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United States has many Allied Health Schools to its credit. Students from different parts of the world are often attracted to these Schools. Both West and East Coasts in US are rich in many high graded Allied Health Schools. There are many Allied Health Schools in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

In Alabama, there are many top colleges such as Fortis College, Strayer University, South University, Remington College and Virginia College. Most of these colleges offer various Diploma Programs in Medical Office Management and Administration, Pharmacy Technician and Technology and Surgical Technician and Technology.

The Top Allied Health Care Schools in Delaware are Dawn Training Center, Harris School of Business and Strayer University’s Campus. They offer many diploma programs in Medical Billing, Coding and Transcription and Multi Skill Health Technology.

In Georgia, the top schools include Sanford Brown Institute in Atlanta, Advanced Career Training Institute in Morrow, Medix College in Atlanta, Brown Mackie College in Atlanta and Everest Institute in Decatur, Bauder College in Atlanta, Laurus Technical Institute, Keller Graduate School of Management under Devry University has campuses in Atlanta, Gwinnett, Stockbridge and Decatur. Argosy University also has a campus in Atlanta. These schools offer MBA Degree and Diploma Programs in Dentistry, Cardiovascular Technology etc.

Top Kentucky Health Schools include Draughons Junior College in Bowling Green, Spencerian College in Lexington Daymar College, Thomas College in Crestview Hills, Beckfield College, National College of Business and Technology in Louisville, South Western College and Indiana Wesleyan University’s College at Louisville. Maryland has many such Top Colleges like Medix College, Kaplan College in Hagerstown, TESST College of Technology and Sanz School etc. The reputed colleges in Massachusetts include Health Training Center in Milford, Worcester and Lynn, Mildred Elley in Pittsfield, Porter and Chester Institute in Westborough, Braintree and Chicopee, Bay state College in Boston, Lincoln and Technical Institute, Salter College, The Salter School and Branford Hall Career Institute.

The State of Michigan too has many Top Allied Health Care Schools like ‘New Horizons’ which has campuses at Troy, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Flint, East Lansing Livonia, Dorsey School in Southgate, Roseville and Madison Heights. Mississippi has many top colleges like Antonelli College in Jackson, Hattiesburg, Belhaven College, Blue Cliff College and Virginia College. The State of New York has College like Berkeley College in midtown Manhattan, Hunter Business School, TCI College of Technology, Anthem Institute in New York City, Bramson ORT College, Branford Hall Career Institute in Bohemia and Albany, Bryant and Stratton College, Plaza College in Jackson Heights, Ridley-Lowell Business and Technical Institute in Binghampton and Poughkeepsie, Suburban Technical School in Hempstead and Anthem Institute. New York University SCPS is another top Allied Health School in New York. North Carolina’s top Schools include Miller-Motte Technical College in Raleigh, Wilmington and Greenville, South College in Ashville, Medical Careers Institute in Concord, Greensboro and Brookstone College which has so many campuses through out North Carolina.

The Top Health Schools in Ohio are many such as Bohecker College, Miami-Jacobs Career College,  Ohio Business College, RETS College, National College of business and Technology, Beckfield College, Harrison College, Ohio Valley College of Technology and Tech Skills which has campuses in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus and Cleveland Institute of Dental – Medical Assistants, Inc.

Keystone Technical Institute, McCann School of Business and Technology and Allied Medical and Technical Institute in Pennsylvania, National College of Business and Technology in Virginia are other Top Allied Health Care Schools in East Coast.

History of formula

Early infant foods

Throughout history, mothers who could not (or chose not to) breastfeed their babies either employed the use of a wet nurse or, less frequently, prepared food for their babies, a process known as “dry nursing.” Baby food composition varied according to region and economic status. In Europe and America during the early 19th century, the prevalence of wet nursing began to decrease, while the practice of feeding babies mixtures based on animal milk rose in popularity.

Poster advertisement for Nestle’s Milk by Thophile Alexandre Steinlen, 1895

This trend was driven by cultural changes as well as increased sanitation measures, and it continued throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century, with a notable increase after Elijah Pratt invented and patented the India-rubber nipple in 1845. As early as 1846, scientists and nutritionists noted an increase in medical problems and infant mortality was associated with dry nursing. In an attempt to improve the quality of manufactured baby foods, in 1867, Justus von Liebig developed the world’s first commercial infant formula, Liebig’s Soluble Food for Babies. The success of this product quickly gave rise to competitors such as Mellin’s Infant Food, Ridge’s Food for Infants and Nestle’s Milk.

Raw milk formulas

As physicians became increasingly concerned about the quality of such foods, medical recommendations such as Thomas Morgan Rotch’s “percentage method” (published in 1890) began to be distributed, and gained widespread popularity by 1907. These complex formulas recommended that parents mix cow’s milk, water, cream, and sugar or honey in specific ratios to achieve the nutritional balance believed to approximate human milk reformulated in such a way as to accommodate the believed digestive capability of the infant.

At the dawn of the 20th century in the United States, most infants were breastfed, although many received some formula feeding as well. Home-made “percentage method” formulas were more commonly used than commercial formulas in both Europe and the United States. They were less expensive and were widely believed to be healthier. However, formula-fed babies exhibited more diet-associated medical problems, such as scurvy, rickets and bacterial infections than breastfed babies. By 1920, the incidence of scurvy and rickets in formula-fed babies had greatly decreased through the addition of orange juice and cod liver oil to home-made formulas. Bacterial infections associated with formula remained a problem more prevalent in the United States than in Europe, where milk was usually boiled prior to use in formulas.

Evaporated milk formulas

In the 1920s and 1930s, evaporated milk began to be widely commercially available at low prices, and several clinical studies suggested that babies fed evaporated milk formula thrive as well as breastfed babies (these findings are not supported by modern research.) These studies, accompanied by the affordable price of evaporated milk and the availability of the home icebox initiated a tremendous rise in the use of evaporated milk formulas. By the late 1930s, the use of evaporated milk formulas in the United States surpassed all commercial formulas, and by 1950 over half of all babies in the United States were reared on such formulas.

Commercial formulas

In parallel with the enormous shift (in industrialized nations) away from breastfeeding to home-made formulas, nutrition scientists continued to analyze human milk and attempt to make infant formulas that more closely matched its composition. Maltose and dextrins were believed nutritionally important, and in 1912, the Mead Johnson Company released a milk additive called Dextri-Maltose. This formula was made available to mothers only by physicians. In 1919, milkfats were replaced with a blend of animal and vegetable fats as part of the continued drive to closer simulate human milk. This formula was called SMA for “simulated milk adapted.”

In the late 1920s, Alfred Bosworth released Similac (for “similar to lactation”), and Mead Johnson released Sobee. Several other formulas were released over the next few decades, but commercial formulas did not begin to seriously compete with evaporated milk formulas until the 1950s. The reformulation and concentration of Similac in 1951, and the introduction (by Mead Johnson) of Enfamil in 1959 were accompanied by marketing campaigns that provided inexpensive formula to hospitals and pediatricians. By the early 1960s, commercial formulas were more commonly used than evaporated milk formulas, which all but vanished in the 1970s. By the early 1970s, over 75% of babies in the United States were fed on formulas, almost entirely commercially produced.

When birth rates in industrial nations tapered off during the 1960s, infant formula companies heightened marketing campaigns in non-industrialized countries. Unfortunately, poor sanitation led to steeply increased mortality rates among infants fed formula prepared with contaminated (drinking) water. Organized protests, the most famous of which was the Nestl boycott of 1977, called for an end to unethical marketing. This boycott is ongoing, as the current coordinators maintain that Nestl engages in marketing practices which violate the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.

Store brand (generic) infant formulas

Store brand infant formula was first introduced in the United States in 1997 by PBM Products. All infant formula brands in the United States are required to adhere to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines.

The Mayo Clinic said, s with most consumer products, brand-name infant formulas cost more than generic brands. But that doesn’t mean that brand-name [Similac, Nestle, Enfamil] formulas are better. Although manufacturers may vary somewhat in their formula recipes, the FDA requires that all formulas contain the same nutrient density.21]

Private label infant formulas have allowed the leading food and drug retailers to provide formula to customers that is labeled under the store brands of companies such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Loblaws, and Walgreens.

Follow-on and toddler formulas

In the 1980s and 1990s, formula was introduced for older children, up to the age of 2 years, under such terms as “follow-on formula” and “toddler formula”. This was done partly because the market for infant formula (strictly speaking, up to age 6 months, when infants typically exclusively breastfeed) was saturated in developed countries, as discussed in industry, below, and in conjunction with regulations on infant formula advertising. Critics have argued that follow-on and toddler formulas were introduced partly to circumvent these regulations advertising for similarly packaged and branded follow-on formula is often interpreted as advertising for infant formula targeted at under 6 month-olds.

An early example of follow-on formula was introduced by Wyeth in the Philippines in 1987, following the introduction in this country of regulations on infant formula advertising, which regulations did not address follow-on formula, which did not exist at the time of their drafting.

Usage since 1970s

Since the early 1970s, industrial countries have witnessed a dramatic resurgence in breastfeeding among children from newborn to 6 months of age. However, this upswing in breastfeeding has been accompanied by a deferment in the average age of introduction of other foods (such as cow’s milk), resulting in increased use of both breastfeeding and infant formula between the ages of 312 months.

Leading health organizations (e.g. US CDC, WHO, US HHS) are attempting to increase the prevalence of breastfeeding through public awareness campaigns. The goals of these programs vary by organization, with recommended breastfeeding ages ranging between birth and 24 months. Additionally, regulatory initiatives also encourage breastfeeding. For example, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes requires infant formula companies to preface their product information with statements that breastfeeding is the best way of feeding babies and that a substitute should only be used after consultation with health professionals.

Reasons to use infant formula

There are few medical reasons to use infant formula “The vast majority of mothers can and should breastfeed, just as the vast majority of infants can and should be breastfed,” and “Only under exceptional circumstances can a mother’s milk be considered unsuitable for her infant.” Alternatives to breast-feeding include:

expressed breast milk from an infant own mother,

breast milk from a healthy wet nurse,

breast milk from a human-milk bank,

as well as infant formula. Among these, the WHO states that “the choice of the best alternative … depends on individual circumstances.”

Reasons to not breastfeed or it is not possible to breastfeed include:

The mother’s health: The mother is infected with HIV or tuberculosis. She is malnourished or has had certain kinds of breast surgery. She is taking any kind of drug that could harm the baby, or drinks unsafe levels of alcohol. The mother is extremely ill.

The baby is unable to breastfeed: The child has a birth defect or inborn error of metabolism such as galactosemia that makes breastfeeding difficult or impossible.

a couple is practicing natural family plan: Breastfeeding acts as a natural contraception for the first 6 months after birth.
Absence of the mother: The child is adopted, orphaned, or in the sole custody of a man. The mother is separated from her child by being in prison or a mental hospital. The mother has left the child in the care of another person for an extended period of time, such as while traveling or working abroad. The mother has abandoned the child.

Financial pressures: Maternity leave is unpaid, insufficient, or lacking. The mother’s employment interferes with breastfeeding.

Societal structure: Breastfeeding is difficult or forbidden at the mother’s job, school, place of worship or while commuting.

Social discomfort: The mother may feel uncomfortable breastfeeding around other people.

Personal beliefs: The mother may choose to not breastfeed for varied personal reasons for instance, she may feel that breasts are too sexual for a baby.

Lack of training: The mother is not trained sufficiently to breastfeed without pain and to produce enough milk.

Dietary concerns: The contents of breastmilk are influenced by the dietary habits of the mother. If the mother consumes a food that contains an allergen breastfeeding may, for a brief period after consumption, provoke an allergic reaction in the infant.

Reasons to supplement by alternatives, in addition to breastfeeding, include:

Social structure or discomfort: The mother may be able to breastfeed at some hours, but not at others, for reasons cited above.

Lactation insufficiency: The mother is unable to produce sufficient milk, which affects around 2 to 5% of women.

Reasons to use infant formula specifically, as opposed to the alternatives of expressed milk, wet nurses, and milk banks, include:

Lack of education: The mother, her doctor, or family may believes that her breast milk is of low quality or in low supply, or that breastfeeding will decrease her energy, health, or attractiveness, and be unaware of other alternatives. Nursing by a relative or paid wet-nurse may be believed to be unhygienic.

Social pressures: Family members, such as mother’s husband or boyfriend, or friends or other members of society may encourage the use of infant formula.

Personal beliefs: The mother may choose to use formula for varied personal beliefs.

Lack of alternatives:

Lack of refrigeration: Expressed breast milk requires refrigeration if not immediately consumed, and sanitary preparation conditions this latter requirement is shared with infant formula.

Lack of wet nurses: Wet nursing is illegal and stigmatized in some countries, and may not be available. It may also be socially unsupported or expensive, and safe use of wet nurses requires health screening of the nurses.

Lack of milk banks: Human-milk banks may not be available; relatively few exist, and they require screening and refrigeration.

Nutritional content

Infant formula is nutritionally inferior to breast milk, and superior to other substitutes such as animal milk. Besides breast milk, infant formula is the only other milk product which the medical community considers nutritionally acceptable for infants under the age of one year note that solid food is nutritionally acceptable in addition to breast milk or formula during weaning.

Although cow’s milk is the basis of almost all infant formula, plain cow’s milk is unsuited for infants because of its high protein and electrolyte (salt) content which may put a strain on an infant’s immature kidneys, and untreated cow’s milk is not recommended before the age of 12 months. The infant intestine is not properly equipped to digest non-human milk and this may often result in diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and malnutrition[citation needed]. To reduce the negative effect on the infants digestive system, cows milk used for formula undergoes processing in order to be made into infant formula. This includes steps in order to make protein more easily digestible and alter the whey-to-casein protein balance to a ratio closer to human milk, the addition of several essential ingredients (often called “fortification”, see below), the partial or total replacement of dairy fat with fats of vegetable or marine origin, etc.

