility and to blame others for the failure. Self-accusations can stave off criticisms from others or even elicit comforting protestations of value from them. Guilt may create a feeling of pious superiority over others and clear the way for continuing harmful actions rather than correcting them. Distancing from tasks and people can be done in many ways including procrastination, avoiding commitments, abuse of alcohol and/or drugs, or suicide.
These safeguarding devices are largely unconscious and entail very real suffering on the part of individuals who employ them. For them, however, the protection and elevation of the sense of self is paramount, and they prefer to distress themselves or others rather than reveal their hidden exaggerated feeling of inferiority.
There are three categories of influences that might stimulate the development of these exaggerated inferiority feelings in children: (1) physical handicaps, (2) family dynamics, and (3) societal influences (Adler 1992a).
Children can either be born with or develop physical handicaps (e.g., deformity, illness) with which they may feel overburdened. The care and attention given to them because of their difficulties may result in their expectation that others should always make their lives easy and keep them the center of care and attention. They may never test their own strengths. The pity or scorn they might also receive may negatively influence their self-evaluations. In any case, their inferiority feelings are likely to become exaggerated.
Family dynamics, including parenting styles and position in the family constellation, is the second category of influences on the development of the inferiority complex. Parenting styles that cause trouble for children are divided into two main categories: pampering, and neglect and abuse. Children who have been pampered have come to expect being the focus of attention and having others serve their whims. They have been trained to take rather than to give and have not learned how to face and overcome problems by themselves. As a result, they have become very dependent on others and feel unsure of themselves or unable to face the tasks of life. Thus, they demand undue help and attention from others. These demands may be expressed through aggression (e.g., commands) or through weakness (e.g., shyness), by positive (e.g., charm) or negative (e.g., anger) means. Furthermore, when pampered children grow up and others no longer do their bidding, they may interpret this refusal as aggression against them, which may lead to their taking revenge on these others.
Children who have been neglected, rejected, or abused have not experienced love and cooperation. They do not know what it means to feel a positive connection to others and, as a result, often feel isolated and suspicious. When faced with difficulties, they tend to overrate these difficulties and to underrate their own abilities. To make up for what they did not receive as children, they may feel entitled to special consideration or compensation. They may want others to treat them well but do not feel an obligation to respond in turn. Remarkably, both pampered and neglected or abused children may have similar expectations as adults. The first group expects the familiar pampering to continue; the other demands pampering as compensation. Both may feel entitled to everything and obligated to nothing.
In addition to the influences of the parents, Adler was one of the first to recognize that children's positions in the family constellation of siblings could affect their development in critical ways (Adler 1992b, 126-132). Being a significant member of the family is important and children may become discouraged if they think they have a disadvantageous position.
For example, oldest children's experience of being "dethroned" by their younger siblings may stimulate them to decide that regaining their power is the most important thing they could do. Later in life, the pattern of striving for pre-eminence may continue at work, where they control subordinates excessively, and at home where they may become domestic tyrants.
Second children, experiencing their older siblings as pacemakers, may respond by continually striving to surpass and conquer them. If this appears to be too difficult, these children may give up and withdraw from the competition. Youngest children have many pacemakers and can become quite ambitious and accomplished, or they may not develop the courage necessary to realize his or her ambitions and remains helpless babies. Only children tend to spend their lives in the company of adults, frequently as the center of attention. As a result, these children may fail to learn how to cooperate with peers.
Of course, Adler realized that the examples listed above are only a few of many possible outcomes. The objective position of the child is not the influencing factor; instead, it is the psychological position and the meaning that the child gives to that position. Thus, two children born several years apart may grow up in ways that are quite similar to those of only children. On the other hand, if parents help their children cope with the unique demands of their positions in the family constellation, and if there is a cooperative rather than a competitive home atmosphere, the children are likely not to develop the characteristics associated with each of the positions.
The third category of influence is the societal factors outside the family that also shape how individuals develop their views of themselves and the world. Adler recognized the school as a dominant influence and spent much of his time training teachers and establishing child guidance clinics attached to the schools throughout Vienna.
