Increase Technology Funding, Implementation – Find Money for Education Technology in General Budget
Policymakers throughout all educational levels are wrestling with the cold, hard truth that the original funding of new equipment and software is the tip of the funding iceberg. In the ’80s we called this the “hidden costs.” In the ’90s we were so excited about all the new gadgets that we forgot to worry about anything else. Now, in the new century, we are wondering how we can afford to keep the tools our administrators, teachers, parents and students are finally putting to good use.As the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) states in their Total Cost of Ownership white paper, “While many government and private programs provide the means of obtaining the much-needed technology for schools, there are few provisions for the necessary ongoing support of these technologies. School districts, having installed much of the technologies needed for classroom, administrative and community communications functions, are fast becoming aware of the support problems and need to budget for the ongoing support costs.” These monies are often the last priority of any school entity.With the revolving threat of federal funds elimination for E-Rate and EETT (Enhancing Education Through Technology) funds, districts must find their own reliable and ongoing funding sources, and state and federal leadership would do well to help calculate and take into consideration total cost of ownership. Seeing the big picture is a necessity.General Budget Technology FundingTo compound the funding dilemma, many education leaders have yet to realize that technology is no longer a separate entity. Technology use is an everyday occurrence in every school in every district, at one level or another. Unfortunately, many education policy leaders have not revised their general budgets to support the proven ways technology improves the work and goals of the local education agencies (LEAs). Leaders who consider technology a “black hole” (as one administrator once told me) are burying their heads in the sand and should be made aware or trained.Those who set the general fund budget should be informed of the successes from districts that have recreated education budgeting and work practices. These districts take advantage of technology to increase business efficiency and advance student learning, thus saving money and truly educating students while helping meet No Child Left Behind mandates:
One of the strongest organizations of high performing school districts west of the Mississippi River is the Western States Benchmarking Consortium. These districts constantly score above the norm on tests, have high graduation rates, and have lower dropout rates when compared with similar and dissimilar demographics. All of these school districts were early adopters of technology and have used it to support teachers, students and their business teams.
Assistant Superintendent John Q. Porter of Montgomery County Public Schools, an outstanding school district on the East Coast, stated in the June issue of District Administration magazine, “Our enemy is time, and technology is the only way [to combat that]. Still, there are people who don’t understand the importance of technology because they fear it. One of the first things you realize in technology is that technology is change; those who fail in developing systems don’t understand the dynamic of change.”
Two years ago, Poway Unified School District was going to hire 32 new teachers. The technology department used their data warehousing tool to show district leaders they needed only 25 teachers. The leadership followed their advice instead of following old trends, and their estimation proved correct. The district saved approximately $350,000 in salaries — more than the cost of the data warehouse installation.
Student assessments have changed. Trish Williams and Michael Kirst, in their article “School Practices that Matter” (Leadership Magazine, March/April 2006), state high performing districts must have assessments that align with state standards and have the ability to quickly inform teachers of results. Online assessments give policymakers a choice of how to properly assess students to support learning, with 24 hours or quicker result reporting. This should be a common practice to support the students and meet NCLB mandates.
RELATED STORY: Find More Money for Budget and Technology [http://www.convergemag.com/summary.php?catid=418]All budgets, despite project or department, must be completely reviewed to see how technology can support and make the end product more successful. Additionally, policy leaders must continue to research what new innovations will be appearing in the near future and analyze how these new tools will impact education programs in their local education agencies. All must be in a continual learning mode and work together to envision how we can help put students on a path to continual intellectual growth. Following are some steps to start down the path toward properly utilizing general funds for the support of technology.Funding Where There was NoneStep 1: Evaluate and PrioritizeData-driven decision-making is a fundamental part of this first step. Generally, there are three areas from which data should be gathered: instructional and business demands, the infrastructure to support those demands, and the equipment and software needed to meet those demands.
Instructional and business demands: these demands are driven by district objectives, community expectations, state and federal mandates, funding constraints and labor union guidelines. Expectations are increasingly high for districts to produce students who perform well on standardized tests and exhibit good citizenship. The business side of education exists to support the learning activities that will meet these expectations.
The infrastructure to support those demands: LEAs’ infrastructure consists of multiple components. Every two to three years, structural components should be reviewed. Telephones, data, alarm, networks and general physical condition of buildings must be assessed to understand what repairs and upgrades are needed. Funding is available in many states under deferred maintenance, or in operational and maintenance restricted funds. If a comprehensive plan is developed and followed, districts can ensure this major building block for support of education will be set in place.