Most of the world’s supply of infant formula is produced in the United States[citation needed]. The nutrient content of infant formula for sale in the United States is regulated by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition. The following must be included in all formulas produced in the U.S.:

Protein

Fat

Linoleic acid

Vitamins: A, C, D, E, K, thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), B6, B12

Niacin

Folic acid

Pantothenic acid

Calcium

Metals: magnesium, iron, zinc, manganese, copper

Phosphorus

Iodine

Sodium chloride

Potassium chloride

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are an important source of energy for growing infants as it accounts for 35 to 42% of their daily energy intake. In most cow’s based formulas, lactose is the main source of carbohydrates present. But lactose is not present in cow’s milk-based lactose-free formulas nor specialized non-milk protein formulas or hydrolyzed protein formulas for infants with milk protein sensitivity. Lactose is also not present in soy-based formulas. Therefore, those formulas without lactose will use other sources of carbohydrates like sucrose and glucose, natural and modified starches, monosacchardies and indigestible carbohydrates. Lactose is not only a good course of energy, it also aids in the absorption of various minerals like magnesium, calcium, zinc and iron.

Nucleotides

Nucleotides are compounds found naturally in human breast milk. They are involved in many different critical metabolic processes in the body like energy metabolism and enzymatic reactions. Also, as the building blocks of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) they are essential for normal body functions. Compared to human breast milk, cow’s milk has lower levels of nucleotides like uridine, inosine, and cytidine. Therefore, several companies that produce infant formula have added nucleotides to their infant formulas.

Other Ingredients

Emulsifiers and stabilizers

Emulsifiers and stabilizers are raw materials that are added to prevent the separation of the oil and water-soluble component in the infant formula. Some commonly used emulsifiers include mono, di-glycerides, and gums.

Diluent

The ingredient helps create the liquid bulkiness in infant formula. Skim milk is commonly used as the primary diluent in milk-based formulation. In contrast, purified water is the most commonly used diluent in milk-free formulations.

In addition, formulas not made with cow’s milk must include biotin, choline, and inositol.

Hypoallergenic formulas reduce the likelihood of certain medical complications in babies with specific health problems. Baby formula can be synthesized from raw amino acids. This kind of formula is sometimes referred to as elemental infant formula or as medical food because of its specialized nature. While quite expensive, such formula is hypoallergenic and is sometimes used for babies with severe allergies to cow’s milk and soy. Some commercial brands are Neocate and Peptamen. Being purely synthetic monomeric amino acids, it is also quite foul-tasting to adults, and it is not uncommon for infants to reject elemental formulas after having been established on a sweeter tasting, non-elemental formula.

Variations

Infant formula is available in powder, liquid concentrate and ready-to-feed forms.

Recently the market has been segmented by age into:

infant formula, up to 6 months,

follow-on formula, from 6 months to 12 months,

toddler formula, from 12 months on.

These categories and formulations may overlap, and there is substantial consumer confusion about these categories.

These all provide inferior nutrition to breast milk, nor are they recommended by health authorities as a supplement to breast milk[citation needed] recommendations are to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months, then to continue to breast feed to 12 or 24 months (depending on authority), supplementing with solid food and eventually weaning. Cow’s milk should not be introduced before 12 months follow-on formula is superior to cow’s milk for 6 to 12 month olds, but inferior to breast milk.

These were introduced and developed partly to address the saturation of the infant formula market (up to 6 months) in developed countries, as discussed in industry, below, and partly due to regulations on infant formula, which often did not cover milk substitutes for children older than 6 months; an early example is Wyeth’s introduction of follow-on formula in the Philippines in 1987, following introduction of regulations on infant formula marketing. They have also result in confusing advertising in the United Kingdom infant formula advertising is illegal, but follow-on formula advertising is legal, and the similar packaging and market results in follow-on advertisements frequently being interpreted as adverts for formula.

Preparation

Infant formula should be prepared by the caregiver or parent in small batches and fed to the infant, usually with either a cup, as recommended by the WHO, or a baby bottle.

It is very important to measure powders or concentrates accurately to achieve the intended final product, otherwise the child will be malnourished. It is advisable that all equipment that comes into contact with the infant formula be cleaned and sterilized before each use. Proper refrigeration is essential for any infant formula which is prepared in advance.

In developing countries, formula is frequently prepared improperly, resulting in high infant mortality due to malnutrition and diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia. This is due to lack of clean water, lack of sterile conditions, lack of refrigeration, illiteracy (so written instructions cannot be followed), poverty (diluting formula so that it lasts longer), and lack of education of mothers by formula distributors. These problems and resulting disease and death are a key factor in opposition to the marketing and distribution of infant formula in developing countries by numerous NGOs these groups do not consider infant formula appropriate technology for developing countries.

Controversy and science

The use and marketing of infant formula has come under scrutiny; as discussed at breastfeeding, breast milk is considered the “ideal food” for babies, and the “ideal addition” to other foods, and exclusive breast feeding for the first 6 months of a baby’s life is advocated by health authorities and accordingly by infant formula manufactures.

Use

Despite the recommendation that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life, the overwhelming majority of American babies are not exclusively breastfed for this period in 2005 under 12% of babies were breastfed exclusively for the first 6 months, with over 60% of babies of 2 months of age being fed formula, and approximately one in four breastfed infant having infant formula feeding within two days of birth.

Ethnicity

According to a research conducted in Vancouver, Canada, 1998, at birth, 82.9 % of mothers breastfeed their babies, but this number differs between Caucasians(91.6%) and Non-Caucasians(56.8%).

Nutritional value

The WHO considers infant formula that is safely prepared and formulated in accord with the Codex Alimentarius a nutritionally adequate and safe complementary food.

Toxins

Infant formula contains significantly higher levels of manganese than breast milk 80 times as much in soy-derived, and 30 times as much in animal milk-derived. This level of manganese and its presence in infant formula has been implicated in learning disabilities such as ADHD.

Health effects

Use of infant formula is cited in numerous health risks. Studies have found infants in developed countries who consume formula are at increased risk for acute otitis media, non-specific gastroenteritis, severe lower respiratory tract infections, atopic dermatitis, asthma, obesity, type 1 and 2 diabetes, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), eczema, necrotizing enterocolitis and autism when compared to infants who are breastfed.

Although some early studies have found an association between infant formula and lower cognitive development, other studies have found no correlation. However recently more questions have arisen. It has been discovered that iron supplementation in baby formula is linked to lowered I.Q. and other neurodevelopmental delays.

Melamine contamination

Main article: 2008 Chinese milk scandal

On November 25, 2008, an Associated Press article entitled, “FDA finds traces of melamine in US infant formula,” explains infant formula made by the main three firms has tested positive for melamine contamination. These three main firms are responsible for 90% of infant formula in the US, “Abbott Laboratories, Nestle and Mead Johnson.”

The MSDS for Melamine (CAS NO 108-78-1; C3-H6-N6) records the acute oral toxicity (LD50) at 3161 mg/kg (3161 ppm) for a rat. The highest levels previously reported in China reached approximately 2500 ppm. The article mentioned above indicated that the US testing found 10,000 times less than the China levels or 0.25 ppm.

Health Canada conducted a separate test and also detected traces of melamine in infant formula available in Canada. The melamine levels were well below Health Canada’s safety limits, although some public health advocates are critical of the industry and regulators for allowing any residues of a potentially dangerous substance in food for infants.

Health officials have been on alert for the chemical since the discovery this year of a massive case of melamine poisoning in China, where milk was deliberately adulterated with the chemical, leading to illnesses in more than 50,000 children, including cases of acute kidney failure. In China, large quantities of melamine were deliberately added to watered-down milk to give it the appearance of having adequate protein levels.

Other controversies

In 1985 Syntex was ordered to pay $27 million for the death of two infants who were given the Syntex baby formula, called Neo-mull-soy, when they were infants. In 1978, Syntex had eliminated salt from the formula.

Risks decreased

Some risks are cited as being decreased when using alternatives to breastfeeding by the mother generally, or by using formula specifically.

Decreased by alternative to breastfeeding by the mother

Infectious diseases transmitted from the breastfeeder

The main risk posed by the mother’s milk specifically is the transmission of infectious diseases such as HIV. In some cases these can be mitigated by using heat-treated milk and nursing for a briefer time (6 months, rather than 1824 months), and can be avoid by using an uninfected woman’s milk, as via a wet-nurse or milk bank, or by using formula, or treated animal milk.

HIV infection

Breastfeeding by an HIV-infected mother poses a 520% chance of transmitting HIV to the baby, assuming
CMV infection, with potentially dangerous consequences in pre-term babies

HTLV-1 infection

HTLV-2 infection

Tuberculosis in the context of tuberculosis mastitis

Herpes simplex when lesions are present on the breasts

Chickenpox in the newborn, when the disease manifested in the mother within a few days of birth

Risks decreased by formula-feeding specifically

Some risks are present in all breast milk, and are only mitigated by the use of infant formula.

Environmental contaminants

Exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)

Exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls

Malnutrition

While in general breast milk is the “ideal food” for babies, in certain circumstances or respects infants may be at risk for malnutrition.

Iron deficiency

Vitamin deficiencies

Particularly vitamin D in babies at high latitudes who lack sun exposure

Inadequate nutrition during transition to solid foods

Balancing risks

Weighing the risks, health authorities generally on balance judge breastfeeding the healthiest, least risky option, as follows:

In cases where the mother has an infectious diseases such as HIV, exclusive breastfeeding is suggested until alternatives that satisfy the AFASS (Acceptable Feasible Affordable Sustainable and Safe) principles are available; such alternatives include breast milk from other women, infant formula, and treated animal milk. In developing countries, risks from other sources of infant mortality such as diarrhea, particularly due to unclean water and lack of sterile conditions both prerequisites to the safe use of formula often outweigh risks from breastfeeding.

The risks from pollution are not seen to outweigh the benefits of breastfeeding, and “adverse effects on learning and behavior are strongly associated with fetal exposure to persistent pollutants, not with breast milk exposure”.

The WHO finds that neurological benefits of breast milk remain, regardless of the dioxin exposure from milk, and other researchers conclude that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh the danger posed by these toxins.

Industry

This section requires expansion.

Manufacturers

The US infant formula industry is highly concentrated: it is an oligopoly with 3 companies accounting for 99% of the market in 2000:

Mead Johnson: 52%, owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb, makes Enfamil, Pregestimil, Nutramigen, and Nutramigen AA

Abbott Laboratories: 35%, Ross division makes Similac, Isomil, Alimentum, and EleCare

Nestl: 12%, the largest producer of formula in the world, makes Good Start; owns Gerber Products Company

Other infant formula manufacturers include:

Danone recently acquired Royal Numico, Dumex, Milupa

Earth’s Best owned by Hain Celestial

Natures One – privately held Ohio based company producing mostly organic formula for toddlers

Nutricia – maker of Neocate

Wyeth Nutrition: Market leader in the Philippines

S-26 Gold, Promil Gold, Progress Gold, S-26, Promil, Promil Kid, Bonna, Bonamil, Bonakid 1+, Bonakid 3+, Nursoy, Parent’s Choice/Bright Beginnings

Market size

This section requires expansion.

Infant formula is the largest segment of the baby food market, with the fraction given as between 40% and 70%.

The global infant formula market is estimated at $7.9 billion. North America and Western Europe are 33% of the market and saturated, while Asia is 53% of the market. South East Asia is a particularly large fraction of the world market relative to its population.

Government subsidies

United States

In the United States, infant formula is heavily subsidized by the government: at least one third of the US market is supported by the government, with over half of infant formula in the US provided through WIC WIC is the US food aid program, not a medical program, which is Medicaid. Breastfeeding rates are substantially lower for WIC recipients; this is partly attributed to formula being free of charge to WIC mothers, and partly to WIC recipients being poor and uneducated, hence less likely to breastfeed. Further, some promotional materials use the WIC trademark, in violation of federal policy. Infant formula costs are a significant fraction of WIC costs: 21% post-rebate, and 46% pre-rebate. Formula manufacturers are granted a WIC monopoly in individual states only one brand of formula will be eligible for WIC.

WIC also pays for milk banks.

Marketing

This section requires expansion.

Marketing of infant formula and the regulation thereof varies between countries.

The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes is a statement of principles regarding infant formula marketing, including strict restrictions on advertising. Its implementation depends on the laws of different countries and the behavior of infant formula manufacturers the code has no power itself. Legislation and corporate behavior vary significantly between countries: in some countries the code is implemented in law and followed by formula manufacturers, while in others it is not.

Practices that are banned in the code include most advertising, claiming health benefits for formula, and giving free samples to women able to breastfeed this latter practice is particularly criticized because it can interfere with lactation, creating dependence on formula.

Free samples of infant formula have been provided to hospitals since the 1930s, which practice has been criticized continuously since then; further, infant formula is the only product routinely provided free of charge to hospitals.

United States

In the United States, infant formula is heavily marketed both in advertising to mothers and doctors and via free samples in violation of the principles in the code, which has not been adopted or implemented by manufacturers in the US for US marketing.

In surveys, over 70% of large hospitals dispense infant formula to all infants, which is opposed by the AAP and in violation of the code.

The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes marketing of infant formula directly to the public.

The Gerber Products Company began marketing Gerber Baby Formula directly to the public in October 1989, while the Carnation Company began marketing Good Start infant formula directly to the public in January 1991.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, infant formula advertising has been illegal since 1995, but advertising for follow-on formula is legal, which has been cited as a loophole allowing advertising of similarly-packaged formula, and is confusing to mothers.

By country

This section requires expansion.

Philippines

Infant formula is a major product in the Philippines it is one of the top three consumer commodities, and among the most imported products.

Infant formula marketing has been regulated since the 1987 Executive Order 51 or “Milk Code”. This regulated but did not ban practices such as advertising and providing free samples. Shortly after it was enacted, Wyeth introduced follow-on formula, which was not in the purview of the Milk Code, follow-on formula not having existed at the time of the writing of the Milk Code.

In 2006, the Department of Health banned the advertising of infant formula and the practice of providing free samples, regardless of intended age group (in regulation RIRR), which regulation was challenged by the infant formula industry in the Supreme Court. Initially the challenge was dismissed, but this decision was immediately reversed, following a letter by American business leader Thomas Donahue, then President and CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce, resulting in the regulation being suspended and advertising continuing.
In the Philippines annual sales amount to some US$469 million annually. US$88 million is spent on advertising the product.