Social discrimination on the basis of poverty, ethnicity, gender, religion, or educational level can also exacerbate inferiority feelings. Adler emphasized that it was not just the objective facts or influences that had an impact on the child, but the interpretation the child gives to them. Children who are discriminated against because of physical deformities or socio-economic status, for example, may find maintaining a positive sense of self difficult. But doing so is possible if someone provides sufficient contact, understanding, and encouragement.
Finally, in a way that was far ahead of many others of his day, Adler recognized the destructive influence of our culture's archaic view of men and women. He observed that women were typically devalued and this was a major influence in their exaggerated feelings of inferiority. But he also realized that men, too, were adversely affected. The over-valuing of men often leads to extremely high expectations, and when men begin to see that they cannot meet these expectations, their inferiority feelings also increase. Adler felt that the healthiest arrangement is a recognized equality of value between men and women, which would then result in a higher level of cooperation between them (Adler 1980).
Early experiences, both inside and outside the family, in combination with hereditary attributes and physiological processes, are used creatively by children to form an impression of themselves and life. A final goal of success, significance, and security is imagined and a style of life is adopted to prepare for that goal. Individuals who are not self-pampering or discouraged hold opinions of themselves and the tasks of life that are reasonably close to what Adler called "common sense." These individuals feel connected to one another and have developed their ability to cooperate.
People who do not feel connected to others and have not developed the ability to cooperate will develop a private logic that becomes increasingly more skewed from common sense. This private logic involves an antithetical scheme of apperception that the person uses rigidly to classify self, others, and experience. In child development, an antithetical scheme is related to children's need for security. They quickly slot their perceptions into very simple categories, often based on whether the stimulus is considered "good" or "bad." Under normal conditions of development, however, children gradually develop the ability to perceive the subtle gradations of qualities in themselves and others. Disturbed individuals, however, because of their heightened feelings of insecurity, remain at the more primitive level of an antithetical scheme of apperception. They may, for example, see only the antithetical extremes of absolute stupidity or total brilliance. Thus, if others do not recognize their brilliance, they assume that others think they are stupid. If they are not adored by all, they may feel neglected or humiliated. If they are not totally powerful, then they must be totally powerless.
While the scheme limits the person's ability to make realistic judgments, it does serve the purpose of protecting the person's choice of a final goal and life style. If an individual feels totally powerless, then it is perfectly logical (from the point of view of his private logic) and is seemingly in his best interests to compensate by grabbing all the power he can, even if this harms others. The person ignores or justifies this harm because of his feeling of being totally powerless. In reality, however, he is not totally powerless. But if he recognized this, he would lose the justification or motivation to strive in the direction of the final goal.
Discouraged individuals may function relatively well for some time. Their functioning, however, is based on a pretense of value or significance that emerges from their private ideas which do not hold up in reality. Eventually, their private views clash with reality and lead to a shock -- e.g., difficulties in work, friendships, love relationships, or family -- which may lead to the development of symptoms.
These symptoms, however, are not the main focus of an Adlerian understanding of psychological difficulties. What is important is how individuals use their symptoms. Symptoms are actually the smoke covering the fire of inferiority feelings. The symptoms create a detour around and distance from the threatening tasks of life, protecting the pretense. Three factors distinguish mild psychological disorders from severe disorders: the depth of the inferiority feelings, the lack of the feeling of community, and the height of the final goal.
In focusing too much on the symptoms, per se, we run the risk of neglecting what underlies the symptoms -- the inferiority feelings. Unless the severity of these inferiority feelings is diminished, the client will continue to use the symptoms like a crutch for an injured, unhealed limb. And until this process is uncovered and resolved, the person may just substitute one symptom for another.
Adlerian Interventions
Adler's contributions to mental health included several levels of intervention. While the art of psychotherapy was his primary work, he also had a major impact on the field of education in efforts to prevent psychological disorders (Adler 1957). Adler started by training parents, but realized that in order to reach the majority of children he needed to switch his focus to teachers. In Vienna he spent a great deal of time lecturing to teachers and demonstrating how to understand and influence children. In addition, he was asked to establish child guidance clinics attached to the schools throughout Vienna. He saw prevention through education as the first level of intervention and as a great investment in the future. Continuing in these efforts, many of Adler's followers simplified some of the ideas for use by teachers and parents (Dreikurs and Soltz 1964; Dreikurs and Grey 1968), thus furthering Adler's influence.
