• Some people think that men and women are equal and so women should do any job they want. Others feel that men and women are not equal, therefore, there are certain jobs which are not suitable for women. There are people who say that men should be paid more than women. What is your opinion?

Mentally and cognitively speaking, men and women are equal. They might think differently in certain ways, but this only encourages both men and women having the same sorts of jobs. In many jobs having conflicting viewpoints and ideas to consider can be great for the final result. However, many people still hold the belief that women and their ideas are inferior to men, so they ignore their input unless a male repeats it. This belief is based completely on outdated stereotypes and should not exist.

However, it is undeniable that physically speaking, men are much stronger on average. This generally makes men better suited to blue collar jobs that require intense physical labour, such as construction and working on an oil rig. Because of how risky these sorts of jobs are, they also tend to pay quite high. While it is true that some women are paid lower than men without reason, research done on the wage gap is generally skewed. This is because when analysing the wage gap, researchers tend to compare the average wage of women to the average wage of men, which does not account for a wide range of factors.

In an ideal equal world, men and women would be paid the same. But if everyone was paid fairly, then because of these high-risk high-reward blue collar jobs, men would have a slightly higher salary on average.

• There seems to be an increasing trend towards assessing students through exams rather than continual assessment. But there are people who are for moving away from traditional exams. What are the advantages and disadvantages of exams as a form of assessment?

Exams can encourage students to refresh their knowledge and go over it until they can remember it well enough to write a test on it. In theory, exams should work extremely well for testing and solidifying a student’s knowledge. However, in practice, this is far from the truth. Written exams can work well for STEM subjects, as in these subjects, you learn theoretical material from books, and then applicable skills such as researching and writing papers from experience.

For humanitarian subjects such as history and literature, this does not work. Due to the structure of written exams, any mistakes are punished harshly, and mistakes are hard to define in these subjects. Many stories in history are the culmination of research and vague retellings, which can’t paint the whole picture. In literature, many works have several unique interpretations which are all plausible. Oral exams might offer much more freedom in the form of answers, but all forms of examination have one problem; They can erase a student’s passion for the subject. Learning hundreds of pages of material well enough to retell it all orally can demoralize students and push them away from subjects.

• A great number of professionals, such as doctors, teachers are leaving their own poorer countries to work in developed countries. What problems does this cause? What solutions can you suggest to deal with this situation?

The main reason a lot of professionals leave for first world countries is money. In first world countries, professionals tend to be paid better to account for the higher cost of living. They also tend to have more disposable income as a result. Meanwhile, in many poorer countries, professionals can sometimes be lower to lower-middle class and have worse living situations. When professionals leave, this is very bad for the country, as the quality of services/research will drop.

The main reason for low pay is a lack of funding. Institutes dealing with education, research, healthcare, and other sectors that require professonals are often underfunded in third world countries. These should normally be at least partially funded by the government, but oftentimes this does not happen. Not due to a lack of funding, but rather corruption in the government. Corruption is present in all nations, but countries that do not have as much money are affected more. The only real way to fix this would be to prosecute and punish these politicians more severely.

Even if these institutes get proper funding, many professionals may still leave to richer countries. It’s simply not possible to provide all professionals with the same wages they would get in first world countries. These professionals are gonna want that increase in salary, especially if they want to send that money back to support their family.