Canada

Vitamin D deficiency is a health concern in Canada. Infant formulas marketed in Canada are fortified with Vitamin D. Health Canada recommends that breastfed infants also receive extra vitamin D in the form of a supplement. With the exception of vitamin D, vitamin and mineral supplementation of breastfed term infants in the first 6 months is not recommended unless a mother is a vegan. Infant formulas marketed in Canada have not been tested for the presence of phthalates, a chemical used in the production of plastics, though concerns have been raised by Great Britain. Unlike other countries (e.g. New Zealand, UK) who have banned the general use of soy-based infant formula, it is still allowed in Canada. It is estimated that 20% of infants in Canada are fed soy beased infant formula and thus exposed to levels of phytoestrogen up to 22000 times higher than those normally found in breast milk, which gives the potential to damage a baby’s thyroid.

Infant Formula Processing

History of Infant Formula Development

Dates

Events

1867

Formula contains wheat flour, cow milk, malt flour, and potassium bicarbonate
1915

Powder form of infant formula was introduced. Formula contained cow milk, lactose, oleo oils, and vegetable oils
1929

Soy formula was introduced
1935

Protein was introduced into the infant formula. Protein was added because it was believed that cow-milk protein content was lower than human-milk protein content. 3.34.0 g/100 kcal of proteins were added.

1959

Iron fortification was introduced because a large amount of iron (~80%) will be used to expand the red blood cell mass in a growing infant. Infants with birth weights between 1500 and 2500g require 2 mg/kg of iron per day. Infants with weights of less than 1500g require 4 mg/kg per day.

1962

Whey : Casein ratio was made similar to human milk because producers were aware that human milk contain a higher content of whey protein and cow milk contain a higher content of casein.

1984

Taurine fortification introduced because new born infants lack the enzymes needed to convert and form taurine.

Late 1990

Nucleotide fortification was introduced into infant formula because nucleotide can act as growth factors and may enhance the immune system in infant body.

Early 2000

Polyunsaturated fatty-acid fortification was introduced. Polyunsaturated fatty-acids, such as Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and Arachidonic acid (ARA), were added because those fatty-acids play an important role in infant brain development.

Current general procedure for infant formula processing

The manufacturing process may differ for different types of formula made; therefore the following is the general procedure for liquid-milk based formulas:

Mixing ingredients

Primary ingredients are blended in large stainless steel tanks and skim milk is added and adjusted to 60C.Then, fats, oils and emulsifiers are added next. Additional heating and mixing may be required to get proper consistency. Next, minerals, vitamins, stabilizing gums are added at various points depending on their sensitivity to heat. This batch is temporarily stored and then transported by pipelines to pasteurization equipment when mixing is complete.

Pasteurization

This is a process that protects against spoilage by eliminating bacteria, yeasts and molds. It involves quickly heating and then cooling of the product under controlled conditions which micro-organisms cannot survive. The batch is held at around 85-94C for approximately 30 seconds which is necessary to adequately reduce micro-organisms and prepare the formula for filling.

Homogenization

This is a process which increases emulsion uniformity and stability by reducing size of fat and oil particles in the formula. It is done with a variety of mixing equipment that applies shear to the product and this mixing breaks fat and oil particles into very small droplets.

Standardization

Standardization is used to ensure that the key parameters like pH, fat concentration and vitamins and mineral content are correct. If insufficient levels of these are found, the batch is reworked to achieve appropriate levels. After this step, the batch is ready to be packaged.

Packaging

Packaging depends on manufacturer and type of equipment used but in general liquid formula filled into metal cans w/ lids crimped into place.

Heat Treatment/Sterilization

Finally, infant formulas are heat treated to maintain the bacteriologic quality of the product. This can be done traditionally by either retort sterilization or high-temperature short-time (HTST) treatment. Recently Ultrahigh-temperature treated formula has become more commonly used. If powdered formula is made, then an additional spray drying would be required after this. Retort sterilization is a traditional retort sterilization method that uses 10-15mins treatment at 118C. Ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) is a method that uses a brief (23 seconds) treatment at 142C. Because of the short time used, there is little protein denaturation but still ensures sterility of the final product.

Recent and future potential new ingredients

Probiotics

Recently, probiotics have become a new ingredient in many of our foods and studies have been completed regarding the use of probiotics in infant formula Several randomized controlled trials completed recently have shown limited and short term clinical benefits for the use of probiotics in infants diet The safety of probiotics in general and in infants, especially preterm infants, has been investigated in a limited number of controlled trials. The findings this far suggests that probiotics are generally safe. Therefore, the study suggested that more scientific research is necessary before a conclusion can be made about probiotic supplementation in infant formula since the research is still quite preliminary.

Prebiotics

Prebiotics are nondigestable carbohydrates that promote the growth of probiotic bacteria in the gut. Human milk contains a variety of oligosaccharides that are believed to be an important factor in the pattern of microflora colonization of breastfed infants. Because of variety, variability, complexity and polymorphism of the oligosaccharide composition and structure, it is currently not feasible to reproduce the oligosaccharide components of human milk in a strictly structural fashion.

The European Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition Committee on Nutrition found evidence to support short term effects of ingesting prebiotics on stool microflora of infants with increased in the number of bifidobacteria. Babies can be at risk of dehydration with the induction of softer stools, if they have the kidney immaturity and/or a poor ability to concentrate urine. A reduction of pathogens has been associated with the consumption of prebiotics. However, there was no evidence to support major clinical or long-term benefits. Therefore, there is little evidence in favor of beneficial effects of prebiotics in dietary products.

Lysozyme and Lactoferrin

Lysozyme is an enzyme that is responsible for protecting the body by damaging bacterial cell walls. Lactoferrin is a globular, multifunctional protein that has antimicrobial activity. Comparing with human milk, cow milk has a signifactly lower levels of lysozyme and lactoferrin; therefore, the industry has an increasing interest in adding them into infant formulas.

See also

Child development

Baby food

Baby bottle

Breastfeeding

Breast milk

References

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^
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^ (dead link)

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^ a b Infant Feeding Options in the Context of HIV

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^ WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS. HIV transmission through breastfeeding: A review of available evidence. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2004.

^ Schleiss MR (2006). “Acquisition of human cytomegalovirus infection in infants via breast milk: natural immunization or cause for concern?”. Rev. Med. Virol. 16 (2): 7382. doi:10.1002/rmv.484. PMID 16287195. 

^ Przyrembel H, Heinrich-Hirsch B, Vieth B (2000). “Exposition to and health effects of residues in human milk.”. Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 478: 30725. doi:10.1007/0-306-46830-1_27. PMID 11065082. 

^ Mamiro PS, Kolsteren P, Roberfroid D, Tatala S, Opsomer AS, Van Camp JH (2005). “Feeding practices and factors contributing to wasting, stunting, and iron-deficiency anaemia among 3-23-month old children in Kilosa district, rural Tanzania.”. J Health Popul Nutr 23 (3): 22230. PMID 16262018. 

^ Healthy Milk, Healthy Baby Chemical Pollution and Mother’s Milk Chemicals: Dioxins and Furans

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^ Canadian Health Coalition(1999), Health Canada exposing babies to serious risks, http://www.healthcoalition.ca/soy-babies.html

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^ Heird, W.C. (2004). Taurine in neonatal nutrition – revisited. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed, 89, 473-474.}}

^ a b c Lonnerdal, B. and Hernell, O. (1998). Effects of feeding ultrahigh-temperature (UHT)-treated infant formula with different protein concentrations or powdered formula, as compared with breast-feeding, on plasma amino acids, hematology, and trace element status. Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 68, 350-6.

^ a b c d e f Carvalho, R.S., Michail, S., Ashai-Khan, F., Mezoff, A.G. (2008). An Update on Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: A Review of Some Recent Advances. Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care, 204-228.

^ a b c International Assosication of Infant Food Manufacturers,rebiotics in Infant Nutrition, November 09, 2009

External links

Isadora B. Stehlin. “Infant Formula: Second Best but Good Enough”. Archived from the original on 2007-12-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20071226072202/http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/596_baby.html. 

Baby Formula Feed

FDA 101: Infant Formula

“Breast-feeding and Guilt: Interview with a Mayo Clinic Specialist”

Infant and Toddler Nutrition

Breastfeeding VS Formula Feeding

Categories: Infant feeding | Milk | Dairy products | Soy products | Bristol-Myers Squibb | Breast milkHidden categories: Articles to be merged from November 2009 | All articles to be merged | Articles needing more viewpoints | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from February 2010 | Articles with unsourced statements from June 2009 | Articles to be expanded from June 2009 | All articles to be expanded

At last year’s Asian Shared Services & Outsourcing Excellence Awards, the runner’s-up gong in the Best New Services Delivery category was awarded to the shared services team at Knorr-Bremse Asia Pacific. Now, we speak with Jerome Debreu, CFO Asia-Pacific for Knorr-Bremse and the man responsible for the development and growth of the shared services unit into a multi-award-winning organization, about the secrets of his success – and how to grow an idea into a multi-billion-euro institution when you’re starting with only €100 in your pocket…

*

SSON: Jerome, let’s begin by getting an understanding of your role at Knorr-Bremse: what are your responsibilities?

Jerome Debreu: In Knorr-Bremse I am CFO for the Asia-Pacific region and Member of the Executive Committee Asia Pacific; that covers 20 legal units in India, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, and the HQ in Hong Kong. Sales revenue last year was €530 million, and this year we already have orders of around €1 billion. I started the business in 2003 with €100 equity! I went on the road with my €100 looking for opportunities in M&A, joint ventures and greenfield operations – and this is where we are today.

So my responsibilities as CFO are a little bit more than they are with other companies: we are family owned – we are not listed but following the same reporting requirements, I would say even more operational and long term orientated – and when you start a business from scratch you have to take care of much more than with, let’s say, an already well-established company. I have been taking care of, for example, HR, IT, operations and compliance as well. And of course other than that I have the job of a “normal” CFO which is consolidation, treasury, hedging activities, taxes, planning, forecasting, budgeting, M&A, Post Merger Integration, Transfer Pricing, Cash Management, Balance Sheet Management etc.; I’m also company secretary sitting on the Board of our  key locations in China, Japan and South Korea. That’s what I do.

SSON: That’s a pretty big workload!

JD: This is a very big workload; that’s why I’ve been working more or less day and night for seven and a half years – from 9 in the morning to, minimum, midnight, every day…

SSON: That’s very inspirational – and also a little intimidating… With regards to your shared services team specifically: you won the Runner Up award for Best New Captive Services Delivery at the 2009 Asian Shared Services & Outsourcing Excellence Awards. Can you go into a little detail about how shared services is distributed within Knorr-Bremse and the kind of changes you’ve undergone since you began?

JD: OK, so first of all, Knorr-Bremse is a company doing worldwide around €2.8 billion sales, with 14,255 people; it’s a little more than 105 years old, with two divisions: railway, manufacturing mostly brake systems, doors, and air-conditioning systems for trains; and the commercial vehicles division supplying brake systems for trucks and buses. As I said Knorr-Bremse is the world‘s leading braking technology company.

Using this strong corporate experience and backing, and having worked for four years at the Group HQ in Munich before coming to Hong Kong, I did leverage that experience for Asia to go one step further in our processes – and this is the link to the award-winning strategy we got. I came to Asia in 2003 with, as I said, €100 in my pocket and tasked to set up the business, and it was basically my chance – since I came after four years at the Munich HQ where I saw that basically when you try to set up a shared service, but you’re far from the operations trying to give advice to an outside location, it’s quite difficult to get acceptance and recognition.

So what I’ve done to overcome this acceptance issue and speed up business under control, since I set up all operations on a “green field”, I have transformed the classical divisional thinking: I said “I am Knorr-Bremse: this means no distinction between rail, truck and holding. My people will be multi-tasked, they will be multi-skilled, and even if they have a corporate function like corporate treasurer, I want them from the beginning to have a link to the operations and to be able to get acceptance from within operations.” This is how Knorr-Bremse Asia Pacific Shared Services were born.

That meant also a ‘godfather/ godmother’ rule: this means that my treasurer for example is the ‘godfather’ of the air-conditioning activity, so he is the first guy to be contacted at HQ when the company we have in Wuxi manufacturing air-conditioning and heating systems for trains has some finance questions, or another company we have also producing air-conditioning systems in Shanghai; or my deputy CFO, she is the ‘godmother’ for doors in Qingdao and platform screen-door activity in Guangzhou, and she will be the first person contacted. That means that outside of their corporate tasks they all have operational links via the ‘godfather and godmother’ rule.

This is how everything started – and basically I initiated a shared services organization even without at that time knowing in detail what a shared service was! When I came to Hong Kong I had no-one and knew nobody; so you hire one guy by one guy, and you need to ask them to do much more than just being for example a treasurer, the person in charge of consolidation, or the person in charge of M&A. The principles are simple: no distinction between rail division, commercial vehicles division and holding corporate division; and ‘godfather and godmother’ rule, so a link between corporate and operations to get acceptance from the locations as the customer of the services you provide.

The shared service itself is like this: in Hong Kong we have IT; HR; indirect purchasing; finance and controlling – my department covering: M&A; planning; tax; treasury; consolidation; rail controlling; and truck controlling. This is how we’re set up, and of course only the management function is based in Hong Kong. We have offshored some of our operational IT staff to China – because our biggest market and operations are in China – and an IT development team in India already, in New Delhi. The shared services head is based in Hong Kong, because we feel Hong Kong provides us with the right infrastructure and educational environment to find and retain really very highly qualified and capable people – I would say that this is the best place in Asia-Pacific – but let’s say operational tasks can be done offshore, and no matter if the people are with us physically or not, we are collaborating via phone/ video conferencing, emails and web meetings just fine. This is how we are organized.

SSON: So can you give us any insights into headcount in each of your different areas?

JD: Talking about finance, controlling, IT, HR, indirect purchasing: we’re talking today around 70 people. That would be on four sites in China, India and Hong Kong.

SSON: Let’s look specifically about what it was that the judges really liked about your operations: what makes you stand out from the crowd?