The next level of intervention is counseling. Adlerian counseling is generally time-limited, supportive therapy that is usually focused on specific problems. It leads to moderate insight, attitude change, and behavioral change. Anthony Bruck, an associate of Adler, developed brief counseling to a fine art, including the use of explanatory graphics and charts (Bruck, 1978). Examples of the focus of counseling include parenting, marital relationships, and career choice and development. These interventions can help individuals cope with developmental milestones, life crises, and change points in their lives. The potential for personality change at a deep level, however, lies in psychotherapy.
The overall goal of Adlerian psychotherapy is helping an individual develop from a partially functioning person into a more fully functioning one. Fully functioning means solving each of the areas of life more cooperatively, more courageously, with a greater sense of contribution and a greater sense of satisfaction. To do this, an individual must identify and work toward becoming her best self. In other words, the overall goal of therapy is to increase the individual's feeling of community. This is very practical. It is not merely a matter of gaining insight, but of using that insight to take concrete steps to improve relationships with family, friends, community, and work. In its largest sense, the goal of therapy is not to improve just the client's life; the therapist is working to improve the quality of life for everyone in the client's circle of contact, as well as improving society through the client.
Thus, the first specific goal of therapy is not necessarily fulfilling the client's expectation. The client may want instant, and somewhat magical, relief of symptoms or to continue what he is doing without feeling so uncomfortable. The therapist has to be sympathetic to this desire, but must clarify and establish, as quickly as possible, the cooperative working relationship that is required for genuine improvement of a difficult situation.
Adler suggested that we must provide a belated parental influence of caring, support, encouragement and stimulation to cooperate. By reawakening courage and creativity in the client, a new, unfamiliar feeling of community may develop as he discovers that he has something valuable to offer. Some people have been cared for in a mistakenly indulgent way and have absorbed it, but they have not learned to feel or express a genuine caring for others. These people, although they need to be cared for in a new encouraging way, also need to be challenged to start caring for others in this new way.
Stages of Classical Adlerian Psychotherapy
For teaching purposes, Adlerian psychotherapy can be divided into twelve stages, and within each stage, cognitive, affective, and behavioral changes are gradually promoted (Stein, 1990). At the last three stages, the spiritual domain can also be addressed. The stages reflect progressive strategies for awakening a client's underdeveloped feeling of community. What we must remember, however, is that the actual therapy is very spontaneous and creative and cannot be systematized into steps to which we rigidly adhere. Empathy and encouragement, although emphasized at certain points, are present in every stage of effective psychotherapy. A highly abbreviated overview of the twelve stages follows [The stages were suggested by Sophia de vries who studied with Alfred Adler. They were then developed by Henry Stein].
Stage One: Empathy-Relationship Stage
The initial therapeutic goal is to help the client become a more cooperative person, and this starts with learning to cooperate in therapy. When the client's cooperation is lacking, the therapist can diplomatically point to this. If the client attempts to endorse full responsibility for change to the therapist, the therapist can suggest that the rate of progress will depend on the degree of cooperation between them. Therapists may help in the discovery of some new helpful ideas, but the ideas must be applied to improve a situation. Initially, the client may need to express a great deal of distress with little interruption. In response, the therapist offers genuine warmth, empathy, acceptance, and understanding. To understand the uniqueness of each client, the therapist must be able to "stand in the shoes" of the client and "see and feel" what the client is experiencing. If the client is feeling hopeless, the therapist must be able to feel the client's hopelessness without feeling sorry for her, but then step back and provide hope for change. Thus, the therapist must be able to come close enough psychologically to the client in order to empathize, but withdraw neutrally at some point in order to generate hope and discuss possible improvements. An atmosphere of hope, reassurance, and encouragement enables the client to develop feeling that things can be different.