Equipment and software to meet those demands: with the first two areas in place, an intelligent decision can be made regarding the purchase of software, computers and other related equipment that will work with the existing infrastructure and meet the district’s instructional and business demands.
Attaining these goals may require more than one year. It is also highly probable that goals will change over time. It is wise, therefore, to create a multi-year plan that is agile and modifiable.Part of supporting technology is providing a maintenance, replacement or obsolescence fund, typically fed from districts’ general funds. Too often a majority of technology dollars are spent simply maintaining the status quo. The challenge is to meet the continual need for growth in the areas of technology for online assessments, home-to-school communication, 24/7 access to learning resources and virtual or distance learning.Step 2: PartnershipsLEAs can benefit from partnerships with local and national businesses in two major ways. First, businesses use general funds to support technology, and business leaders can share funding and maintenance best practices with educational policymakers. Second, business partners can donate equipment or money to support technology innovations in education.True partnerships support all parties involved. Such partnerships can be large or small, because any amount of funding will help. Large corporations often have several different funding sources. IBM, for instance, has the Academic Initiative and an alliance with the Computer Science Teachers Association to provide free software and curriculum planning. Intel offers multiple grant programs, as does Microsoft. Smaller companies, even the mom and pop donut shop, can and will support their neighborhood school.Step 3: Form FoundationsIf a community understands its local districts’ funding constraints, they are often willing to extend financial assistance by creating a foundation. While foundations are helpful overall, they should be avoided for individual school sites, as they generally increase inequities that already exist. Schools in more affluent neighborhoods may have foundations that raise $100,000 or more annually, while schools in less affluent areas may only raise $5,000 or have no foundation, and will obviously be unable to support their student learning projects.Step 4: New Uses for Old TechnologiesThin client (a network computer without a hard disk drive, which is designed to be especially small so that the bulk of the data processing occurs on the server) is one way to use old equipment to run new software, where old computers can become “dumb terminals” and run new applications from the server. This solution requires a sound network foundation and server structure, but can reduce replacement costs and decrease technology support staff needs.Step 5: Give Grants a ChanceWhere are the grants? Too many education decision-makers and leaders, especially at the high school level, do not realize that state and federal grants are much easier to obtain if their free and reduced lunch count is 40 percent or more. It is important for educators to have accurate data and a high percentage in this area for funding sources such as E-Rate, EETT, or other related sources. In addition, ferreting out grant money can augment general funds to support student learning with technology.The Road to Affording Ed Tech General budget funding must be realigned to match the needs of local education agencies. This will help both the learning and business aspects of a school. These funds may initially need supplemental support, but educators must be aware of the benefits of technology. We must intelligently commit funding for the educational growth of all our children.Leasing EquipmentLast year, the Poway Unified School District had to replace approximately 3,000 Windows 95 computers. These computers would not run the Web browser needed for their data reporting tool or the majority of teacher Web pages. The memory and speed of the computers were insufficient to run most of the enterprise-wide educational software available over their wide area network (WAN) and local area networks (LANs).The district had less than $1 million per year available for this project. Leasing was discussed. The amount the district had for support was ongoing, so the question was, could a lease agreement that guaranteed a vendor an ongoing fixed dollar amount for several years also guarantee the district a continuing flow of up-to-date technology equipment?The district obtained a four-year lease with three vendors, with an agreement at the end of four years to rotate the machines out with a new lease agreement. Additional cost savings included the maintenance agreement — vendor responsibility for all repairs during the lease period.Thin ClientDistricts throughout New York and New Jersey have discovered how to use thin client technology to make old computers new again. During the late 1990s, thin client was dismissed as too slow and too expensive to be useful in most school districts. This perception has changed in business, as in education, with greater network speed via WAN and LAN technologies, and tremendous server cost reductions.In a thin client environment, workstations do not store programs but rather receive everything from a system of servers (one server for about 20 workstations). When servers were $20,000 each, this was cost prohibitive. Today, servers that can support thin client cost about $3,500, allowing quick communication with workstations and a cost-saving solution.Total Cost of OwnershipHow can policy leaders find the true cost of supporting equipment? The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the Gartner Group have an online tool that will assist in the estimation of this cost for various levels of technology.Published in the Fall 2006 issue of Converge [http://www.convergemag.com/story.php?catid=418&storyid=106722]
Affordable SEO for Realtors