JD: I would say, number one, a very very unconventional, successful business story compared with anything you could learn in business school or a CPA, or MBA degree creating value for countries infrastructure and for our company. We have not one-digit or two-digit growth over the last seven years: we have three-digit growth. This is quite simple: we went from €0 towards €1 billion of sales revenue, enabled and supported by our new captive Shared Services organization with an impressive performance also on the delivery processes and cost structure. I think this was something which the judges liked because when you look at the individual results and respective KPI charts it’s very impressive. And this is not what I would call a bubble.com company selling nothing, with just a room and a server and nothing behind it: we are selling answers for a world of mobility with every day, more than ome billion people who put their trust in systems from Knorr-Bremse worldwide as the world’s leading manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles.

For more than 100 years now the company has pioneered the development, production, marketing and servicing of state-of-the-art braking systems. In the rail vehicle systems sector, the product portfolio also includes automatic electropneumatic or electric door systems, air conditioning systems, control components, toilets and windscreen wiper systems, as well as platform screen doors. In the commercial vehicle systems sector, the product range includes complete braking systems with driver assistance systems, as well as torsional vibration dampers and powertrain-related solutions, such as the Pneumatic Booster System (PBS) and transmission control systems for greater efficiency and lower fuel consumption. When you take the train anywhere in the world it’s most likely using our products. 

In Asia we have really developed a strong position comparable or bigger to the rest of the world within only 7 years. I would say our shared services have been the foundation to enable our business best. We are Knorr-Bremse, full stop. And we identify ourselves with the company as one and do not think in separate divisions or functions. We are thinking simple and flat. So our first priority I would say is the business. Our spirit, as I said is: hands-on with an efficient and lean organization. In Europe or the US – when you usually take via M&A new companies – you have a lot of history. And history means different cultures (sometimes politics…) and integration issues. We don’t have that. In Asia we started from scratch so there is no history or politics. I think this is a key factor enabling our speed.

Then I would say our unconventional management style. We don’t have a CEO. This amazes a lot of people. We are an executive committee, and we are equally managing the region. We’re basically four people: a COO Sales & Marketing (Spanish guy); a COO Operations (Austrian); a CFO Compliance – which is me (French); and a CIO (German). So a true management “melting pot” team. So since we are an executive committee with completely different backgrounds and completely different responsibilities – but we HAVE to manage a region together – we cannot afford to have one guy working against another one. With this structure we have had to learn to work together, developing an incredible team spirit – and then this is very powerful. When you talk about compliance, the ‘four eyes’ principle; since we are four guys we have the ‘eight eyes’ principle. So this strong point is the cross-functional responsibility.

Since we are a strong team we developed a ‘plug and play’ concept together: that means when we buy or set up a new company, or integrate a new company with the cross-functional management process for Asia Pacific, we have one cockpit of tools – especially the SAP system, the finance and controlling processes within a Corporate frame called KE (Knorr Excellence) – and it takes us two, maybe three months maximum to integrate a company within the group – and this without any external consulting.

Then I would say that business excellence is not the monopoly of the listed company: I think we were the only unlisted company – or having no link to a listed company – getting an award this year, and for us, instead of dying under complex legislation like SOX or IFRS – because one euro will always stay one euro no matter in which account you book it – we are following German GAAP which is cultural for us. In German GAAP you only book the risk and you don’t book unrealized chances. Other than that: when you look at the financial crisis, what is “fair value”? So we are quite conservative, taking no potential chances into account in our accounting. So if we have any surprises we’re normally always positively surprised because we’re really conservative. And overall I think we’ve largely beaten the downturn: in 2009 we basically increased our sales by around 50% compared with the year before. So, why not coming back to basics? E.g. book only what you have truly in the pocket? Anything else is simply virtual and BS to me.

SSON: That’s very good going!

JD: While everyone else was talking about the downturn, basically we continued our growth on a regional level. This is what happened to us.

SSON: Well, that does bring us nicely onto our next question: how WERE you affected by the downturn? And do you think there are more challenges around the corner?

JD: OK, so we have our two divisions – railway, and commercial vehicles – and railway is enjoying what’s happening in many countries worldwide where they have stimulus programs focusing on big state infrastructure projects like for railway.

And then for us, the good news is that when the crisis arrived the Chinese did not stop the investment that they’d said they would do: they just speeded it up. So for us there wasn’t a project that we didn’t know about: they just made it happen faster..

Following that megatrend and stimulus, the Railway Division became our biggest in sales revenue.

In contrast our Commercial Division has been highly affected, similarly to the car industry anywhere in the world, with a significant drop – I would say of 50% in Asia last year. At the time I had to manage the growth for the Railway Division – which is at least as complicated as managing the downturn in the truck division – a business which has two legs: one leg going very well, and one leg not doing so well yet, still has the advantage of balancing on the stronger foot. Our shared services help to also flexibly balance cost structures and we did not have to take tremendous cost-cutting which would have been dangerous – and this is another difference between Asia and the rest of the world, in that we’re still in an emerging market – because the growth is ahead of us and it would have been stupid to cut off people that we only hired few years ago, developing new products which will anyway come onto the market two or three years from now with the recovery to come.

Of course we had one-time cost savings but the savings were more in the real business – not what I call “cookie management”, which is where you go into a meeting and you don’t have cookies with the coffee in the meeting-room. We didn’t cut the coffee and the cookies; we were focusing more on localization and reducing costs in the sourcing area, and also taking the opportunity of the crisis to redesign the product, to make it cheaper for China and India, and also taking the opportunity to hire talents suddenly ok to move to another company like us while coming partly from big OEM.

So overall the crisis for us was not hurting so much in Asia. On a group level yes, of course, in Europe and the US yes, but in Asia we registered overall growth doubling in the last three years and inside of this there is a truck division going down by 50% within a year.

However, as of today, we already registered a recovery for our Commercial Vehicles Division back to before crisis numbers and a further strong increase in orders intake for our Railway Division. Our outlook for Asia Pacific remains strong for this year 2010 at least.

SSON: What other challenges do you see materializing that aren’t so much related to the crisis?

JD: Right. I see external and internal risks. Basically the internal risk is the high complexity I’m facing. With two divisions, the railway being the strong-growth model, and the truck and bus division reflecting the car industry generally, I have two different businesses – and at the same time I ramp up 20 locations which are on average “three years old”. We have 3,000 people with less than three years with the company. So managing the growth and the downturn at the same time, with people being so young in the organization, is a huge challenge.

Now with new people and new suppliers in new markets, business requirements and challenges are huge. So the risk to us is the high complexity and managing the fast growth unknown in other countries so far.

And then we have external risks. For example currency variation: it happened that we are selling in a lot of non-convertible currencies or not properly evaluated currencies. As everyone knows the RMB is understated; the rupee is also controlled. The yen is also – even if convertible – highly controlled and difficult to predict because it’s controlled more politically than by the market. So since I import quite a lot from Europe and the US, and I sell in local currencies, I have a huge currency exposure to manage which can kill you quite quickly when you see what happened on the financial market last year and if you don’t have a proper risk management process in place with the right qualified people to manage it.

In summary our risks are, first, a young organization with phenomenal growth; and a risk in terms of currencies. But for that we have tools and processes already in place and we could manage successfully during the financial crisis in 2009.

SSON: As well as overcoming those risks what are your personal ambitions for the next few years? Where do you want to take your shared services team?

JD: Well, my shared service team is so far very successful. The guys I hired once upon a time – although we set up our shared service officially in 2006, I hired the first people in 2004/5 – are now six years with me and of course they are more senior now, so we are now hiring a second wave of people because my managers will move forward. They have an incredible experience and incredible value, and you need to plan their succession. The story of starting a business with €100 and moving it to €1 billion only happens once; we’re now an award-winning shared service team because we started everything from nothing and we know the value of one euro. Of course we now also know the value of one billion euro…

What I see now is that I need to professionalize the emotional parts of what we have. If you didn’t go through the story of one euro to one billion euro, you don’t know what it means to finance yourself through yourself even though I can tell you the story. The challenge for me is to hire the right people with the right mindset, and it’s quite difficult! There’s a lot of supply of people right now, but their loyalty, let’s say, or their reliability, their honesty as a core value is quite difficult for me to find. The people who identify themselves with the business are getting rarer, I would say, because many were educated during the new economy/ internet stock market bubble and they are probably too used to easy money. Hopefully the crisis will recall core universal values necessary for a true industrial and business recovery: you have to work hard and show long-term sustainable performance to make money and to create real value, placing speculative orders on the stock market is disconnected from the reality. It’s so hard to make 1% profit in the real industry!

Where I want to drive my shared service is, first, to hire these people, and to extend it. For example, to have a regional purchasing manager to ensure all possible synergies in our material consumption – we have developed a shared service also in the indirect purchasing area, but not yet for direct purchasing. We want also to have the legal department in the region; we want of course to have engineering in the region, because China and India are very specific markets and if you bring the product over designed from Germany with German costs to China then you are sure to fail. So we need to have knowledge in the region – and I think this is where we go to extend the scope of the shared service, with engineering, design, in the central function with a legal department and purchasing. That’s what I see.

SSON: OK, let’s close with some more general questions to you directly. What do you think is the secret of success in business?

JD: Well, I would say: be hands-on, hands-on, hands-on. You have to have a private life balanced with the job – that’s quite important. You cannot sit on your leather chair in your central building: you have to go outside. Talk to your people; meet your customers; meet your suppliers. Be interested in anything related to business: any contractual issue for the building, for the rent, for supplier agreements, special liabilities in contracts etc. You have to be on-site. I would say: hands-on.

Then, I think you have to be loyal. I don’t believe a guy who is changing jobs every two years can be successful – because it takes at least one year to understand the business, one to two years to understand all the systems and probably four or five years to build up a network which enables you to drive things. So honesty, loyalty and consistency are important.

Then excellence in execution is something very important. And I would say for me to have a mentor is quite important. I had and have the chance to have great business mentors. To have a senior guy driving you, helping you when you’re adapting – because as I said as you’re developing a business from €100 to €1 billion, and you didn’t do it before, you have some doubts sometimes: did you make the right decision? To have a mentor is something very important.

SSON: That goes onto our next question, then: what’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? Did that come from one of your mentors?

JD:  Yes, absolutely. Because my position is quite unusual – I’m 35 years old and CFO of such a large region, and the people I met along the way were almost all more senior and older than me. So when you don’t have the experience in years, in order to manage such a position (while being 15 years younger than the mentors I’ve had), you have to compensate. And how you compensate is by working twice as hard, and by developing a social competence largely above the average with language skills and strong networking. This is the advice I got from them and this is what I have done.

If I’d have followed everything that people told me before going to Asia back to 2002 – just to tell you I would be still an accountant somewhere in Europe and for sure without now five prestigious Awards and an incredible valuable experience.

In most companies Asia was accounting for less than 5% of the global sales back to 2002. This was not even shown in the reporting as a sub-group like North America, South America and Europe but part of the Elimination line… I was even told that the people going to Asia are the low performers. Seven years later this is the fastest-growing region in the world, which by passed South America six years ago, US three years ago, and now rivaling with Europe from the market size and we are benchmark and award-winning in our processes and performance.

So don’t believe what everyone tells you. This is basically my advice…Do not follow the burger check lists! Do not go where the path may lead, but go instead where there is no path and you leave a trail. So this is basically what I’ve done!

SSON: Excellent advice! And finally, Jerome, how would you like to be remembered when you leave business?

JD: Well, as I said I’m only 35 – I’m not dead yet! But… I would like to be remembered as an unconventional, smart guy, atypical, a guy who wants to leave a trail and not follow the other ones, using common-sense. A very hands-on guy. A guy who enabled a billion-euro business with €100 of equity, breaching any rule from any university – like, normally you need 50% equity and 50% from the bank to drive something, and I started with 100% bank liabilities following my common sense (and of course when you don’t have the cash you become more creative to get it). You are learning the price of money!

I would like to be also remembered as a guy who demonstrated that business excellence is clearly not the monopoly of listed companies or overqualified people on paper. Everything is possible with the right mindset: that is sufficient honestly!

________________________________________________________________________

This article was first published on the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON) – Read it here: http://www.ssonetwork.com/topic_detail.aspx?id=7264&ekfrm=6&utm_source=ssonetwork.com&utm_medium=SMO&utm_campaign=DIRECTORIES&mac=SSON_External_Listing_2046

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I have studied in South Africa for a total of a year at a University in SA about six months ago. Now I want to go back, but do on-line classes and not attend a South AFrican University at all. Is it possible to get a study visa for doing online classes through a US university, or would I have to get a temporary living visa??I

I know there are certain misgivings students generally tend to harbor about online degrees. Are they as good as regular ones? Do they hold the same weight? These are only some of the many questions that may bother you before you opt for an online degree. All I can say, as a professional in the field for over a decade now, is that you can lay your doubts at rest. On the contrary, I am going to list you some advantages that online degrees have over regular degrees. Conceding that student and campus life in Georgia is wonderful, I must say that the scopes are little limited and your programs a little rigorous when you become a regular student. One of the biggest advantages that online degrees have over these regular degrees is its flexible. You can pursue it at a pace that suits you. Physical distance becomes no hindrance, and you can pursue your profession along with your studies. Finally, since we have technology at our disposal, there is no reason why we shouldn’t make the best use of it. Moreover, as a busy professional, you are not really left with of a choice to attend a regular course.

Once you have decided to pursue an online course in one of the Georgian Universities, the next step is to select the course and the university you will enroll in. This can be a difficult step, as the sheer range of disciplines that modern universities typically offer can be enough to puzzle you. The key factor is to know your mind and the specific requirements that your field of work demands. Choose a discipline that will help in the advancement of your career and also satisfy your thirst for information and knowledge. For your convenience I will make an attempt to streamline the possibilities. Ignoring the specifics, some of the broad areas in which online degrees can be earned from Georgian universities include the following:

1. Business Technology
2. Criminal Justice
3. Nursing
4. Information Technology
5. Visual Communication

Some of the best institutes from where you can earn these online degrees include the University of Phoenix, The American InterContinental University, Strayer University and South University.

Georgia has some of the top art institutes and universities of the US, and definitely is the leader when it comes to imparting online courses in art. Creative art, you must remember is not what it used to be even twenty years back: struggling artists fighting it out in their cluttered studios or running around to bag a modest job of an illustrator. Digital technology has revolutionized the field of creative arts. With Media Arts, Animation, interior designing and advertising coming up in a big way, artists are having it better than ever before. Why not then sharpen your skills with a little help of some of the best people in the creative arts business. The Art Institute of Pittsburg have imparted quality education related to art for the last 85 years and has now come up with comprehensive online courses that are ideal to suit the ever changing demands of the present world.