Stage Two: Information Stage
The therapist gathers relevant information: the presenting problem and its history, the client's level of functioning in the three life tasks, information about the family of origin, early memories, and dreams. Religious and cultural influences may also have significance. When appropriate, intelligence, interest, and psychological testing are included.
The information given always contains a degree of distortion, as well as significant omissions. After studying the parallel patterns of childhood and the present and analyzing the rich projective material in early recollections and dreams, the therapist develops preliminary hypotheses about the inferiority feelings, goal, life style, private logic, and antithetical scheme of apperception.
Stage Three: Clarification Stage
Socratic questioning clarifies the client's core beliefs about self, others, and life. Then the consequences of these beliefs are evaluated and compared with new possibilities. Mistaken ideas and private logic are corrected to align with common sense. The client's ideas must be unraveled to trace how she first adopted them in childhood. A client may have the idea that if his wife doesn't give him what he wants, then she doesn't love him. The therapist might ask a series of questions to illuminate the private logic behind this statement: "Is it your idea that love is only giving you what you want? What if what you want is no good for you? Should your wife give you what is unhealthy for you? Is that really being loving?" These questions will help the client explore the meaning he gives to love and marriage and may come to change his private views of these matters.
Symptoms may serve as excuses for avoiding something that the client is not doing. One way that the therapist can ferret this out is to ask the question: "If you did not have these symptoms, what would you do?" The client's answer is often quite revealing about what she is avoiding.
Stage Four: Encouragement Stage
The therapist cannot give clients courage; they must find it within themselves. The therapist can begin this process by acknowledging the courage in what the client has already done: e.g., coming to therapy. Then therapist and client together can explore small steps that, with a little more courage, the client might take. It is through actually trying new behaviors and realizing that disaster is not an inevitable consequence that the client's courage grows.
Clients may have exaggerated inferiority feelings that they want to eliminate totally, believing that if they realize their goal these painful feelings will disappear. The therapist must first reduce these feelings to a manageable level and then convince the clients that normal inferiority feelings are a blessing that they may "use" as a spur for improvement.
Genuine self-esteem does not come from the approval or praise of others. It comes from the person's own experience of conquering difficulties. Therefore, small progressive action steps, aimed at overcoming previously avoided difficulties, must be taken, one at a time. For many clients, this is equivalent to doing the "felt impossible." During and after these steps, new feelings about efforts and results are acknowledged and discussed.
In attempting to avoid failure, discouraged people often decrease their level and radius of activity. They can become quite passive, wait for others to act, and limit their radius of activity to what is safe or emotionally profitable. Gradually, the level, radius, and quality of a client's activity must increase. A move in the wrong direction is often a necessary first step which can then be corrected after commending the attempt. Without new activity and experimentation there will be little real progress. Some new success must be achieved to prepare for the next stage.
Stage Five: Interpretation and Recognition Stage
Psychological movements are the thinking, feeling, and behavioral motions that clients make in response to the external tasks facing them. Thus, in addition to listening to what the client says, the therapist must be attuned to what the client actually has done and currently does in relation to life tasks. Movements in therapy are the most visible. Does the client come on time or late; get off the track; talk all the time and leave little opportunity for the therapist to say anything; agree with everything but "forget" to put it into practice between sessions? The therapist's job is to describe these movements precisely and help the client identify the immediate goals or final goal to which they lead.
Depreciation and aggression are tactics clients use to elevate artificially their self esteem and punish others for not living up to their mistaken expectations. Clients are often quite clever in adopting the weapon that will hurt others the most. The therapist must show the client how ineffective or childish the weapons are or that they eventually hurt the client more than they hurt the intended victim.
To dissolve the client's antithetical scheme of apperception, the therapist must dialectically question it. However, the client will probably resist this dialogue because the scheme provides certainty and supports the pursuit of the childlike, egocentric, final goal. Clients' final goals represent visions of what they imagine will help them feel absolutely superior, safe, significant, and secure. When faced with changing these final goals, the alternative often looks like being nobody, worthless, and vulnerable. The client's scheme uses cognitive rigidity to generate very strong feelings. It locks the client into a dichotomized, superior/inferior way of seeing the world, evaluating experiences, and relating to others. Thus, to dissolve the antithetical scheme of apperception, the therapist must help the client see the real and subtly distinguishing qualities of people and experiences rather than dividing impressions into "either-or," rigidly absolute categories.