Affordable SEO for realtors has always been a way to get in the game and truly compete for clients online. Today, spending money for newspaper or magazine ads has become a thing of the past; and potentially an huge waste of money spent. Search engine optimization can be an even more affordable way in which to market not only yourself as a realtor, but also your current listings.Realty is a highly competitive profession; especially working alongside a large number of realtors in the same city or town. How do you get ahead of the pack? How do you steal the leads that your competitors are getting each and every day? SEO.It is well known, that if you are searching for exercise equipment or antique light fixtures online, you will enter a keyword or a key phrase into a well-known search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.). When results are displayed, who truly scans through the ninth, tenth or thirtieth page for a valid website? Nobody.It is those few that hold websites in the top rankings that are looked at first. The same applies for realtors and real estate agents. The first few pages, and especially that of the first few ranked individuals, will get: the first website click, the first client, and possibly, the first sale. Who wouldn’t want to be this realtor?SEO for realtors, moves your website up in the search engine rankings effectively, over time. On-page affordable SEO fixes such as meta-tags, description tags, etc., can make effective adjustments to your webpage within six to nine short few weeks of your SEO campaign’s first month.Off-page affordable SEO fixes can take six to nine months to register, but they will continue to increase your page rankings, should you decide at some point to cease with your SEO campaign temporarily or indefinitely.Clearly, those that continue to have an affordable SEO company continually working on their SEO campaign, will receive faster and more aggressive results; but truly, any results will assist your webpage.What exactly is affordable seo, and how much should I expect to pay? As with any profession, rates vary by: demand, years of experience, expertise, etc. An average SEO company will charge anywhere from $40 per hour on the low end, to $200 per hour on the higher end. Note that more expensive service, does not always mean, ‘better’ service. Some companies wish to play the Affordable SEO game of competitive pricing with each other, which is always in a realtor’s favor.The first month of SEO for a realtor, as well as any other company or profession, will always be the most costly. Packages may start at $2,000 for the first month, but taper off to your budget of a few hundred dollars for months thereafter. The first month is a necessary search engine optimization investment. The first month of an SEO campaign gets your website ready and rockin’ for true SEO to commence.One should notice a small jump in rankings even after only a few months of that initial SEO month. This is because when a website is properly prepared for search engines to read, that is exactly what happens – search engines like Google note the changes, and rank your site accordingly.Why invest in SEO as a realtor? As something only a good and informative business person may realize; if it costs a few thousand dollars for an SEO campaign of a few months, and you sell $40,000 worth of house sale commission shortly after or within those months, a wise investment was made.SEO is for the smart realtor, but truly, to even compete anymore, one needs an SEO specialist on their side. A good SEO company will work within your budget after the initial campaign month is completed. Invest in what you can, and you will quickly see the results that every other realtor has already been experiencing.
What Are The Penalties For Driving With No Car Insurance?
1. Driving banIn some developing countries, it is allowed to drive without insurance since all you need is a valid driver license. However, most developed countries do not allow their citizens to drive cars without having coverage from car insurance companies. As a matter of fact, driving without insurance can be considered a serious offense. The most common consequence is penalty points on driving records, fine and driving ban.2. Problems with expired insuranceThere is no excuse for driving without insurance. You cannot even blame the insurance company for failing to notify you about any expired policy. When the vehicle is in use while you don’t have valid insurance policy that covers you and the car, the offense basically has been committed on the road. Your insurance company has no obligation to notify about policy expiration. You cannot involve the insurer in your circumstances. In this case, you will still be convicted, but there is probably mitigation. Your insurance company will play its parts by electronically notifying the DMV anytime your insurance is cancelled, reinstated, or you get new coverage, but not about policy expiration.3. Comprehensive coverageAs mentioned earlier, insurance policies are sold in packages. It means the car, driver, and owner should always be covered by any policy required by the law. The driver and the owner can be two different people, such as when you are borrowing your friend’s car. Despite the fact that the car has comprehensive coverage, you are still not allowed to drive it unless you are insured. If you are caught in such situation, you are considered committing an offense. Additionally, your friend is guilty too for allowing an uninsured driver to use the car.Comprehensive coverage is for the car, not for the person who is driving it; there are some other different policies for driver such as medical payment and liability. Comprehensive covers any damage to the vehicle as long as it is not caused by accidents. Cheap auto insurance quotes do not usually include this coverage because it is actually optional.4. No insurance violationWhen you are pulled over due to any reason, and you cannot show proof of insurance, the police officer may issue ticket for no insurance violation. It only happens if you are actually insured, but you cannot show your insurance card. The ticket can be possibly dismissed if you can produce the insurance card to the police department within the time period informed in the ticket.5. SR-22 requirementsThere are many online websites providing free-of-charge car insurance calculator to help you find the most affordable insurance policies for your circumstances. It means there are very few reasons for not being insured. In case you drive without insurance and cause an accident, you will have to meet SR-22 requirements which basically oblige you to have at least minimum insurance liability in your state. You don’t have to wait until this happens to get insured. An SR-22 document should be kept for usually 3 years even when you move to another state.6. Car is impoundedPurchasing a car means having it insured as well; otherwise the car will be illegal to drive. If the car is not insured at all, it can be impounded. The police are entitled to do so and charge you for driving it on the road. You don’t have to use the best auto insurance companies to avoid this. There are many insurers running their businesses in almost any state, so it should be easy for you to choose one that is suitable for your budget and conditions.7. Multiple offensesYou receive a ticket for driving without insurance and you are summonsed to court. Once again, there is a time period until you can produce proof of insurance to the police department. If you fail to do so within the time period and you are caught again, the police can issue the same ticket. When the time period is up, you basically commit further offense.
