What Republic does Lebanon have? Lebanon has no republic except the official name: Lebanon has no strong central government to spread the general good to all its citizens or impose its laws to all its 18 religious castes systems. (Even all personal status, (birth, mariage, death..) is controlled and managed by the religious sect)
There are various concepts for republics, but the common denominator is that what is good for the largest majority is good to the individual. And there are no such benefit or purposes in Lebanon.
My brand of Republic is to give the citizens choices and opportunities to decide among the public and private institutions that offer competitive levels of services in quality and performance.
Except in education: Religious-based sects should Not be allowed to institute private schools. In any case, every private school is linked to a religious type of ideology, even those claiming to be secular. Actually, in Germany there are No private schools: the State funds and invest heavily on the best educational public schools.
The citizen or family does not have to opt exclusively for public or private institutions such as schools, universities, hospitals, insurance, health coverage, industries…, but he can have a mix of loyalties that relate best to their individual reflection for the present and for the future (availability of opportunities)
What could be considered best now might not project any benefit for a sustainable society.
A Republic should invest enough to compete with private institutions without targeting certain sectors for hegemony. Otherwise, society might be confronted with a heavy elite class of bureaucrats, a long time nemesis in any institution.
The system should be balanced to entice the private sector to compete fairly. This tag of war between public and private competition for quality and performance is the most beneficial system to achieving stable capacity for development.
Does Lebanon have democracy, which means that the individual is the most powerful element during the municipal and legislative elections?
Not really. Democracy in Lebanon is farcical: individuals follow the caste orders and feudal/sectarian lords. The few free minded “citizens” are no match to what we call “The bulldozer factor” of caste selection for representatives.
The election laws are utterly biased toward the caste system: the system of proportionality has been rejected again and again. Most of our political parties are confessionals; the secular parties have hard time overcoming the biased electoral laws.
In modern democracies, claims of communities and syndicates are heard and negotiated under an established and respected Constitution and the laws of the land; not so in Lebanon.
Our syndicates are mirror images of our caste system in their representative system and behavior.
Actually, universities degrees are not recognized until you register into the appropriate professional syndicate.
There are many professions without a syndicate or a legitimate association for the government to acknowledge them in State institutions or even for stamping the profession on the passport!
What is considered a “majority” in a democracy?
What is the appropriate time span to revise the decision of a “majority?
What are the conditions and situations that forces upon a democracy to revise decisions?
What is the efficient balance between duration to exercising authority and needs to infuse the administrations with new and fresh figures?
What is certain is that when a homogeneous group, caste, party, or syndicate is consistently at odd with the policies of a Republic then, the Republic is not functioning properly because that reflect a tendency that no intensive efforts are invested in communicating and dialoguing with the “minority” groups.
There are No private schools or universities in Germany: the rich and poor attend the same educational institutions and are distributed according to their capacities for higher education.
اعلامية مغربية في المانيا تكتب عن سر تقدم دولة المانيا تقول : سأخون ألمانيا اليوم و اخبركم عن سبب تقدمها .. سبب تقدم المانيا ليس الفوسفات او الثروات السمكية او البترول او المعادن او المقالع ..
سبب تقدمها هو النظام التعليمي نظام تعليمي يتساوى فيه الغني مع الفقير التعليم الخاص ممنوع وهو في حكم الجريمة في المانيا .. ابن رئيس الشركة يجلس على نفس الطاولة التي يجلس فيها ابن رجل النظافة هكذا اسمه وليس الزبال .. لان الزبال من يرمي الزبالة ..
هذا النظام مقسم كالاتي : المرحلة الابتدائية ومدتها اربع سنوات .. بعدها يبدأ تقسيم الاطفال الى مجتهدين جدا .. ومجتهدين .. ولا بأس به .. ومتوسط .. وضعيف ..
المجتهدون جدا والمجتهدون يتم ارسالهم إلى الثانوي gymnasium .. لا بأس بهم يتم ارسالهم الى الاعدادي الثانوي realschule .. المتوسطون يتم ارسالهم الى المدارس الرئيسية او المهنية hauptschule .. الضعفاء يتم إرسالهم الى مدارس خاصة sonderschule ..
خلا ل المرحلة ما بين القسم الخامس والقسم الثاني عشر وهي سنة الباكلوريا يمكن لاي تلميذ تحسن مستواه ان ينتقل الى المدرسة الافضل ..
والذي كان في المدرسة الاحسن وضعف مستواه سينتقل حتما الى مستوى اقل .. فالاهم ان لا ينقطع التلميذ عن المدرسة .. السنوات الالزامية لاي تلميذ في المدرسة هي تسع سنوات .. وبعدها لديه الحق في الانقطاع عن المدرسة .. ولكن يجب عليه ان يبحث عن مدرسة مهنية او تكوين مهني ..