All behavior is purposive and is aimed at moving toward the final goal. If clients have goals that are on the useless side of life, then their emotions will also serve these goals. Frequently, emotion is used to avoid responsibility for actions. This is reflected in the often-heard claims of the client: "He made me angry; I couldn't help it." Each individual's use of emotions is unique, and the therapist must be sensitive and precise in identifying the underlying purposes of these emotions.
The final goal includes expectations of the roles that others should play. If the final goal is to be adored, then others must play the role of adorers; if the final goal is to dominate, then others must be submissive. The therapist must help the client identify these expectations and their actual impact on relationships. Rather than having such demands of others, clients need to learn how to generate self-demand, determining what they will do to contribute to their own development and to other people and situations.
After unfolding the meaning of the client's movements and their immediate goals, the therapist eventually leads to interpreting the core dynamics of the client's inferiority feeling, final goal, and style of life. Family constellation and experiences, current behavioral patterns, early recollections, and dreams are integrated into a unique, vivid, and consistent portrait.
In revealing the client's goal, diplomacy, good timing, and sensitivity are essential. The client must feel the encouragement of new successes before she will feel open and ready to face a clear picture of the mistaken direction she had previously followed. The therapist helps the client evaluate the goal and discover what is really gained or lost in this pursuit--using logic, humor, metaphors, reduction to absurdity, and what Adler called "spitting in the soup." In this last strategy, the therapist makes the final goal -- e.g., being powerful, intimidating, and demanding respect -- "taste bad," perhaps by comparing it to being a Mafia don. The discussion around the client's final goal reflects a very vigorous form of thinking about the meaning of life and what the client is doing with it and what else he could or should be doing.
Stage Six: Knowing Stage
Previously, the client relied on the therapist to interpret her movements and their connection to the life style and goal. Now the client interprets situations, sharing his or her insights with the therapist. Many clients are tempted to terminate at this point, feeling that they know enough, even though they have not actually applied their insight and changed their main direction in life.
Stage Seven: Missing Experience Stage
Some clients cling to strong negative feelings through powerful images and memories from childhood. These feelings may inhibit or poison their contact with people. Others may lack a depth of positive feeling in their work and relationships. They try to do "the right thing" but do not have a feeling of enjoyment or affection in the process. They may have sufficient insight but not have enough positive emotional anticipation to take new action. While it is possible with some clients to promote change through cognitive interpretation, with others an emotional breakthrough is more effective. The therapist can use role-play, guided imagery, or eidetic imagery exercises to dissolve negative imprints from parents and siblings and replace them with new nurturing, encouraging experiences and images. Ongoing groups, or one-day group marathons are preferable for role-playing techniques, utilizing group members for the parental or sibling figures. Longer individual sessions can also be effective.
Stage Eight: Doing Differently Stage
Insight and newly found courage are mobilized to approach old difficulties and neglected responsibilities. Small, experimental steps are ventured in the main arenas of life. Initially, this is going to be hard for clients because they will not expect a positive feeling as a result of taking steps in a new direction. However, it is possible to start with what the person is willing to attempt and gradually make it more socially useful. A very aggressive person who verbally attacks others might be encouraged to attack his problems vigorously and productively instead.
Generally, all of the behavioral steps that clients are encouraged to take in therapy are directed toward increasing their level of confidence and changing their life style. However, profound change occurs after the client and therapist have together identified and discussed the client's final goal and life style. On the basis of this insight, then, the client can work to change the main direction of movement and approach to the three main tasks of life (community, work, and love).
Stage Nine: Reinforcement Stage
Most of the client's actions have been egocentric, providing imagined protection or self-enhancement, and neglecting the needs of others. The therapist helps clients learn to let go of themselves and focus on others, on tasks, and the needs of situations.