4 Tips To Surviving the Google Penguin Update for 2014
In late May of this year, Google released its newest Google Penguin update for English results. Why another update? According to Link Assistant, “the aim of the update is to provide a more useful, relevant and accurate local search results. And unlike Penguin and Panda updates, this is not a penalty-based update (aimed at cleaning the SERPs (search engine results page) from low-quality content), but a core change to the local search ranking algorithm.”If you are not familiar with Google’s Penguin updates, the following is a great explanation from Search Engine Land. “Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining those through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings. When a new Penguin update is released, sites that have taken action to remove bad links (such as through Google disavow tool or to remove spam may regain rankings). New sites not previously caught might get trapped by Penguin “False Positive,” sites that were not caught by mistake, may escape.”The following key points will give you a better understanding of the update and advice for website owners who have been affected.1. Local listing packs secede for a large number of keywordsThe Skinny – One prominent change since the update is the significant drop in queries that now include a local listing pack of their SERPs.Advice – If your website has experienced a drop in traffic since this change, it may be as a result of the disappearance of certain local listings. To counteract this occurrence, you can cover the traffic losses with a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign during the short-term and focus on obtaining web search listings for those keywords in the long-term.2. Local rankings expected to depend more on site authorityThe Skinny – Local rankings will now be determined by domain authority, backlinks and other SEO ranking factors, according to Link Assistant.Advice – If your website’s local rankings have experienced a sudden drop, this could mean your website’s general SEO properties are falling short behind your competitors. To determine if this is the case and how to remedy the situation, you can perform a thorough keyword competitor research to determine how your website’s backlinks, content, and other SEO characteristics compare to those of higher ranking websites.3. Yelp and other directories experience ranking boostThe Skinny – According to Link Assistant, “Yelp and other directories have seen a considerable boost in rankings. For some queries, the entire SERP is built from well-known directories only.”Advice – Find the most prominent local directories in your industry and list your business within each. To determine which directories should be your priority, track how rankings change for your various listings. (Tip: Sign up for Rank Tracker to easily see where your website ranks in Google and Yahoo. Rank Tracker can also help you by showing if your website has moved up or down in search results, helps you discover profitable keywords, supports more than 325 different search engines, and shows you the best keywords to optimize your website.)4. Local Carousel remains a way to gain additional exposureThe Skinny – What is Local Carousel? According to Search Engine Land, Local Carousel is “a row of images across the top of the Google SERP against a dark background. For now, Carousel contains up to 20 results and appears primarily in results for travel, hospitality, and restaurant queries.” Local Carousel results have not been affected by the update, which means it can still be a useful means to gain additional exposure for some local keywords.Advice – Since Carousel results put a substantial emphasis on your listing’s image and rating, it is important that you feature a high-quality and appealing photo in your Google and business profile. Additionally, you should encourage your client’s to write a review of your business on your Google + page.Possible Sidebar:Best Practices For Local Rankings Improvement From Link Assistant1. Individual Google+ Local Page for your business
2. Proper category for your Google+ Local Page
3. Local area code on Google+ Local Page
4. NAP on your website matching NAP on your Google+ Local Page
5. NAP consistency in all your business listings
6. Large number of positive customer reviews on Google+ Local Page and on third-party sources
7. City or state included in your website’s title tags
8. Product/service keyword in business title
What are anti-ligature blinds?