اذا غاب اي تلميذ عن المدرسة في السنوات التسع الأولى فقط لخمس دقائق تتصل المدرسة بالمنزل لتستفسر عن سبب غيابه .. ان رفض التلميذ اللجوء الى المدرسة يتم احضاره عن طريق الشرطة مع تكليف علماء النفس وعلماء الاجتماع اضافة الى الدولة المكلفة في شخص مكتب الشباب لمعرفة السبب .. فان كان السبب اسريا .. يتم حله حبيا و ان كان غير ممكن حله يتم اخذ الطفل من الوالدين لكي ينموا الطفل في ظروف طبيعية ..
لكل طفل الحق في الترفيه والرياضة وطعام صحي واستقرار اسري .. ان اكتشفت الدولة ان سببا من هذه الأسباب فيه خلل تتدخل .. مرحلة الجامعة : هي مكمن وسر تقدم المانيا .. تنتشر الجامعة في المانيا في كل مدينة صغيرة كيف ماكان نوعها .
كل زاوية من زوايا أي مدينة خاضعة لبحوث جامعية من حيث الاقتصاد والتقنيات والجغرافية وعلم النفس وعلم الاجتماع .. لا يمكن فصل أي فرد من المجتمع عن البحوث العلمية الجامعية ..
اما الجامعات الطبية فهي موجودة في مستشفى وفي كل دار للعجزة ويدرس الأخلاق والرحمة قبل أن يصبح الدكتور دكتورا .. ويجب عليه اولا ان يقوم بتمرين تطبيقي اولي لمدة ثلاثة أشهر في دار العجزة لكي يمسح غائط الرجل والمرأة المسنة
ولا يعمل الطبيب في المانيا بالمستشفى فقط بل في دور العجزة كذلك وفي مستشفيات الاطفال ومستشفيات الامراض النفسية والعقلية .. المستشفيات منتشرة على ربوع المدينة وهي متساوية تقريبا كلها في التجهيزات والاطر لان هذه الاطر هي ابناء الشعب .. ولا يمكن ان يتدخل وسيط او دفع رشوة لكي يدرس تحد الطب .. المانيا تستثمر في الانسان لانه هو مستقبلها ..
الطالب او القاضي او الشرطي او الوزير او البرلماني .. لا يحتاج وساطة ولا يولد في ألمانيا طفل وفي فمه ملعقة من ذهب بل ولدوا جميعا متساوون امام القانون ولديهم جميعا الحق في التعليم والصحة والطب والشغل .. هذا سر تقدم المانيا
Do you believe graduates from public universities would be caught dead wearing these stupid lawyer hats?
71% of senior judges in Britain were privately educated. Photograph: Toby Melville/REUTERS
Much of the upper crust of British society is a racket for the privileged in defiance of the democratic wishes of the majority.
That really is the core of Elitist Britain, that while 95% of Britons believe “in a fair society every person should have an equal opportunity to get ahead”, the figures in a government report published on Thursday reveal an ingrained unfairness.
Only 7% in Britain are privately educated.
And yet this section of society makes up 71% of senior judges, 62% of the senior armed forces and 55% of permanent secretaries.
It is quite something when the “cabinet of millionaires” is one of the less unrepresentative pillars of power, with 36% hailing from private schools.
The statistics should provoke Britain’s media into a prolonged period of self-reflection.
They probably won’t since 54% of the top 100 media professionals went to private schools, and just 16% attended a comprehensive school – in a country where 88% attend non-selective state schools.
43% of newspaper columnists had parents rich enough to send them to fee-paying schools.
In the case of the media this has much to do with:
1. The decline of the local newspapers that offered a way in for the aspiring journalist with a non-gilded background.
2. The growing importance of costly post-graduate qualifications that are beyond the bank accounts of most; and
3. The explosion of unpaid internships, which discriminate on the basis of whether you are prosperous enough to work for free, rather than whether you are talented.
Why does the unfairness highlighted by the report matter?
As it points out, elitism leaves “leading institutions less informed, less representative and, ultimately, less credible than they should be”.
They focus “on issues that are of salience only to a minority but not the majority in society”.
If there are so few journalists and politicians who have experienced, say, low wages or a struggle for affordable home, then the media and political elite will be less likely to deal with these issues adequately.
Instead, they will reflect the prejudices, assumptions and experiences of the uber-privileged.
The flaw with the report is an implicit assumption that inequality is not the problem, but rather that our current inequality is not a fair distribution of talents.
“If only a few bright sparks from humble backgrounds could be scraped into the higher echelons,” seems to be the plea.