All of these new positive actions are encouraged and supported. As the client begins overcoming major difficulties that had been previously avoided, courageous efforts, good results, and feelings of pride and satisfaction are affirmed. As a result, the egocentricity gradually dissolves. Emotional coaching may be needed to experience and express the new positive feelings.
Stage Ten: Community Feeling Stage
The therapist's feeling of community has been demonstrated to the client continuously, since the very first meeting, by accepting him unconditionally as a fellow human being, expressing a deep interest through listening and concern for his distress, and indicating a willingness to help. Perhaps skeptical of the therapist's good will at first, the client has felt and appreciated the genuine caring and encouragement.
The conquering of obstacles has generated courage, pride and a better feeling of self, which now leads to a greater cooperation and feeling of community with the therapist. This feeling should now be extended to connect more with other people, cooperate with them, and contribute significantly to their welfare. As the client's new feeling of community develops, she will become motivated to give her very best to her relationships and her work.
Stage Eleven: Goal-Redirection Stage
When the client begins to let go of an old goal and life style of self-protection, self-enhancement, and personal superiority over other people, he experiences a temporary feeling of disorientation as a new horizon opens up. Now, after exploring and experimenting, he may adopt a new, conscious life goal that is inspiring and socially useful. He abandons his former direction and pursues the new one because it yields a more positive feeling of self and greater appreciation from others.
Clients constantly observe their therapists and may use them as positive or negative models. How therapists behave is critical, as it may interfere with the therapy process if clients see that their therapists do not embody what they are trying to teach the clients.
Maslow explored the characteristics of many fully functioning people and concluded that what we usually refer to as "normal" or "average" functioning is actually a commonly accepted form of very limited psychological development. He set the standard of psychological health many notches higher than the benchmarks of most of his contemporaries. Adler and Maslow were in agreement on this issue, which was not to set our therapeutic sights merely on the "normal" or "average," but to aspire to the ideal of what people could become. Not many clients may be willing to reach this far -- but some will be interested, and the therapist should be prepared to facilitate this journey.
As clients improve, the therapist can help them see that they can use new, more liberating and inspiring guides for their lives. These alternative guides are what Maslow called meta-motivation or higher values -- e.g., truth, beauty, justice (Maslow 1971). The values that individual clients choose will depend on their unique sensitivities and interests.
Stage Twelve: Support and Launching Stage
The client has learned to love the struggle of overcoming difficulties, now prefers the unfamiliar, and looks forward to the unexpected in life. Feeling equal to others, and eager to develop fully, she expresses a spirit of generosity and wants to share what she has accomplished. Now the client can become a generator of encouragement to other people.
Feeling stronger and functioning better, the client may need a self-selected challenge to stimulate the development of his best self. The very best in a person does not simply flow out, but is a response to a healthy self-demand. It may be stimulated by an unexpected situation or a chosen challenge. The therapist may prompt the search for such a challenge and can help the client evaluate what would be a worthy, meaningful, stimulating, and socially useful challenge -- one that is neither too big nor too small for the client's capabilities. For some clients, it may be the recognition of a "mission" or "calling" in their lives.
Therapeutic Techniques
The creative freedom inherent in Adlerian practice demands a variety of strategies that suit the uniqueness of each client and capture the spontaneous therapeutic opportunities the client hands to us in each session. Although the twelve stages represent a conceptual center line of treatment, essentially, a unique therapy is created for each client. The specific techniques used at any one time depend on the direction that seems currently accessible. Four main strategies characterize current Classical Adlerian therapeutic technique: assessment, Socratic questioning, guided and eidetic imagery, and role-playing [These strategies are rooted in the original Adlerian treatment style and are enriched by the contributions of Sophia de Vries, Alexander Müller, and Henry Stein].
Assessment. A thorough life style analysis serves as the guide to the therapeutic process; generally this occurs during the first three stages of treatment. A central technique that Adler pioneered to assess life style is the projective use of early memories (Adler 1933). These memories, whether they are "true" or fictional, embody a person's core beliefs and feelings about self and the world. They contain reflections of the person's inferiority feelings, goal, scheme of apperception, level and radius of activity, courage, feeling of community, and style of life.