It is time you lay your misgivings aside and enroll for an online course and earn a relevant degree. The rewards will be more than you can ever imagine.

Located at the foothills of the Daniel Boone National Forest , Morehead State University is a public, co-educational university located in Morehead , Kentucky . Rated as one of the top 25 public universities in the south, Morehead also takes credit to being one of the only four universities in the US to offer a Bachelor of Science degree in space science apart from being the first university in Kentucky to offer an online MBA degree course.AcademicsMorehead State University (MSU) offers over 80 degree programs on the two-year, four-year and graduate levels. The highest course being offered in the post -master’s certificate and follows semester system. It also has undergraduate courses in balanced arts & sciences/professions. MSU has one of the best computer-student ratio in the State apart from being ranked the safest in the whole of the US . In addition online courses are also offered for those who are unable to enroll for regular, full time courses.AdmissionStudents should have Secondary School GPA for being eligible for admission. TOEFL and admission scores are also considered during the admission.CampusThe picturesque campus, located far from the maddening hustle and the bustle of the city life sets the right milieu for the students to learn without any distractions. Students are offered career counseling, career placement and remedial services. On campus day care facility and a well stocked library are the other features of the campus, which has a mixed student population from countries all over the world.Financial Aid and ScholarshipsMorehead State University offers international undergraduate scholarships to eligible students who have a minimum score of at least 20 on the ACT or 950 on the SAT. It also offers Tuition Scholarship for Non-Residents to international undergraduate applicants; nonetheless, International students are not eligible for Tuition Assistance Grants or Alumni Awards.Fee detailsApart from tuition fees, the students are required to pay activities fee, health fee, and computer fee during their academics in Morehead State University .Extra curricular activitiesMorehead State University has a football team that participates in the league matches and the college is a charter member of the Ohio Valley Conference in NCAA. It sponsors over 18 intercollegiate sports for both men and women and has various sport teams including cheer leading teams, baseball, volleyball and basket ball teams, which have won prizes in national and league events._

Introduction:

In this paper I will discuss the phenomenon of using native English teachers in the Middle East region, precisely in United Arab Emirates in the context of EFL in the public primary schools. In this discussion I will examine the reasons beyond such a phenomenon. I will also examine the attitude of native and non-native speaker teachers who teach English language along with students’ parents’ attitudes. Moreover, I will link “communicative imperialism” (Phillipson, 2006) and the role of the media with the context of EFL in the Middle East region. Due to the natural of my paper, a “self reflective” (Pennycook, 2001: p.1) and previous experiences of other countries are expected to be present.

ELT in United Arab Emirates has witnessed an extraordinary revolution in the last 6 years. My interest of this issue emerged simultaneity with the appearance of a new type of schools which are gradually replacing the ordinary public schools in UAE. This type is called (Al-Ghad schools) which literally means “tomorrow schools” in Arabic. It clearly indicates the main purpose of these schools is to produce more sophisticated, moderated and competitive students. The vision of ministry of Education and Youth in UAE as what they declared is “to have a new generation who is more capable of English language and its vocabulary and grammar skills”, in other words “we need a generation who speaks English as it is his or her first language”, thus to achieve this goal teachers who “have a better command of fluent, idiomatically correct language forms, are more knowledgeable about the cultural connotations of the language” (Braine, 1999: p.xiv) are needed. In order to make this vision alive, a huge number of native English teachers had been brought from areas such as “North America, Britain, new Zealand and Australia which claim ownership over English”( Canagarajah, 1999: p.79). Furthermore, to support this vision, some authorized sources in the government argue that this new methodology of teaching is the best in teaching English which enables the students to acquire the language very easy and smoothly. Schiitz (2007) cites Krashen’s (1987) view that acquisition any language requires meaningful interaction in the target language (natural communication) thus, language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules because learners grow up learning the language as it is something very natural in their life without an effort, especially at the beginning levels of their life. Moreover, Boyle (1997) illustrates that native speaker teachers have a range of advantages over the non-native speaker teachers because (a) English learned from birth and developed through his/her life as primary language which been used in his/her life (b) the intricacies of the grammar of the language are learned instinctively and can be employed with speed and certainty (c) native speaker of English engages with other native speakers of English as something natural in his/her social context, so he/she uses the language all the time as the dominant language, thus it is better to use native speaker teachers of English to teach their first language. Additionally, McNeill (1994) in his study about the characteristics of native and non-native speaker teachers of English argues that native speaker teachers have the advantage when it comes to learners’ vocabulary needs. It is sensible to point here; the government is replacing non-native speaker teachers with native speaker teachers of English gradually in order to provide their students with the opportunity to hold conversations with teachers in English, and only in English.

On the other hand, Al-segair (2007) who works as a teacher in a prestigious university in the Middle East illustrates that in his investigation about native speaker teachers in the Middle East, “I found some of them used to work as dog-trainers back in Chicago” (paragraph, 2). He also pointed out that some teachers were “a bunch of former company employees and some had worked in western embassies” (paragraph, 2) who did not work as teachers before. Al-segair thus explains that not because you are a native speaker of a language qualifies you to teach it! Teaching a language requires “skills, competence, training and knowledge” (paragraph, 3). Going further in this issue, Al-Osaimi (2007) illustrates that some schools do not bother to recruit qualified English teachers, however, parents usually more impressed by where did teachers come from and the fact that their accent sounds more ‘American or British’ considered to be enough to convince them that they are the most suitable teachers to teach their children, regardless what they have of qualifications or experiences. Such criteria forced me to wonder why such thinking is dominant in the region.

America and its Politics play a major part in all of this. The American tenet that “the current educational systems in place in the Muslim world were partly responsible for motivating the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the pentagon. In June 2002” (Karmani, 2005:p.262), thus in order to change their attitude towards the western and the American culture, a new concept should be replaced with what is described as a “combination of intolerance, ignorance, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western views” (Karmani, 2005: p.262) by using native speaker teachers as means to apply this project.  By importing native speaker teachers of English from what Kachru calls “inner circle countries” (Kachru & Nelson, 1996: p. 78) with westerns’ beliefs and values, a new Americanized generation would be the total outcome. In simple words, educational or mind colonialism and “linguistics imperialism” (Phillipson, 2006: p.346) are the main goals in such invasion of native speaker teachers at the Middle East region.

Searching for its alleged security:

Handley (2004) mentions that in the late 1700s, America was surrounded by great European superpowers, thus America was “economically and militarily disadvantaged” (Hadley, 2004). Therefore, to build a strong and superpower nation, America must expand its borders by negotiation or war. The American citizens had been convinced that the world and America’s national security always in danger, so in order to protect the world and America, any country that threats us should be attacked. Furthermore, “lack of expansion implies the possibility of defeat” thus, “American insecurity was an important factor in the invasions of Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines” (Hadley, 2004) in the past. Other form of such American fears is the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which was a proposal by the American president Roland Reagan in March 23, 1983. The main goal of this proposal as what Wikipedia illustrates is “to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles”. This proposal carried the popular name “Star Wars” in 1977 after movie by George Lucas. According to Handley, the Star Wars program is an expansion of America’s continued need searching for its national safety “by now expanding its borders into outer space” (Handley, 2004 cited Mauk and Oakland, 154), moreover, the recent invasions on Iraq and Afghanistan interpreted by a large number of American citizens is they had been convinced that America’s national security was threatened. Thus, in order to assure that no one threats America’s security in the future, a new ways of domination and controlling should take place in areas such as Eastern Asia, Africa and the Middle East not only military, but also as media and academic occupation.

The role of Media in the Middle East:

No one can deny the strong role played by Media in any place in the world. America tries to impose its policies and its ideologies in the Middle East whether by using force or not. In order to dominate the region, the American beliefs should be promoted in the area. Phillipson (2006) argues that the development of communications networks has a basic relationship to the emergence of the new world order. He illustrates that “communication organizes the movement by multiplying and structuring interconnections through networks” (p. 352). Thus, in order to dominate a particular country and its culture, you must control its media and what is being showed to the people inside their homes.  A controversially television network channels like MBC group (Middle East Broadcasting Center) and Alhurra (means the ‘free one’ in Arabic) had emerged in the Middle East and dedicate the lion’s share in Middle Easterners’ minds and homes. Such channels can be seen by some people as mediums to spread the American’s plans and principles in the region using another means beside tanks and rockets. Alhurra is a commercial-free Arabic language satellite television network for the Middle East operated and funded by the United States of America. This channel is financed by the American people using their taxes through the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the U.S. Congress. Many Arab political critics argue that this channel lunched to change the views of Arabs and Muslims around the world towards the west and America by showing football games, explaining the acetic dimensions of baseball and airing documentaries about the ‘fence’ in Palestine, along with doses of fashion. Alhurra in its official web site claims that:

“We are devoted primarily to news and information. In addition to reporting on regional and international events, the channel broadcasts discussion programs, current affairs magazines and features on a variety of subjects including health and personal fitness, entertainment, sports, fashion, and science and technology” (Alhurra official web site).

Give me a break! In order to facilitate TESOLers’ jobs who came from inner circle countries, an anesthetization of Middle Easterners’ hearts and minds must be done so people can accept these teachers with a positive attitude and a wide smile on their faces. People in the Middle East must be convinced that they are not proficient enough to teach English, thus teachers their first language is English must take over and teach English for your child’s own benefit. According to Phillipson (2006) media is not only organize production on a new scale and force a new structure sufficient to global space, but also make its justification inherent power, as it “produces, organizes, as it organizes, it speaks and expresses it self as authority” (p. 352). Why I would pay my good money to fund an Arabic channel such as Alhurra when I cannot earn money from it. Alhurra in its web site mentions that “Alhurra is operated by non-profit corporation, The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN)” (Alhurra official web site). The Arabic satellite dish contains more than 300 free entertainment channels which can be accessed by Arabs from any place in the Middle East with more than 6 news channels such as Al-jazeera, CNN and BBC. Therefore, the purpose of such channels is that the American government can trade its citizen’s money with its future security by dominating and directing Arab youths’ minds and beliefs toward its own interest, by providing ‘a purely American Arabic speaker’ channel. The other case is MBC group channels which “started in London as the first satellite, free-to-air multi-channel media group of its kind in the Arab world” (MBC official web site). Al-Arabiya (means the ‘Arabian channel’ in Arabic) which is one channel from the MBC 6 free channels specialized with news and press. The reason behind the emergence of such channel has been declared by the people work there is to have a democratic channel which fights Aljazeera’s thoughts (an Arabic news channel) and its anti-democratic trends. Since Al-jazeera has been described by many Westerner politicians as anti-American bias, thus we need a channel against any anti-American thoughts in the Middle East region. According to Ryan (2005) Donald Rumsfeld has accused the station of persuading people that the US is an occupying force in Iraq, which he describes as a lie! On the contrary, the expansion into Iraq was to “brought freedom, economic growth, education and democracy to people who have suffered under years of oppression and mismanagement” (Hadley, 2004 quoted Assistance for Iraq). As a result, America is trying to Americanize the Arabic society the same way as she Americanized the Japanese society after the World War ll. Therefore, the road will be paved for native English teachers when they come to teach the ‘Western values’.

The world of TESOL and the native speaker teacher of English:

To impose the American ideologies in the Middle East, America promoted very well the teaching job for the native speaker teachers of English by promising them with “ good salaries and an exotic overseas adventure” (Hadley, 2004). According to Hadley many scholars such as Troike and Crystal have linked the expansion of TESOL to the expansion of former British and present American empire. Furthermore, native English teachers serve as “part of the educational aid packages exported to countries throughout South America, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East” (Hadley, 2004) who work as colonial administrators. Handley in his paper cited Edge’s view that EFL teachers have become an academic army that satisfies intellectual conflict and occupies the linguistic dominions of an Anglophonic empire:

“…it is now possible to see us, EFL teachers, as a second wave of imperial troopers. Before the armoured divisions have withdrawn from the city limits, while the solders are still patrolling the streets, English teachers will be facilitating the policies that the tanks were sent to impose. And whether, and to whomsoever, I teach EFL, I am part of that overarching system” (Hadley, 2004 quoted from Edge, 10)

 Karmani (2005) argues that an extraordinary pressure has been put on Muslim governments to reform their educational curricula.  A very interesting article by Glasser (2003) who works for the Washington Post illustrates that many Arabic Gulf countries reshape their schools and put English over Islam, so in order to make way for more hours of English, classes in Islamic studies and Arabic are being reduced. A new stuff of native English speaker teachers has been brought into the schools of United Arab Emirates to teach the students from early ages. What is interesting is that the native speaker teachers are brought from inner countries as experts who do not need any preparing or training. They are who design the textbooks, monitoring the non-native speaker teachers and deciding who should stay and who should not stay in the school. However, American policies had succeeded in this country. Almost every non-native speaker teacher convinced that the native speaker teachers are better than non-native speaker teachers in English and this system is the best to teach the students this language even if they do not have the required qualifications, because English is their first language. This persuasion created negative outcomes with less positive results. In such schools a world full of racial discrimination in job opportunity, payment and respect has emerged. Non-native speaker teacher is no longer trusted by parents and his or her students. The native speaker teacher’s salary must be double than the non-native speaker teacher as one condition to import these teachers. Moreover, they must be provided with luxury accommodations, free transportations and first class annual flight tickets to their mother land. Of course, these conditions had been set by the American government to ensure that their citizens are treated well. Such conditions are imposed against governments’ wish in the Middle East region. What is ironic is that even if you have an American passport or you are a citizen from inner countries and you were not white or you were originally from Arabic country, you may not have these facilities! In some cases your contract might be cancelled even after you have signed the contract if your original identity has been discovered.

