Girls now constitute a majority in our secondary schools, although there are more boys in primary school. There are more women at university than men overall. In 83 of 141 countries women outnumber men (in tertiary institutions). They do so not only in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries but also in countries like Mongolia and Guyana where university education is not widespread. South Africa is following the trend with more women at universities and more women graduates.
In the USA there are two million more women than men in college. Estimates are that within five years, six in ten of those entering US colleges will be female. Not only are there more women in higher education than men, but repeated surveys tell us that women also tend to outperform men in higher education. The ranks of management are being filled with more women, but how can we encourage this development and train women to have the confidence to become business leaders? AstroTech has more than 60 courses, all of which can help.
Mamphela Ramphela, former World Bank vice president and a participant in the Dinokeng group that published three scenarios for SA's future to 2020 noted that in education a number of poor policy choices in the past are negatively affecting the system's functioning. "Of any Grade 1 class ... only 29% get a matric. Too many in the 20-25 age group -- about 50% -- are not in school or any other education institution, and are also not working. They are unemployable and it's not because they are stupid. We have failed them in terms of reading, writing, arithmetic and reasoning (skills)." A critical role for any human resources manager is how to create stimulated performers from a core of essentially poorly educated employees, AstroTech courses help you do this.
Every IT manager is looking for great free apps, here are some; learn more on AstroTech courses from our great facilitators or by networking with other in-touch delegates. Have you tried Picasa? It is a great photo organiser on Windows and is handy for organising and uploading albums on Mac. It's like iPhoto for Windows. This is the must app for any businessperson or traveller: Skype is for voice and video calls and instant messaging. It didn't exist five years ago, but is now the biggest international call carrier. If you're in IT you tweet and TweetDeck is arguably the best of the desktop Twitter apps. It organises Twitter into columns, which you can edit or chop and change. It also has a column of Facebook or LinkedIn status updates. There are alternatives, such as Seismic Desktop, Nambu and Tweetie that are good too. Hootsuite is a handy website with a similar layout that also lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts. And then VLC is the ultimate plays-everything video player.
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