In addition to these early memories, the therapist uses the following to do the assessment: (1) description of symptoms, the circumstances under which they began, and the client's description of what he would do if not plagued with these symptoms; (2) current and past functioning in the domains of love relationships, family, friendships, and school and work; (3) family of origin constellation and dynamics, and extended family patterns, (4) health problems, medication, alcohol, and drug use, and (5) previous therapy and attitude toward the therapist. While much of this information can be collected in the early therapy sessions, it can also be obtained by asking the client to fill out an Adlerian Client Questionnaire (Stein 1993). This permits the client to answer in detail many important questions and increases the client's level of activity in the therapy process. In addition, it saves some therapeutic time and enables the therapist to obtain a binocular view from both the client's written and verbal descriptions.
Socratic Questioning. The Socratic method of leading an individual to insight through a series of questions lies at the heart of Adlerian practice (Stein 1990; Stein 1991). It embodies the relationship of equals searching for knowledge and insight in a gentle, diplomatic, and respectful style, consistent with Adler's philosophy. In the early stages of psychotherapy, the therapist uses questions to gather relevant information, clarify meaning, and verify feelings. Then, in the middle stages of therapy, more penetrating, leading questions uncover the deeper structures of private logic, hidden feelings, and unconscious goals. The therapist also explores the personal and social implications of the client's thinking, feeling, and acting, in both their short and long term consequences. Throughout, new options are generated dialectically, examined, and evaluated to help the client take steps in a different direction of her own choosing. The results of these new steps are constantly reviewed. In the latter stages of therapy, the Socratic method is used to evaluate the impact of the client's new direction and to contemplate a new philosophy of life. The Socratic style places the responsibility for conclusions and decisions in the lap of the client. The role of the therapist is that of a "co-thinker," not the role of a superior expert. Just as Socrates was the "midwife" attending the birth of new ideas, the Adlerian therapist can serve as "midwife" to the birth of a new way of living for a client.
Guided and Eidetic Imagery. For many clients, cognitive insight and new behavior lead to different feelings. Some clients need additional specific interventions to access, stimulate, or change feelings. Guided and eidetic imagery, used in an Adlerian way, can lead to emotional breakthroughs especially when the client reaches an impasse. Eidetic imagery can be used diagnostically to access vivid symbolic mental pictures of significant people and situations that are often charged with emotion. Guided imagery can be used therapeutically to change the negative imprints of childhood family members that weigh heavily on a client and often ignite chronic feelings of guilt, fear, and resentment. These techniques are typically used in the middle stages of therapy. Alexander Müller recommended the use of imagery when a client knew that a change in behavior was sensible, but still didn't take action (Müller 1937). Some clients need a vivid image of themselves as happier in the future than they presently are, before they journey in a new direction that they know is healthier.
Role-Playing. In the middle stages of therapy, role-playing offers clients opportunities to add missing experiences to their repertoire, and to explore and practice new behavior in the safety of the therapist's office. To provide missing experiences -- e.g., support and encouragement of a parent -- a group setting is recommended. Group members, rather than the therapist, can play the roles of substitute parents or siblings. In this way, a client can engage in healing experiences and those who participate with him can increase their own feeling of community by contributing to the growth of their peers. When learning and practicing new behaviors, the therapist can offer coaching, encouragement, and realistic feedback about probable social consequences. This is somewhat equivalent to the function of children's play as they experiment with roles and situations in preparation for growing up. Clients need to be treated with gentleness and diplomacy, yet offered challenges that strengthen their confidence and courage.
Creativity in Psychotherapy
Adlerian psychotherapy is an art, not a science, and must be practiced with the same integrity of any artistic endeavor. Though it is based on theory, philosophy, and principles, its practice must come honestly from the heart. It is not a mere technology that can be practiced "by the numbers," nor is it bag of tricks that can be added successfully to an eclectic pile of value-free tools.