Anti-ligature blinds are becoming increasingly popular in a range of different settings. The way these blinds differ from traditional blinds is that they are designed to prevent suicide by hanging.
Initially, uptake for this type of blind was largely restricted to high-risk environments such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons, where suicide is common. In mental health environments and detention centres, suicide via hanging is common and preventative measures must be implemented. A huge range of objects could be used to create a ligature point, meaning anti-ligature systems are highly important.
Over the years, anti-ligature blinds have been supplied to hospitals, schools, student accommodation and even hotels.
How do they work?
There are a range of different systems on the market, but the most reliable could well be the magnetic anti-ligature system. YewdaleKestrel® products utilise load release magnets which separate when a downward force is exerted on the product. This means that the product falls to the ground safely and prevents suicide via hanging.
The magnetic systems used in Yewdale’s products are highly reliable because magnets don’t lose their strength for hundreds of years, guaranteeing a lifetime of lifesaving functionality.
Anti-ligature blinds usually have a magnetic connection point above the blind’s barrel. The blind is easy to reconnect to the magnetic bracket after it has fallen to the floor.
If you are considering an anti-ligature blind, Yewdale is a highly recommended company. Based in the UK, Yewdale produce a wide range of anti-ligature products, commercial blinds, and healthcare products including hospital cubicle tracks and medical curtains.
Yewdale produce other anti-ligature products too including a soft, lightweight en-suite door and other accessories such as soap dispensers, toilet roll holder, shelves and artwork. You can see the full range on the website using the link below.
Complete weight loss strategy
For those who want to lose weight
Research on the causes of obesity, knowledge about weight loss, and various diets for weight loss are updated every year. However, with the update of knowledge and the release of diet pills one after another, the obesity rate continues to rise every year, and there is no sign of wanting to decline. I used to be very, very fat, and I am also a person who is prone to obesity.
So I understand the voices of fat people, I really want to lose weight, but I tried many ways to lose weight at that time without success.
I have tried the common boiled meals on the market, eating less and moving more, but it was not until I tried other diets that I managed to lose weight. After I lost weight, I began to study the essence and method of losing weight, and wrote him in this weight loss strategy article, hoping to help you.
A few key myths about losing weight
The weight loss myth of eating less and moving more
The phrase “eat less and move more” is actually true, but most people do it wrong. Many people think that they should eat less of everything, so they limit their calories to a very low level, and it feels a bit like eating an ultra-low-calorie fairy meal. Then, for the hyperactive part, the first thing that everyone thinks of is aerobic exercise such as running, cycling, etc., but in fact, this is a very short-term and easy way to regain weight, mainly because eating too little is an easy way to lose weight. The reason for the loss of muscle mass, coupled with the fact that aerobic training is not helpful for muscle mass growth, causes the metabolism to drop too much.
Maybe you can lose 5 kilograms in this way, but if your metabolism declines, you will easily regain the weight. And it’s all the fat that gets back up, not the muscle you lose that makes you look fatter than before. This is what we call the yo-yo effect, lose weight, get fat back, get fatter than before, lose weight, get back on Fat, get fatter than before.
Stop taking diet pills and meal replacements
At this time, you may start to seek other ways, eat weight loss meal replacements, taking diet pills, and so on. But believe me, most diet pills will inevitably hurt the body, especially the gastrointestinal tract. You may actually lose weight in the moment, but when your gastrointestinal tract is damaged, you will be fatter than before.
The key to understanding how to lose weight
You must have thought, why some people will not gain weight no matter what they eat, while some people will gain a kilogram the next day after eating a little bread? What is the cause of obesity? This is not a simple answer that can be solved!
You can see the link to the picture below, mainly talking about the influencing factors of obesity, which are very, very complicated.
Image source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296290/obesity-map-full-hi-res.pdf
In the middle of this picture is the heat balance
So we can know that calorie balance is very important
But this article doesn’t keep preaching that calorie balance is the key to losing weight like other sites
If you don’t know what calorie balance is, you can probably imagine that our body has calorie consumption (exercise, thermogenesis, basal metabolism), and calorie intake (eating).