Conclusion:

In order to achieve the maximum domination on the Middle East and to make sure that no anti-American bases are exist in the region. Moreover, to insure that what happened in September 11, 2001 is not going to happen again, an American political equation must be applied, first, using the tank to impose the power. Second, programming youth’s minds and their views on what America ‘believes in’ is right. Third, teach the child what is against America is against you in the classrooms. It is not a coincidence that the emergence of (Al-Ghad) schools was after only one year from the dramatic events of September 11, 2001. It is not a coincidence that the reform of the educational curricula implemented after September 11, 2001. It is not also a coincidence that, channels like Alhurra and Al-Arabiya had been lunched after what happened in September 11 in 2001 which they are now based in Dubai, in United Arab Emirates. However, no one can disagree that Middle East countries need skilled and experienced workers and teachers from developed countries such as America, and Britain, but a direct supervising to those employees must be done by Middle Eastern countries that brought those experts and pay their salaries from their money for a preset goal. According to Fields (2005) who is a native speaker teacher of English works in Abu-Dhabi, UAE, teachers should be hired based on their qualifications to work in an atmosphere of fairness and respect, free from fear of discriminatory treatment or arbitrary dismissal because of their ethnicity, whether they were native or non-native speaker teachers of English.

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Reference:

Alhurra, 2005, ‘About us’. Available from: http://www.alhurra.com/sub.aspx?id=266 [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

Al-Osaimi, N., 2007. English Teachers Not Always Qualified [online]. Arab News. Available from:http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=104142&d=30&m=11&y=2007. [Accessed 17 May 2008]

Al-Segair, K., 2007. Only Native Speakers as English Teachers! [online]. Arab News. Available from:

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13§ion=0&article=101526&d=22&m=9&y=2007. [Accessed 17 May 2008]

Boyle, J., 1997. ‘Native-speaker teachers of English in Hong Kong’. Language and Education vol. 11, No.3

Braine, G., 1999, Introduction, in G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native Educators in

English Language Teaching, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum,

pp.xiii-xx

Canagarajah, A. S., 1999, Interrogating the “Native Speaker” Fallacy:

Non-Linguistic Roots, Non-Pedagogical Results, in G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native

Educators in English Language Teaching, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence

Erlbaum, pp.77-92

Fields, M., 2005. If students can learn who is the better teacher, why can’t employers? [online]. Guardian Weekly. Available from:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/If students can learn who is the better teacher, why can’t employers  TEFL  EducationGuardian_co_uk.mht. [Accessed 16 May 2008]

Glasser, B., 2003. Qatar reshapes its schools, putting English over Islam [online]. Washington Post Foreign Services. Available from:

http://www.english.education.gov.qa/files/886_WPOST.pdf. [Accessed 16 May 2008]

Hadley, G., 2004, ‘ELT and the New World Order: Nation Building or New Reconstruction?’, in TESOL Islamia, Niigata University of International and Information Studies. Available from: http:/tesolislamia.org/articles.html [Aaccessed 11 Jun 2008]

Kachru, B., & Nelson, C., 1996, ‘World Englishes’, in S McKay & N

Hornberger (eds), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 71-102

Karmani, S., 2005, English, ‘Terror’, and Islam. Applied linguistics 26(2) 262-267

MBC group, 2008, ‘About MBC group’. Available from: http://www.mbc.net/about-mbc-en/ [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

McNeill, A., 1994. ‘Some characteristics of Native and non-Native speaker teachers of English’. International language in Education conference.

Pennycook, A., 2001, Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction,

Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

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http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html. [Accessed 19 May 2008]

Whenever I hear the word ‘London’ the first thing that comes into my mind is the famous ‘London Bridge’. But the city is absolutely more than that, more than kings and queens and their palaces, and more than being a financial and fashion hub. London is in fact a common point where great minds, ambitious dreams, and dynamic imaginations of students from every face of the planet meet and start their journey. Top calibrated and globally recognized universities and colleges are just a few of the reasons why international students choose London to be their second home. Check for yourself and you will see why…

Preparation and Financial Assistance

Students anywhere in the globe can contact the UKCISA and British Council for the latest information and procedures in applying for student visa. The British Council also features an online catalog where students can search for various scholarship grants and awards from UK universities, non-profit organizations, and private institutions.

Institutions, Programs, and Courses

Universities in London can be categorized into two classifications. The first is the federal University of London which is one of the largest universities in Europe. It has 19 colleges and 12 institutes all of which control its own admissions and degree courses and are in fact universities in their own right. Some of the leading and distinguished colleges of the University of London include University College London (UCL), King’s College London, Queen Mary, London School of Economics and Political Science, Birkbeck, Institute of Education, Goldsmiths, and the Royal Holloway. The second are universities that are not part of the University of London such as the Imperial College London, City University, Brunel University, London South Bank University, Middlesex University, and the University of East London.

These universities and colleges are at par with various institutions in the US such as MIT, Berkeley, and the University of California. Undergraduate, postgraduate, and advance studies and programs are available under different fields – Art, Design, Architecture, Business, Management, Finance, Media, Humanities, Law, Healthcare, Medicine, Veterinary Science, IT, Science, and Engineering.

Transportation

London has certainly one of the most modern and organized transportation systems in the modern world. Students can avail of the Oyster Card with a discount of 30% on a selection of travel cards. From coaches, double-decker buses, black cabs to high-speed trains your chosen university or college is just a step away from your home. If you are the traditional type you can also hit the road with bicycles which are gaining popularity nowadays or simply walk around the city and savor its history, architecture, and style.

Accommodation

Regardless if you are taking a short or lengthy course, finding your next home sweet home will never be a problem in London. You can choose from studio flats, apartments, to flashy penthouses throughout the city and its suburbs, name it London has it. Nearly all universities and colleges offer accommodation for foreign students. International students are recommended to read the UKCISA Guidance Note – ‘Accommodation for international students’ for various do’s and don’ts in choosing their place to stay.

Lifestyle, Health & Safety

And what is school without experiencing some fun? Foreign students will be awed on what London can offer. Cafes, discos, shopping havens, fine restaurants, art centers, exotic markets, museums, whatever can make you relaxed and unwind London is definitely the city where you live life in its fullest. Students staying for 6 months or more can access hospital treatment for free from the National Health Service (NHS).

History

Main article: History of the Central African Republic

Pre-history

Between about 1000 BC and 1000 AD, Adamawa-Eastern-speaking peoples spread eastward from Cameroon to Sudan and settled in most of the territory of the CAR. During the same period, a much smaller number of Bantu-speaking immigrants settled in Southwestern CAR and some Central Sudanic-speaking populations settled along the Oubangi.

The majority of the CAR’s inhabitants thus speak Adamawa-Eastern languages or Bantu languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family. A minority speak Central Sudanic languages of the Nilo-Saharan family. More recent immigrants include many Muslim merchants who most often speak Arabic or Hausa.

Exposure to the outside world

Until the early 1800s, the peoples of the CAR lived beyond the expanding Islamic frontier in the Sudanic zone of Africa and thus had relatively little contact with Abrahamic religions or northern economies. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, however, Muslim traders began increasingly to penetrate the region of the CAR and to cultivate special relations with local leaders in order to facilitate their trade and settlement in the region.

The initial arrival of Muslim traders in the early 1800s was relatively peaceful and depended upon the support of local peoples, but after about 1850, slave traders with well-armed soldiers began to penetrate the region. Between c. 1860 and 1910, slave traders from Sudan, Chad, Cameroon, Dar al-Kuti in Northern CAR and Nzakara and Zande states in Southeastern CAR exported much of the population of Eastern CAR, a region with very few inhabitants today.

French colonialism

Main article: Ubangi-Shari

Oubangui-Chari in 1910

European penetration of Central African territory began in the late nineteenth century during the so-called Scramble for Africa (c. 18751900). Count Savorgnan de Brazza took the lead in establishing the French Congo with headquarters in the city named after him, Brazzaville, and sent expeditions up the Ubangi River in an effort to expand France’s claims to territory in Central Africa. King Leopold II of Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom also competed to establish their claims to territory in the Central African region.

In 1889 the French established a post on the Ubangi River at Bangui, the future capital of Ubangi-Shari and the CAR. De Brazza then sent expeditions in 189091 up the Sangha River in what is now Southwestern CAR, up the center of the Ubangi basin toward Lake Chad, and eastward along the Ubangi River toward the Nile. De Brazza and the procolonial in France wished to expand the borders of the French Congo to link up with French territories in West Africa, North Africa and East Africa.

In 1894, the French Congo’s borders with Leopold II’s Congo Free State and German Cameroon were fixed by diplomatic agreements. Then, in 1899, the French Congo’s border with Sudan was fixed along the Congo-Nile watershed, leaving France without her much coveted outlet on the Nile and turning Southeastern Ubangi-Shari into a cul-de-sac.

Once European negotiators agreed upon the borders of the French Congo, France had to decide how to pay for the costly occupation, administration, and development of the territory. The reported financial successes of Leopold II’s concessionary companies in the Congo Free State convinced the French government in 1899 to grant 17 private companies large concessions in the Ubangi-Shari region. In return for the right to exploit these lands by buying local products and selling European goods, the companies promised to pay rent to the colonial state and to promote the development of their concessions. The companies employed European and African agents who frequently used extremely brutal and atrocious methods to force Central Africans to work for them. At the same time, the French colonial administration began to force Central Africans to pay taxes and to provide the state with free labor. The companies and French administration often collaborated in their efforts to force Central Africans to work for their benefit, but they also often found themselves at odds.

Some French officials reported abuses committed by private company militias and even by their own colonial colleagues and troops, but efforts to bring these criminals to justice almost always failed. When news of atrocities committed against Central Africans by concessionary company employees and colonial officials or troops reached France and caused an outcry, there were investigations and some feeble attempts at reform, but the situation on the ground in Ubangi-Shari remained essentially the same.

Stamp from 1924

In the meantime, during the first decade of French colonial rule (c. 19001910), the rulers of African states in the Ubangi-Shari region increased their slave raiding activities and also their sale of local products to European companies and the colonial state. They took advantage of their treaties with the French to procure more weapons which were used to capture more slaves and so much of the eastern half of Ubangi-Shari was depopulated as a result of the export of Central Africans by local rulers during the first decade of colonial rule. Those who had power, Africans and Europeans, often made life miserable for those who did not have the power to resist.

During the second decade of colonial rule (c. 19101920), armed employees of private companies and the colonial state continued to use brutal methods to deal with local populations who resisted forced labor but the power of local African rulers was destroyed and so slave raiding was greatly diminished. In 1911, the Sangha and Lobaye basins were ceded to Germany as part of an agreement which gave France a free-hand in Morocco and so Western Ubangi-Shari came under German rule until World War I, during which France reconquered this territory by using Central African troops.

The third decade of colonial rule (19201930) was a period of transition during which a network of roads was built, cash crops were promoted, mobile health services were formed to combat sleeping sickness, and Protestant missions established stations in different parts of the country. New forms of forced labor were also introduced, however, as the French conscripted large numbers of Ubangians to work on the Congo-Ocean Railway and many of these recruits died of exhaustion and illness.

In 1925 the French writer Andr Gide published Voyage au Congo in which he described the alarming consequences of conscription for the Congo-Ocean railroad and exposed the continuing atrocities committed against Central Africans in Western Ubangi-Shari by employees of the Forestry Company of Sangha-Ubangi, for example. In 1928 a major insurrection, the Kongo-Wara ‘war of the hoe handle’ broke out in Western Ubangi-Shari and continued for several years. The extent of this insurrection, perhaps the largest anticolonial rebellion in Africa during the interwar years, was carefully hidden from the French public because it provided evidence, once again, of strong opposition to French colonial rule and forced labor.

During the fourth decade of colonial rule (c. 19301940), cotton, tea, and coffee emerged as important cash crops in Ubangi-Shari and the mining of diamonds and gold began in earnest. Several cotton companies were granted purchasing monopolies over large areas of cotton production and were thus able to fix the prices paid to cultivators in order to assure profits for their shareholders. Europeans established coffee plantations and Central Africans also began to cultivate coffee.

The fifth decade of colonial rule (c. 19401950) was shaped by the Second World War and the political reforms which followed in its wake. In September 1940 pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari.

Independence

On 1 December 1958 the colony of Ubangi-Shari became an autonomous territory within the French Community and took the name Central African Republic. The founding father and president of the Conseil de Gouvernement, Barthlmy Boganda, died in a mysterious plane accident in 1959, just eight days before the last elections of the colonial era. On 13 August 1960 the Central African Republic gained its independence and two of Boganda’s closest aides, Abel Goumba and David Dacko, became involved in a power struggle. With the backing of the French, Dacko took power and soon had Goumba arrested. By 1962 President Dacko had established a one-party state.

On 31 December 1965 Dacko was overthrown in the Saint-Sylvestre coup d’tat by Colonel Jean-Bdel Bokassa, who suspended the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. President Bokassa declared himself President for life in 1972, and named himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire on 4 December 1976. A year later, Emperor Bokassa crowned himself in a lavish and expensive ceremony that was ridiculed by much of the world. In 1979 France carried out a coup against Bokassa and “restored” Dacko to power. Dacko, in turn, was overthrown in a coup by General Andr Kolingba on 1 September 1981.

Kolingba suspended the constitution and ruled with a military junta until 1985. He introduced a new constitution in 1986 which was adopted by a nationwide referendum. Membership in his new party, the Rassemblement Dmocratique Centrafricain (RDC) was voluntary. In 1987, semi-competitive elections to parliament were held and municipal elections were held in 1988. Kolingba’s two major political opponents, Abel Goumba and Ange-Flix Patass, boycotted these elections because their parties were not allowed to compete.

By 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a pro-democracy movement became very active. In May 1990 a letter signed by 253 prominent citizens asked for the convocation of a National Conference but Kolingba refused this request and detained several opponents. Pressure from the United States, more reluctantly from France, and from a group of locally represented countries and agencies called GIBAFOR (France, USA, Germany, Japan, EU, World Bank and UN) finally led Kolingba to agree, in principle, to hold free elections in October 1992, with help from the UN Office of Electoral Affairs. After using the excuse of alleged irregularities to suspend the results of the elections as a pretext for holding on to power, President Kolingba came under intense pressure from GIBAFOR to establish a “Conseil National Politique Provisoire de la Rpublique” (Provisional National Political Council) (CNPPR) and to set up a “Mixed Electoral Commission” which included representatives from all political parties.