The uniqueness of each client requires constant invention. Similarly, the personality of each therapist makes his or her approach inimitable. However, as Adler himself (Hoffman 1994) and his followers demonstrated, the personality of the therapist must be congruent with the philosophy of the therapy [This comes both from personal knowledge of Sophia de Vries, Anthony Bruck, Alexander Müller, and Kurt Adler and the description of Lydia Sicher's work (Davidson 1991)]. Through a vigorous study analysis, an Adlerian therapist assesses and reduces to a manageable level his own inferiority feelings, identifies and redirects the final goal and style of life, and develops on all levels a strong feeling of community. In addition, the person struggles with the philosophical issues of life and engages with the study analyst in a search for higher values that would be most uniquely suited to that individual.
Meta-Therapy
Maslow labeled this latter aspect of therapy "meta-therapy" (Maslow 1971). He suggested that the fullest development of human potential might require a more philosophical process, one that went beyond the relief of suffering and the correction of mistaken ideas and ways of living. Müller described the last phase of therapy as a "philosophical discourse" (Müller 1968). For those clients who need and desire this experience, Classical Adlerian psychotherapy offers the psychological tools and philosophical depth to realize their quest.
Summary
We summarize Adler's psychology in six central principles [Based on propostitions listed in Ansbacher and Ansbacher 1956, 1-2]. (1) Unity of the Individual: The individual is not internally divided or a battleground of conflicting forces. Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are consistent with the person's style of life. (2) Goal Orientation: A central personality dynamic originates from the growth and forward movement of life itself. It is a future-oriented striving toward a goal of significance, superiority, or success, which is frequently out of a person's awareness. In mental health, it is a goal of superiority over general difficulties; in mental disorder, it is one of superiority over others. The early childhood feelings of inferiority, for which an individual aims to compensate, lead to the creation of a fictional goal. The depth of inferiority feeling determines the height of the goal which then becomes the "final cause" for the person's behavior. (3) Self-determination and Uniqueness: The goal may be influenced by hereditary and cultural factors, but it ultimately springs from the creative power and opinion of the individual. (4) Social Context: As an indivisible whole, a system, the human being is also part of larger wholes or systems -- family, community, culture, nation, humanity, the planet, the cosmos. In these contexts, we meet the three important tasks of life: community, work, and love. All are social problems. The way that individuals respond to the first social system, the family, may become the prototype of their world view. (5) Feeling of Community: Each human being has the capacity for developing the feeling of interconnectedness with other living beings and learning to live in harmony with society. The personal feeling of security is rooted in a sense of belonging and embeddedness in the stream of social evolution. (6) Mental Health: Social usefulness and contribution are the criteria of mental health. Maladjustment is characterized by an underdeveloped feeling of community, a deeply felt inferiority feeling, and an exaggerated, uncooperative goal of personal superiority. The goal of therapy is to increase the feeling of community, promote a feeling of equality, and replace egocentric self-protection, self-enhancement, and self-indulgence with self-transcending, courageous, social contribution.
Does psychotherapy directly benefit a society or only the individual? Adler believed that the ultimate purpose of psychotherapy was to help people contribute to the social evolution of mankind. Müller added a spiritual element to this idea. He suggested that a human being's mission in life was to work in partnership with God to complete an unfinished world (Müller 1992). However Adler's philosophy is expressed, in essence, it offers a socially responsible answer to the question of what it means to be a human being.
Recommendations for Further Study:
A twelve-volume set of The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler is now available for the first time. Any serious study of Adlerian theory must go beyond Adler's books written for the general public (Understanding Human Nature and What Life Could Mean to You), or simplifications of Adlerian theory written by other authors. Only a dedicated, thorough study of Adler's original, clinical writings can reveal the depth and heart of his theory and philosophy. This definitive collection of Adler's most important writings is essential reading for students, professors, and clinicians, and should be made available in the libraries of all training institutes and universities. For more information, go to http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/cwaa-all.htm.
However, the technique of Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy cannot be fully learned from any books. It must be experienced personally with a training analyst whose character is congruent with Adler's philosophy. Our mentor-oriented, Distance Training Program in Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy provides a rare opportunity to study and experience all aspects of theory and practice. Our training also includes an essential, personal study-analysis. This experience, of overcoming personal and professional limitations is often omitted in other training programs. For additional information, go to http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/dist-tra.htm.

















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