When calorie consumption exceeds calorie intake, the weight will drop, so the truth of weight loss is to eat less and move more, very simple. In the short term, it is really possible to simply achieve weight loss by eating less and moving more, but simplicity is not simple, because the operation of the body is very complicated. Many people think that they can control their calorie consumption, that they can achieve a lot of calorie expenditure by running all the time, and that eating fairy meals (low-calorie meals) can reduce calorie intake and then easily lose it.
However, according to research, 90% of people who use calorie control, eat less and move more to lose weight will fail or regain the weight.
Because eating less and moving more for too long, metabolism will easily drop, hormones will easily become imbalanced, and muscle mass will easily be lost. Even if you lose 10 kilograms, you will easily regain weight.
When losing weight, the body is like a factory
For me, the key to long-term weight loss and maintaining good posture is the environment in the body, such as hormones, the level of inflammation in the body, and the gastrointestinal system.
Think of the body as a factory
-Your hormones are the managers and workers of factory operations
-Inflamed condition is how good factory machinery and hardware are
-Calorie intake is wages for factories as well as fuel
If the manager of this factory is an idiot, or if the hardware in your factory is completely rotten, then no matter how it works, it will create a pile of waste. Just as our hormones are already out of balance and the level of inflammation in the body is very high, no matter how much you eat, if you don’t solve the existing problems, it will easily accumulate into fat. It may be easier to understand with a few examples.
Hormones vs Weight Loss
This study looked at the effects of sleep and weight loss
Research source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20921542
Both groups of humans were calorie-restricted, but one group slept 5.5 hours a night and the other 8.5 hours. Both groups lost weight, but the group that slept less lost 55 percent less body fat and 65 percent more muscle mass than the group that slept more. It is equivalent to losing weight, but most of the loss is muscle mass, which reduces metabolism and makes it easy to regain weight later.
There is such a big difference mainly because poor sleep has a negative impact. The imbalance of the secretion of these things will easily increase fat and reduce muscle.
This next study looks at the effect of insulin sensitivity on body composition!
Research source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19471290
Basically, many chronic metabolic diseases, obesity, and poor muscle-building effects are closely related to low insulin sensitivity. Insulin is an anti-catabolic hormone whose main function is to store nutrients in cells. For example, after heavy training, our muscles will be more sensitive to insulin, and the nutrients we eat will be more easily absorbed into the muscles. When insulin sensitivity is low, the nutrients we eat are more likely to be stored as fat rather than absorbed into muscles.
We can simply say that the nutrients in the food eaten by people who are insulin insensitive are more likely to be stored as fat, and the relative fat mass will be much higher than the muscle mass.
To put it simply, the key to losing weight is actually to improve hormones, improve inflammation in the body, and add an appropriate calorie deficit. It is not difficult to achieve a calorie deficit. What is more difficult is how to choose the type of food that suits your body to improve hormones and achieve a long-term good body.
If you only pursue short-term weight loss and rely on a lot of calorie deficits to achieve the effect of weight loss, and then the hormones are still the same after the loss, then I can guarantee that you will gain weight very easily.
With so many ways to eat on the internet, which diet should I try?
When talking about losing weight in Taiwan 30 years ago, everyone would definitely want to use boiled meals
When it came to losing weight five years ago, everyone might think of using a low-sugar diet. When it came to losing weight in the past two or three years, everyone might directly think of the ketogenic diet.
I lost 30kg in 3 months on a low-sugar diet myself for the first time, so I used to believe that a low-sugar diet was the best way to lose weight
But after my long-term understanding of weight loss-related research, genetic cognition, and observation of students, there is no diet that is most suitable for everyone! Although it is said that high-carbohydrate foods will most stimulate insulin secretion, which in turn promotes the storage of nutrients into fat, some people are naturally good at metabolizing carbohydrates, so they can still be healthy and strong after eating high-carbohydrate throughout their lives.
For example, this study compared the responses of people with high and low insulin sensitivity to high- and low-carb diets.
Research source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.79
The study concluded:
-For people with high insulin sensitivity, eating high-carb and low-fat to lose weight is very helpful
-However, people who are insulin insensitive use a high-carb low-fat diet to lose fat, but the weight loss effect is not so good.
But on the contrary, studies have also shown that people with low insulin sensitivity have a very good weight loss effect on a low-carb high-fat diet, which shows that improving insulin is very important for weight loss, and it also shows that people with insulin insensitivity are more suitable
Lose weight with a high-carb diet.