When elections were finally held in 1993, again with the help of the international community, Ange-Flix Patass came in first in the first round and Kolingba came in fourth after Abel Goumba and David Dacko. In the second round, Patass won 53 percent of the vote while Goumba won 45.6 percent. Most of Patass’s support came from Gbaya, Kare and Kaba voters in seven heavily populated prefectures in the northwest while Goumba’s support came largely from ten less-populated prefectures in the south and east. Furthermore, Patass’s party, the Mouvement pour la Libration du Peuple Centrafricain (MLPC) or Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People gained a simple but not an absolute majority of seats in parliament, which meant Patass needed coalition partners.

Patass relieved former President Kolingba of his military rank of general in March 1994 and then charged several former ministers with various crimes. Patass also removed many Yakoma from important, lucrative posts in the government. Two hundred mostly Yakoma members of the presidential guard were also dismissed or reassigned to the army. Kolingba’s RDC loudly proclaimed that Patass’s government was conducting a “witch hunt” against the Yakoma.

A new constitution was approved on 28 December 1994 and promulgated on 14 January 1995, but this constitution, like those before it, did not have much impact on the practice of politics. In 19961997, reflecting steadily decreasing public confidence in its erratic behaviour, three mutinies against Patass’s government were accompanied by widespread destruction of property and heightened ethnic tension. On 25 January 1997, the Bangui Peace Accords were signed which provided for the deployment of an inter-African military mission, the Mission Interafricaine de Surveillance des Accords de Bangui (MISAB). Mali’s former president, Amadou Tour, served as chief mediator and brokered the entry of ex-mutineers into the government on 7 April 1997. The MISAB mission was later replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force, the Mission des Nations Unies en RCA (MINURCA).

In 1998 parliamentary elections resulted in Kolingba’ RDC winning 20 out of 109 seats, which constituted a comeback, but in 1999, notwithstanding widespread public anger in urban centers with his corrupt rule, Patass won free elections to become president for a second term. On 28 May 2001 rebels stormed strategic buildings in Bangui in an unsuccessful coup attempt. The army chief of staff, Abel Abrou, and General Francois N’Djadder Bedaya were shot, but Patass regained the upper hand by bringing in at least 300 troops of the rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba from over the river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and by Libyan soldiers.

In the aftermath of this failed coup, militias loyal to Patass sought revenge against rebels in many neighborhoods of the capital, Bangui, that resulted in the destruction of many homes as well as the torture and murder of many opponents. Eventually Patass came to suspect that General Franois Boziz was involved in another coup attempt against him and so Boziz fled with loyal troops to Chad. In March 2003, Boziz launched a surprise attack against Patass, who was out of the country. Libyan troops and some 1,000 soldiers of Bemba’s Congolese rebel organization failed to stop the rebels, who took control of the country and thus succeeded in overthrowing Patass.

Franois Boziz suspended the constitution and named a new cabinet which included most opposition parties. Abel Goumba, “Mr. Clean”, was named vice-president, which gave Boziz’s new government a positive image. Boziz established a broad-based National Transition Council to draft a new constitution and announced that he would step down and run for office once the new constitution was approved. A national dialogue was held from 15 September to 27 October 2003, and Boziz won a fair election that excluded Patass, to be elected president on a second ballot, in May 2005.

Humanitarian situation, peacebuilding, and development

The Central African Republic is heavily dependent upon multilateral foreign aid and the presence of numerous NGOs which provide services which the government fails to provide. As one UNDP official put it, the CAR is a country “sous serum,” or a country metaphorically hooked up to an IV. (Mehler 2005:150). The very presence of numerous foreign personnel and organizations in the country, including peacekeepers and even refugee camps, provides an important source of revenue for many Central Africans.

The country is self-sufficient in food crops, but much of the population lives at a subsistence level. Livestock development is hindered by the presence of the tsetse fly.

In 2006 due to ongoing violence, over 50,000 in the country’s north-west were at risk of starvation, and this was only averted thanks to United Nations support.[citation needed]

Peacebuilding Commission places Central African Republic on agenda On 12 June 2008, the Central African Republic became the fourth country to be placed on the agenda of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, which was set up in 2005 to help countries emerging from conflict avoid the slide back into war or chaos. The 31-member body agreed to take up the situation after a request from the government.

Peacebuilding Fund The Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared on 8 January 2008 that the Central African Republic was eligible to receive assistance from the Peacebuilding Fund. Three priority areas were identified: 1) Security sector reform 2) Promotion of good governance and the rule of law and 3) Revitalization of communities affected by conflicts.

Politics

Main article: Politics of the Central African Republic

Franois Boziz is President of the country. A new constitution was approved by voters in a referendum held on December 5, 2004. Full multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections were held in March 2005, with a second round in May. Boziz was declared the winner after a run-off vote.

In February 2006, there were reports of widespread violence in the northern part of the CAR. Thousands of refugees fled their homes, caught in the crossfire of battles between government troops and rebel forces. More than 7,000 people fled to neighboring Chad. Those who remained in the CAR told of government troops systematically killing men and boys suspected of cooperating with rebels.

Prefectures and sub-prefectures

Prefectures of the Central African Republic

Main articles: Prefectures of the Central African Republic and Sub-prefectures of the Central African Republic

The Central African Republic is divided into 14 administrative prefectures (prfectures), along with 2 economic prefectures (prfectures economiques) and one autonomous commune. The prefectures are further divided into 71 sub-prefectures (sous-prfectures).

The prefectures include:

Bamingui-Bangoran

Basse-Kotto

Haute-Kotto

Haut-Mbomou

Kmo

Lobaye

Mambr-Kad

Mbomou

Nana-Mambr

Ombella-M’Poko

Ouaka

Ouham

Ouham-Pend

Vakaga

the two economic prefectures are Nana-Grbizi and Sangha-Mbar; the commune is Bangui.

Geography

Main article: Geography of the Central African Republic

Satellite image of Central African Republic, generated from raster graphics data supplied by The Map Library

Map of the Central African Republic

Ubangi River on the outskirts of Bangui.

The Central African Republic is a land-locked nation within the interior of the African continent. It is bordered by the countries of Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo.

Much of the country consists of flat, or rolling plateau savanna, typically about 1,640 feet (500 m) above sea level, of which most of the northern half lies within the World Wildlife Fund’s East Sudanian savanna ecoregion. In the northeast are the Fertit Hills, and there are scattered hills in southwest part of the country. To the northwest is the Yade Massif, a granite plateau with an altitude of 3,750 feet (1,143 m).

At 240,519 square miles (622,941 km2), the Central African Republic is the world’s 42nd-largest country. It is comparable in size to the Ukraine, and is somewhat smaller than the US state of Texas.

Much of the southern border is formed by tributaries of the Congo River, with the Mbomou River in the east merging with the Uele River to form the Ubangi River. In the west, the Sangha River flows through part of the country. The eastern border lies along the edge of the Nile river watershed.

Estimates of the amount of the country covered by forest ranges up to 8%, with the densest parts in the south. The forest is highly diverse, and includes commercially important species of Ayous, Sapelli and Sipo. The deforestation rate is 0.4% per annum, and lumber poaching is commonplace.

The climate of the C.A.R. is generally tropical. The northern areas are subject to harmattan winds, which are hot, dry, and carry dust. The northern regions have been subject to desertification, and the northeast is desert. The remainder of the country is prone to flooding from nearby rivers.

In the November 2008 issue of National Geographic, the Central African Republic was named the country least affected by light pollution.

Economy

Main article: Economy of the Central African Republic

A boy playing with a burnt kerosene lamp in the city of Birao, Central African Republic. The town was almost completely burnt down in March 2007 during fighting between rebels and government troops.

The economy of the CAR is dominated by the cultivation and sale of food crops such as cassava, peanuts, maize, sorghum, millet, sesame, plantain and sara[disambiguation needed]. The annual real GDP growth rate is just above 3%. The importance of foodcrops over exported cash crops is indicated by the fact that the total production of cassava, the staple food of most Central Africans, ranges between 200,000 and 300,000 tons a year, while the production of cotton, the principal exported cash crop, ranges from 25,000 to 45,000 tons a year. Foodcrops are not exported in large quantities but they still constitute the principal cash crops of the country because Central Africans derive far more income from the periodic sale of surplus foodcrops than from exported cash crops such as cotton or coffee.

The CAR’s largest import partner is South Korea (20.2%), followed by France (13.6%) and Cameroon (7.7%), while its largest export partner is Japan (40.4%), followed by Belgium (9.8%) and China (8.2%).

Many rural and urban women also transform foodcrops into alcoholic drinks such as sorghum beer or hard liquor and derive considerable income from the sale of these drinks. Much of the income derived from the sale of foods and alcohol is not “on the books” and thus is not considered in calculating per capita income, which is one reason why official figures for per capita income are not accurate in the case of the CAR.

The per capita income of the CAR is often listed as being around $300 a year, said to be one of the lowest in the world, but this figure is based mostly on reported sales of exports and largely ignores the more important but unregistered sale of foods, locally produced alcohol, diamonds, ivory, bushmeat, and traditional medicine, for example. The informal economy of the CAR is more important than the formal economy for most Central Africans.

Diamonds constitute the most important export of the CAR, accounting for 4055% of export revenues, but an estimated 3050% of the diamonds produced each year leave the country clandestinely. Export trade is hindered by poor economic development, and the location of this country far from the coast.

The wilderness regions of this country have potential as ecotourist destinations. The country is noted for its population of forest elephants. In the southwest, the Dzanga-Sangha National Park is a rain forest area. To the north, the Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park has been well-populated with wildlife, including leopards, lions, and rhinos. To the northeast the Bamingui-Bangoran National Park. However the population of wildlife in these parks has severely diminished over the past 20 years due to poaching, particularly from the neighboring Sudan.

The CAR is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA).

The CAR is ranked 180 out of 181 on ‘ease of business’ in the 2009 Doing Business Report of the World Bank Group. The ‘ease of business’ ranking uses a composite index on regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of the Central African Republic

A village in the Central African Republic

The population has almost quadrupled since independence. In 1960 the population was 1,232,000. Now the population is 4,422,000. (2009 UN est.) Note: estimates for this country take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected.

The United Nations estimates that approximately 11% of the population aged 15 49 is HIV positive. Only 3% of the country has antiretroviral therapy available, compared to 17% coverage in neighbouring countries of Chad and the Republic of the Congo.

The nation is divided into over 80 ethnic groups, each having its own language. The largest ethnic groups are the Baya 33%, Banda 27%, Mandjia 13%, Sara 10%, Mboum 7%, M’Baka 4%, and Yakoma 4%, with 2% others, including Europeans of mostly French descent.

Health

Main article: Health in the Central African Republic

Female life expectancy at birth was 48.2 and male life expectancy at birth was at 45.1 in 2007. The fertility rate is at about five births per woman. Government expenditure on health was at US$ 20 (PPP) per person in 2006. There were 8 physicians per 100,000 people in 2004. Government expenditure on health was at 10.9 % of total government expenditure in 2006.

Religion

Main article: Religion in the Central African Republic

Religion in the Central African Republic

religion

percent

Christian

 

50%

Indigenous

 

35%

Islam

 

15%

Christians form 50 percent of the population, while 35 percent of the population maintain Indigenous beliefs, and Islam is practiced by approximately 15 percent of the country’s population.

There are many missionary groups operating in the country, including Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, Grace Brethren, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. While these missionaries are predominantly from the United States, France, Italy, and Spain, many are also from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other African countries. Many missionaries left the country due to fighting between rebel and government forces in 2002 and 2003. Many have now returned to the country and resumed their activities.

Culture

Music

Main article: Music of the Central African Republic

Education

Main article: Education in the Central African Republic

Public education in the Central African Republic is free, and education is compulsory from ages 6 to 14. About half the adult population of the country is illiterate. The country has the University of Bangui.

See also

List of writers from the Central African Republic

See also

Africa portal

Main article: Outline of the Central African Republic

List of Central African Republic-related topics

Transport in the Central African Republic

References

^ Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division (2009) (.PDF). World Population Prospects, Table A.1. 2008 revision. United Nations. http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2008/wpp2008_text_tables.pdf. Retrieved 2009-03-12. 

^ a b c d “Central African Republic”. International Monetary Fund. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2006&ey=2009&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=626&s=NGDPD,NGDPDPC,PPPGDP,PPPPC,LP&grp=0&a=&pr.x=53&pr.y=9. Retrieved 2009-10-01. 

^ Which side of the road do they drive on? Brian Lucas. August 2005. Retrieved 2009-01-28

^ List of countries by Human Development Index

^ HS Foreign 24.4.2001 Did the Central African Republic surpass Finland in environmental affairs?

^ “Thousands could die of starvation, says United Nations spokesperson Maurizio Giuliano”. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=58581. 