Certainly Britain is in desperate need of radical measures to ensure all can realise their aspirations, including the banning of unpaid internships, the scrapping of charitable status for private schools, investment in early-years education, and dealing with issues such as overcrowded homes that stifle educational attainment.
But surely Britain’s chronically unequal distribution of wealth and power has to be tackled too.
Oxford biased against state students? Can hard evidence change behavior of an old Elite institution?
Do top universities favour privately educated students or state school applicants?
Each piece of information (set of data on a department) should be analysed individually and not lumped with other datasets.
Otherwise, statistics might be biased and impression of biased admission policies will wrongly surface.
Easier to get in when not applying for courses that are more competitive…
It’s autumn, and a new batch of students are starting university. Some are walking through the ancient gates of an Oxbridge college.
Others are joining a redbrick university like Manchester or Bristol. A few may even be arriving in Warwick as I did (only to realize the University of Warwick is actually in Coventry).
Adam Kucharski posted in the Conversation this October 9, 2013,
Hard Evidence: is Oxford biased against state students
At this time of the year there is an oft-quoted debate, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities tend to be at the heart of it.
Do top universities favour privately educated students or state school applicants?
Beautiful, but is it biased?
Nobody disputes that private school pupils are more likely to apply to Oxford or Cambridge than state school pupils.
Many private schools are also prepped to face the Oxbridge admission process. This is a problem, but recently the Guardian suggested an even more worrying trend.
Looking at data on Oxford University admissions from 2010 to 2012, they compared the fates of independent and state school applicants who went on to achieve the highest possible school marks: 3 or more A* grades at A Level. Their results were as follows:
Independent school applicants with at least three A*s: 2,175 applied; 1,098 accepted.
State school applicants with at least three A*s: 3,196 applied; 1,474 accepted.
Over 50% of independent school applicants got in, but only 46% of state school hopefuls did.
The difference may not seem large at first glance, but it is actually substantial.
If we put both groups of applicants’ names in a hat and randomly picked out candidates until the 2,572 places were filled, there is a less than 0.1% chance we’d pick so many independent school students.
If we didn’t like Oxford or private schools, we might just finish our analysis there.
After all, there seems to be convincing evidence of a bias, and numbers can’t be wrong. Or can they?
The disappearing bias
During the autumn of 1973, the University of Berkeley gave postgraduate places to 44% of male applicants but only 35% of female ones. (And the remaining 20%? Of what genders were they?)
It was a huge discrepancy, and the university was soon taken to court for discriminating against women.
Berkeley gathered a committee to examine the data. The team included Peter Bickel, a statistician at the university. Along with two colleagues, Bickel started by tallying up admissions for each department separately. Perhaps only a few faculties were to blame for the gap?
Once the team had excluded departments with fairly even acceptance rates, or ones that no women applied to, the six biggest departments (labelled A to F) remained:
The results were startling. Comparing male/female acceptance rates for each individual department, the committee couldn’t find any substantial bias in favour of men. If anything, there was a slight bias towards women. So what was going on?
It was clear from the data that some departments (such as A) were easier to get into than others (such as F). When the committee looked at which of these courses men and women tended to apply to, there was a big difference in preferences:
Most men had applied for the less competitive subjects, whereas a lot of the female applicants had to fight it out for places on the popular courses.
This explained why more men had got into Berkeley: they’d applied for courses that it was easier to get a place on. Although no individual subject favoured men over women, when all the subjects were bundled together it therefore looked like there was a bias towards male applicants.
The contradiction is known as “Simpson’s paradox”, after statistician Edward Simpson who first outlined the problem in 1951.
It can happen whenever we combine sets of data – like departmental admission rates – into a single statistic, when each piece of information should really be analysed individually.
Paradoxes and private schools
Could the recently alleged private school advantage in Oxford admissions be a case of Simpson’s paradox?
To investigate, The Conversation obtained department-level admissions data from Oxford University through a Freedom of Information request. The criteria was the same as in The Guardian article: the 2010-12 success rates of private and state school applicants who had achieved three or more A* grades at A Level.
First, let’s look at the overall acceptance rates:
Independent school applicants with at least three A*s: 2579 applied; 1208 accepted.
State school applicants with at least three A*s: 3247 applied; 1460 accepted.
These figures don’t quite match the ones given in The Guardian article. (The Guardian responded that it may be because of different dataset requests.)
But assuming the figures Oxford gave The Conversation are correct, 45.0% of state school applicants who went on to get 3 A*s were given places, and 46.8% of private school pupils. Unlike the large gap reported by the Guardian, this difference – a mere 1.8% – is not particularly unusual. It is plausible that such a result could have occurred just by chance.