So if you have been obese for a long time, you know that you eat carbohydrates easily, or you know that you have diabetes in your family and want to lose fat, then I would suggest that you can start by reducing carbohydrates, which is what we call low carb diet!
The Negative Impact of E-Levy on Mobile Banking.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Mobile Banking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution that allows its customers to conduct financial transactions remotely using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet.
Electronic Transaction Levy or “E-Levy” is a tax applied on transactions made on electronic or digital platforms.
ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE BANKING
Mobile banking offers numerous benefits such as ease of transaction, convenience, time-saving, managing your finances, and budgeting. Some advantages of Mobile Banking in remote areas include:
Financial Inclusion — mobile banking offers convenient and easy banking services to people in remote areas. Thus, it allows banking on the go and offers all benefits of a banking system to rural areas without the presence of a financial institution.
Accessing the bank 24/7 — Mobile banking provides ubiquitous banking services without the need to visit the bank to have access to services. This offers time to benefit and ease of transacting at a distance.
Cost-benefit — Mobile banking saves the banks the cost of building physical infrastructures (branches) and maintaining branches and staff. Also, reduced costs on the customer side since the burden of visiting the bank for services is eliminated.
Improving resilience in the face of poverty — Mobile money acts as both a savings vehicle and a means of transferring funds during times of economic or environmental shocks.
Strengthening the formal economy — For many micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), opening a mobile money account can facilitate access to formal financial services. Mobile money is well placed to address the issue of informality that blights many developing economies and hampers domestic resource mobilization efforts. Mobile Money enables ease of transacting, thus increasing business profits for MSMEs.
Facilitating economic growth — Mobile money has been shown to contribute to economic growth by increasing both productivity and per capita incomes
DISADVANTAGES OF E-LEVY ON MOBILE BANKING
The design of mobile money taxation policy appears to be the antithesis of a well-designed tax system. The disadvantages include:
Inequity — Mobile money taxes as currently structured to create inequity in the tax system. As the tax is mostly borne by the poor and users of the services are subject to additional taxation (unlike bank or cash transactions), the principles of both horizontal and vertical equity in the tax system are contravened.
Uncertainty -. Uncertainty and lack of transparency over taxation systems can have a direct impact on the operations of the tax authority, increasing enforcement costs, as well as discouraging investment.
Inconvenience — The administration of mobile money transaction taxes creates an inconvenience for MMPs who must calculate and collect the tax on the revenue authority’s behalf. There is an additional inconvenience for users of the service for whom remote digital transactions become more expensive or out of reach if they revert back to cash.
Inefficiency — Badly designed mobile money taxes have been shown to have a distortionary impact on demand for mobile money services. This in turn has had negative impacts on overall tax takes, as well as impacting the attainment of national economic and development goals.
EFFECT OF MOBILE BANKING — CASE STUDIES
The decision to impose taxes on mobile bank transactions will trigger so many problems.
Ghana — According to The Fourth Estate Ghana; Although the government projects a 24% decline in transactions when the levy is finally implemented, preliminary findings published by the bank of Ghana indicate the value of mobile money transactions had dropped by 3.2 billion in December 2021, less than 2 months after the proposal to introduce E-levy.
Uganda — An e-levy of 1% introduced in 2018 has led to an overall drop in the person-to-person transaction by more than 50%, and a 24% drop in industry transactions within the same year the tax was introduced according to a report by Global system for mobile communication (GSMA).
Congo — An e-levy of 1% was introduced in 2019. The government had to reverse the tax on cash outs only due to negative results of the levy on Mobile money users such as a decline in mobile money agents (unemployment) and high-value withdrawals by people.
Other countries include Benin (5%) and Cameroun (0.2%). In all these countries, the e-levy has imposed a negative effect on the economy and people. If we want to ensure the financial inclusion of people in rural areas, we need to ensure that we encourage mobile banking by withdrawing the e-levy tax.
Reference:
https://thefourthestategh.com/2022/03/16/e-levy-this-is-what-happened-when-other-african-countries-passed-it/
Purohit, S., & Arora, R. (2021). The benefits and challenges of mobile banking at the Bottom of the pyramid. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol, 27(1).
Charles G. Kpan, Jr. is an Information Technologist with over 5 years of experience in the provision of Information Technology Services and an emphasis on Web Development and Visual Branding. He’s the managing Director of CYGEC IT SOLUTIONS INC. and holds a bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology from Blue Crest University, Liberia.