^ http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/pbc39.doc.htm

^ http://www.unpbf.org/CAR.shtml

^ Reuters AlertNet CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Polls results to be announced on 22 May, official says

^ BBC NEWS World | Africa | Country profiles | Timeline: Central African Republic

^ BBC NEWS Africa | Thousands flee new CAR ‘rebels’

^ BBC NEWS Africa | Thousands flee from CAR violence

^ Sold Down the River (English) March 2001, Forests Monitor

^ The Forests of the Congo Basin: State of the Forest 2006. CARPE 13-Jul-07

^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2050.html?countryName=China&countryCode=ch&regionCode=eas&#ch

^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2061.html?countryName=China&countryCode=ch&regionCode=eas&#ch

^ OHADA.com: The business law portal in Africa, http://www.ohada.com/index.php, retrieved 2009-03-22 

^ http://www.doingbusiness.org/Documents/CountryProfiles/CAF.pdf

^ Countries

^ http://data.unaids.org/pub/GlobalReport/2006/2006_GR_ANN3_en.pdf

^ a b c d http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_CAF.html

^ http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets/car.pdf

^ the World Factbook

^ U.S. Department of State

^ “Central African Republic”. Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor (2001). Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor (2002). ^ http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/car_statistics.html

Further reading

Kalck, Pierre, Historical Dictionary of the Central African Republic, 2004

Petringa, Maria, Brazza, A Life for Africa (2006) ISBN 978-1-4259-1198-0

Titley, Brian, Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa, 2002

External links

Find more about Central African Republic on Wikipedia’s sister projects:

Definitions from Wiktionary

Textbooks from Wikibooks

Quotations from Wikiquote

Source texts from Wikisource

Images and media from Commons

News stories from Wikinews

Learning resources from Wikiversity

Government

Central African Republic Online

Chief of State and Cabinet Members

Overviews

Country Profile from BBC News

Central African Republic entry at The World Factbook

Central African Republic from UCB Libraries GovPubs

Central African Republic at the Open Directory Project

Wikimedia Atlas of the Central African Republic

News

Humanitarian news and analysis from IRIN Central African Republic

Central African Republic news headline links from AllAfrica.com

(French) RCA Info

Cultural

Baka Pygmies Culture and music of the first inhabitants of the Central African Republic, with photos and ethnographic notes

Tourism

Central African Republic travel guide from Wikitravel

Other

Central African Republic Pictures

location of Central African Republic on a 3D globe (Java)

Central African Republic at Humanitarian and Development Partnership Team (HDPT)

Central African Republic reports from Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

Johann Hari in Birao, Central African Republic Inside France’s Secret War from The Independent, October 5, 2007

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 Central African Republic topics

Politics and government

Coat of Arms  Constitution  Corruption  Elections  Flag  Foreign relations  Human rights (GLBT  Women)  Law enforcement  Military  Ministers  National Assembly  Political parties  Politics  President  Prime Minister

History

Precolonial history  Oubangui-Chari (part of French Equatorial Africa)  Central African Empire  Patass presidency  Boziz coup

Geography and environment

Cities  Ecoregions  National Parks  Prefectures  Rivers  Sub-prefectures  Wildlife

Economy and infrastructure

Agriculture  Airports  Banks  Communications  Companies  Mining  Tourism  Trade unions  Transport

Culture and society

Demographics  Education  Films  Football (National team)  Holidays  Languages  Literature  Music  Religion (Catholicism  Islam)

Miscellany

Personalities on stamps  Public Holidays  Scouting

See also: List of Central African Republic-related topics

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Former French colonies in Africa and the Indian Ocean

Mahgreb

Algeria  Morocco (Arguin Island)  Tunisia

French West Africa

Cte d’Ivoire  Dahomey  French Sudan  Guinea  Mauritania  Niger  Senegal  Upper Volta

 

French Togoland  James Island  Albreda

French Equatorial Africa

Chad  Gabon  Middle Congo  Oubangui-Chari

Comoros

Anjouan  Grande Comore  Mohli

 

French Somaliland (Djibouti)  Madagascar  Ile de France  Seychelles

 

Geographic locale

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Countries and territories of Africa

West Africa

Benin  Burkina Faso  Cape Verde  Cte d’Ivoire  The Gambia  Ghana  Guinea  Guinea-Bissau  Liberia  Mali  Mauritania  Niger  Nigeria  Senegal  Sierra Leone  Togo

North Africa

Algeria  Egypt  Libya  Mauritania  Morocco  Sudan  Tunisia

Central Africa

Angola  Burundi  Cameroon  Central African Republic  Chad  Democratic Republic of the Congo  Republic of the Congo  Equatorial Guinea  Gabon  Rwanda  So Tom and Prncipe

East Africa

Burundi  Comoros  Djibouti  Eritrea  Ethiopia  Kenya  Madagascar  Malawi  Mauritius  Mozambique  Seychelles  Somalia  Tanzania  Uganda  Zambia  Zimbabwe

Southern Africa

Botswana  Lesotho  Namibia  South Africa  Swaziland

 States with

limited recognition

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic  Somaliland

 Partially in Africa

France (Runion)  Italy (Pantelleria)  Portugal (Madeira)  Spain (Canary Islands / Ceuta / Melilla / Plazas de soberana)  Yemen (Socotra)

 Dependencies

Iles Eparses (France)  Mayotte (France)  Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom)

 Disputed areas

Western Sahara

 

International membership

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African Union (AU)

Algeria  Angola  Benin  Botswana  Burkina Faso  Burundi  Cameroon  Cape Verde  Central African Republic  Chad  Comoros  Democratic Republic of the Congo  Republic of the Congo  Cte d’Ivoire  Djibouti  Egypt  Eritrea  Ethiopia  Equatorial Guinea  Gabon  The Gambia  Ghana  Guinea  Guinea-Bissau  Kenya  Lesotho  Liberia  Libya  Madagascar  Malawi  Mali  Mauritania  Mauritius  Mozambique  Namibia  Niger  Nigeria  Rwanda  Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic  So Tom and Prncipe  Senegal  Seychelles  Sierra Leone  Somalia  South Africa  Sudan  Swaziland  Tanzania  Togo  Tunisia  Uganda  Zambia  Zimbabwe

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Community of Sahel-Saharan States

Benin  Burkina Faso  Central African Republic  Chad  Comoros  Cte d’Ivoire  Djibouti  Egypt  Eritrea  The Gambia  Ghana  Guinea  Guinea-Bissau  Liberia  Libya  Mali  Morocco  Niger  Nigeria  Senegal  Sierra Leone  Somalia  Sudan  Togo  Tunisia 

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Member states and observers of the Francophonie

Members

Albania  Andorra  Armenia  Belgium (French Community)  Benin  Bulgaria  Burkina Faso  Burundi  Cambodia  Cameroon  Canada (New Brunswick  Quebec)  Cape Verde  Central African Republic  Chad  Comoros  Cyprus1  Democratic Republic of the Congo  Republic of the Congo  Cte d’Ivoire  Djibouti  Dominica  Egypt  Equatorial Guinea  France (French Guiana  Guadeloupe  Martinique  St. Pierre and Miquelon)  Gabon  Ghana1  Greece  Guinea  Guinea-Bissau  Haiti  Laos  Luxembourg  Lebanon  Macedonia2  Madagascar  Mali  Mauritania  Mauritius  Moldova  Monaco  Morocco  Niger  Romania  Rwanda  St. Lucia  So Tom and Prncipe  Senegal  Seychelles  Switzerland  Togo  Tunisia  Vanuatu  Vietnam

Observers

Austria  Croatia  Czech Republic  Georgia  Hungary  Latvia  Lithuania  Mozambique  Poland  Serbia  Slovakia  Slovenia  Thailand  Ukraine

1 Associate member. 2 Provisionally referred to by the Francophonie as the “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”; see Macedonia naming dispute.

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Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)

Members

Afghanistan  Albania  Algeria  Azerbaijan  Bahrain  Bangladesh  Benin  Burkina Faso  Brunei  Cameroon  Chad  Comoros  Cte d’Ivoire  Djibouti  Egypt  Gabon  Gambia  Guinea  Guinea-Bissau  Guyana  Indonesia  Iran  Iraq  Jordan  Kuwait  Kazakhstan  Kyrgyzstan  Lebanon  Libya  Maldives  Malaysia  Mali  Mauritania  Morocco  Mozambique  Niger  Nigeria  Oman  Pakistan  Palestine  Qatar  Saudi Arabia  Senegal  Sierra Leone  Somalia  Sudan  Suriname  Syria  Tajikistan  Turkey  Tunisia  Togo  Turkmenistan  Uganda  Uzbekistan  United Arab Emirates  Yemen

Observers

Countries and territories

Bosnia and Herzegovina  Central African Republic  Russia  Thailand  Northern Cyprus (as Turkish Cypriot State)

Muslim communities

Moro National Liberation Front

International organizations

Economic Cooperation Organization  African Union  Arab League  Non-Aligned Movement  United Nations

 

Languages

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Niger-Congo-speaking nations

 

Kordofanian

 Sudan

 

Mande

   

 Gambia

 Guinea

 Guinea-Bissau

 Mali

 Mauritania

 Senegal

 Sierra Leone

 Liberia

 Cte d’Ivoire

 Nigeria

 Burkina Faso

 Benin

 Togo

 

Atlantic-Congo

   

Atlantic

 Benin

 Burkina Faso

 Cameroon

 CAR

Ijoid

 Nigeria

 Chad

 Cte d’Ivoire

 Gambia

 Guinea

Dogon

 Mali

 Guinea-Bissau

 Liberia

 Mali

 Mauritania

 Niger

 Senegal

 Sierra Leone

 Sudan

 Togo

 

Volta-Congo

   

Senufo

 Benin

 Cte d’Ivoire

 Mali

Gur

 Benin

 Burkina Faso

 Cte d’Ivoire

 Ghana

 Mali

 Nigeria

 Togo

Adamawa-Ubangi

 Cameroon

 CAR

 Chad

 Nigeria

Kru

 Burkina Faso

 Cte d’Ivoire

 Liberia

Kwa

 Benin

 Cte d’Ivoire

 Ghana

 Nigeria

 Togo

 

Benue-Congo

   

Bantu

 Angola

 Botswana

 Burundi

 Cameroon

 DRC

Yoruba and Igbo

 Nigeria

 Rep. of the Congo

 Equatorial Guinea

 Gabon

 Kenya

 Lesotho

 Nigeria

 Malawi

 Mozambique

 Namibia

 Rwanda

 South Africa

 Swaziland

 Tanzania

 Uganda

 Zambia

 Zimbabwe

CAR = Central African Republic  DRC = Democratic Republic of the Congo

Categories: Central African Republic | African countries | African Union member states | Least Developed Countries | French-speaking countries | Landlocked countries | Member states of La Francophonie | States and territories established in 1960Hidden categories: Wikipedia pages move-protected due to vandalism | Articles containing French language text | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from December 2007 | Articles with links needing disambiguation

An H-1B temporary worker is a foreign national who is coming temporarily to the U.S. to perform a specialty occupation.  A specialty occupation is defined as “an occupation that requires (A) theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge, and (B) attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree in the specific specialty as a minimum for entry into the occupation in the United States.” [INA214(i); 8USC 1184(i)]

For example accountants, architects, teachers (primary and secondary, excluding nursery school teachers), university professors, certain types of nurses, attorneys, physicians, designers, and engineers will all qualify as H-1B workers. The only way to make a determination whether a particular worker will qualify is through advice from an experienced immigration attorney.

The H-1B visa remains one of most versatile nonimmigrant employment visas utilized by U.S. businesses to hire foreign workers.  Here is a list of issues to keep in mind when filing an H-1B petition.

Limitation on Duration of Stay and Full-Time/Part-Time Employment

An employer may request initial employment a maximum of 3 years.  The H-1B can be extended.  Generally, the maximum amount of time that an individual can hold H-1B visa status is 6 years. However, exceptions do exist that allow an H-1B extension beyond the initial 6 years. An employer may petition for a foreign worker for either full-time or part-time employment.

Prevailing Wage

The prevailing wage element requires employers to demonstrate that the wage offered will not discriminate against US workers by offering wages that are lower than the actual wage paid similar workers. Generally prevailing wage requirement is met by offering wages as determined submitting a Prevailing Wage Request to the State Workforce or demonstrating that a union contract is in force. The H-1B laws require employers to pay the higher of the actual wage or the prevailing wage.

The Labor Condition Application (LCA)

The LCA is an application by the employer to the Department of Labor attesting to certain conditions of the position offered.  These conditions are:

·         That the higher of actual or prevailing wage will be paid;

·         That the employee is eligible for the same benefits as other similarly employed US workers;

·         That the employee is not being employed because US workers are out on strike or lockout;

·         That the employment of the foreign worker will not adversely affect the working conditions of other workers; and

·         That proper notification was given to U.S. employees or the union representative if the position is union position university’s intent to hire an H-1B non-immigrant.

The LCA must be made available for Department of Labor (DOL) and for public inspection.  The LCA may be obtained online at www.lca.doleta.gov.

Spouse or Children of an H-1B

Spouses and children of an H-1B are eligible for H-4 visas. An H-4 is either a spouse or unmarried children under 21 years old.  H-4 holders cannot work in the U.S. but are eligible to attend school either part time or full-time.  To prove the relationship to the H-1B an H-4 candidate will need to present a marriage certificate if a spouse and a birth certificate if a child. 

Ok, when do I file?

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) will accept H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2010 on April 1, 2009 for jobs starting on October 1, 2009.  It is important to file April 1, 2009 since H-1B visas are capped at 65,000 per year and the last two years the cap was met within one week.  As such, early document preparation is essential to making timely filed H-1B petitions.

I’m Ready to File … Where?

A petition is filed with either California Service Center or Vermont Service Center depending on where the temporary employment will be The California Service Center is appropriate for employment in the following states: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, or Wyoming.

A petition is filed with the Vermont Service Center if the temporary work will be performed in: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, or West Virginia.

When the temporary employment will be in different states, the state where your company is located will determine the Service Center for submission of the petition.  For example, if the beneficiary will work in Arizona and Texas, and your company is located in California, file your H-1B petition with the California Service Center.

Sounds Great … How Much is this Going to Set me Back?

As of the time this article is published, an employer must pay for the H-1B Form I-129 filing fee ($320), H-1B Training Fee of either $750 or $1500 depending on the size of your company, and a Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee ($500). All employers must pay these fees unless an employer qualifies for exemption from the H-1B Training Fee.

If a company currently employs 1-25 full-time equivalent employees, the H-1B Training Fee is $750.  Companies who employ more than 25 full-time equivalent employees will need to pay $1500.  The employer must pay the H-1B Training Fee upon the initial hire and the first H-1B extension of the same employee.  The H-1B Training Fee is not required for second or subsequent petitions for H-1B extension.  The Fraud Prevention and Detection fee needs to be paid when the employer initially hires the employee even if he or she is currently working as an H-1B with another employer. 

A simple way to remember this is that every employer needs to pay for the H-1B Training Fee twice for each H-1B employee and the H-1B Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee needs to be paid once for each H-1B employee. Fees are subject to change so it is important to make sure of the proper fees before filing.

Filing Procedure

Documents are filed with the USCIS service center having jurisdiction over the petitioner (see filing locations above).  The petitioner must send Form I-129, I-129 supplement forms, an approved Labor Condition Application, support document about the petitioner’s business, and documents showing the qualifications of the candidate.  If there are dependent/s then the form I-539 need to be filed along with proof of relationship to the H-1B, i.e. marriage certificate or birth certificate or both.  Only one I-539 is required to be filed as children are listed on the application.  The Form I-539 filing fee is $300.