Alternatively, it could have been down to the courses that students opted for. A closer look at the data shows a disproportionate number of private school pupils applied for less popular courses like Classics, and relatively more state school pupils went for competitive subjects like mathematics and medicine.
Across all subjects and both school types, 45.8% of applicants who got at least three A*s were accepted between 2010-12.
If we look at the least competitive courses (i.e. subjects that took more applicants than the average), we find that 46% of the independent school applicants went for these subjects whereas 42% of state school pupils did:
The pattern is reversed when we look at the most competitive group of courses (which took fewer applicants than average): more state school pupils apply for such subjects. This suggests Simpson’s Paradox is at play, and would explain why slightly more independent school applicants gained places overall.
Most of us agree that more needs to be done to make top-level education accessible to pupils from all backgrounds. However, there are wildly differing opinions about who is to blame and what needs to be done to fix the problem – opinions that often depend on people’s political and social views.
While it is important to debate how to improve the situation, and to support these arguments with relevant data, we must also watch out for quirks like Simpson’s paradox. If we don’t, there is a risk we will spend time and effort counteracting biases that don’t actually exist.
Hard Evidence is a series of articles in which academics use research evidence to tackle the trickiest public policy questions.
How do you value quality of life? (October 20, 2009)
French President Sarkozy assembled a committee of Nobel Prize economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen to ponder on new indicators for measuring economic performance and social progress. This honorable committee submitted its report on September 13, 2009. The conclusion of the report concerning social progress target the well being of the citizens such as life expectancy, affordable health care, affordable dwelling, worthy education system that focus on individual reflection instead of data and fact memorization since the individual will be called upon to act on his decision, alternatives to organize our life around activities that we love; having satisfying jobs that we value; the possibility of expressing our opinions in public politics and social meetings; enjoying wholesome environment, clean water and purer breathable air; and feeling secure in the neighborhood. All this social indicators are more valuable to measure how a State has been progressing than relying solely on GNP or how many cars a family own or the number of household equipments.
Joseph Stiglitz is not welcomed in the Obama Administration because he harshly criticized the President economic adviser Larry Summers in The New York Times; Stiglitz said: “the plan for financial and economic stability is too modest to be effective. The pumping of money in banks is practically free gifts offered to Wall Street: only investors and creditors to these banks are benefiting but not the tax payers.” Stiglitz is the chief of the line of economists who attack the concept that free markets have the capability to stabilize imbalances efficiently. His mathematical models have demonstrated that transactions in free markets are biased toward those who are specialized in finance and have the necessary data to fool clients; “globalization has created a fresh pool of investors to exploit their ignorance”.
In this post I will ask binary questions of (Yes or No) for voting on laws and amendments in three categories of quality of life: personal, community, and State levels. For example, on the community level, suppose that if people postpone purchasing their first cars for a year and the saved money covers the expenses of inoculating all babies in the community then how would you vote? Suppose people are asked to postpone buying a new car instead of their older one for a year, then how would you vote? Suppose of inoculating babies the community decided for pay for free complete blood tests for citizens over 45 of years? Suppose that the community can perform free bypass surgery for the badly needed patients, or free urine dialysis?
What if you can postpone for a year replacing your washing machine to cover the expenses of investing in playgrounds for kids, or clean water, or new sewer system, or public transport system, or upgrading a hospital, or modernizing schools with updated communication and audio visual systems? How would you vote?
On the State level, suppose the tax breaks exempt people earning less than $10,000 of taxes. If the State decided to exempt people earning less than $20,000 would you vote for that new tax break knowing that investing money on the previous tax break are targeted to preserving natural reserves, distributing electricity 24 hours per day at the original rate, establishing affordable State health care for all, paying higher rates for teachers for continuing education to encourage individual reflection, increasing rates for nurses with higher quality of services, investing in clean alternative sources of energy, or salvaging beach resorts and better accommodating camping grounds and reclaiming greener locations for the public? How would you vote?
On the personal level, suppose your family is over three kids and they attend private schools. If you are to send them to public schools, in safe neighborhoods, then would you invest the saved money on a new bathroom, building an extra large room for the kids to assemble and play, arranging the garden as an attractive playground for the kids, taking additional vacations, working part-time so that you may monitor the teaching of your kids after school, subscribing your kids in various clubs and extra-curricular activities, or going out more frequently to movie theaters, musical event, and plays?
The premises are clear: for the same financial saving you have choices of improving the quality of life of the many in return of lavisher personal comfort. These questionnaires permit you to value the kinds of quality of life you believe in; they are easy to administer and the responses can be statistically analyzed using statistical packages specialized for binary responses. How your community value quality of life? How your nation value quality of life? What do you think about this research project?
Beautiful, but is it biased?
Adonis Diaries 