Five-Year Plan

“ All regions and all government departments have strengthened their consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment. The new development philosophy has been thoroughly acted upon, the 12th Five-Year Plan has been fully completed, and implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan has seen smooth progress. In economic and social development we have made historic achievements and seen historic change. ”

“ CERTAIN VITAL REQUIREMENTS OF SEVEN YEAR PLAN The Seven Year Plan, with which the immediate fortunes of the American Bahá’í community are so closely interwoven, demands, at this critical stage in its development, serious and prayerful consideration of certain vital requirements, without which such a stupendous task can never be brought to a successful completion. The evolution of the Plan imposes a three-fold obligation, which all individual believers, all local Assemblies, as well as the National Assembly itself, must respectively recognize and conscientiously fulfil. ”

“ The success crowning the initial stage in its unfoldment has exceeded our fondest expectations. The most vital and spectacular objective of the Ten Year Plan has been virtually attained ere the termination of the first year of this decade-long stupendous enterprise. The second phase, now auspiciously ushered in, must witness, in all the territories of the planet, whether newly opened or not, an upsurge of activity which, in its range and intensity, will excel the exploits which have so greatly enlarged the limits, and noised abroad the fame, of the Cause of God. ”

“ The annals of the British Bahá’í community, small in numbers, yet unconquerable in spirit, tenacious in belief, undeviating in purpose, alert and vigilant in the discharge of its manifold duties and responsibilities, have in consequence of its epoch-making achievements been vastly enriched. The process set in motion and greatly accelerated through the successive formulation of the Six Year Plan, the Two Year Plan and the Ten Year Plan, must continue unabated and unimpaired. Nay with every passing day it must gather momentum. ”

“ No reader of these words, so vibrant with promises that not even the triumphant consummation of the Seven Year Plan can fulfill, can expect a community that has been raised so high, and endowed so richly, to remain content with any laurels it may win in the immediate future. ”

“ Last summer's balanced budget agreement, with the largest new investment in education since 1965, will take us a long way toward our sweeping but straightforward agenda. By the year 2000, we want to ensure that every 8-year-old can read, every 12-year-old can log on to the Internet, every 18-year-old can go on to college, and every adult can keep on learning. ”

“ Your workshops were filled with children and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the course of education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. ”

“ The plan I'm sending to Congress will expand their ability to reach more families. My balanced budget also increases Head Start funding to reach one million 3- and 4-year-olds, and expands title I to aid teaching and learning in classrooms and the Even Start Family Literacy Program. ”

“ Our Program — I am, therefore, submitting to this Congress, as part of this message, an integrated five-year socio-economic development program which we propose to adopt and implement during our tenure and which both the Government and the private sector may use as a guide. This program focuses attention on the most pressing eco­nomic problems of the country and incorporates within its framework our economic philosophy translated into con­crete, appropriate policy measures and institutional reforms. ”

“ In addition to this, we propose—at least as a provisional measure, and until such time as a satisfactory balance shall have been restored—to extend the obligation to work to all persons between the ages of fourteen and seventy-five, instead of, as hitherto, to those between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-five. ”

“ Since this generation is in the meantime not in existence, but must first be raised up by education, and since, even if everything else should go on excellently and beyond our expectation, we shall nevertheless require a considerable interval before we pass over to that new age, the more urgent question arises: How are we to manage to get through this interval? Since we can do nothing better, how are we to maintain ourselves at any rate as the soil on which the improvement may take place, and as the point of departure at which this improvement may begin its work? ”

“ But I firmly believe that the initiation of a Plan to remedy the very deficiencies from which the infant Administrative Order is now suffering, and a firm resolve to carry out its provisions, as well as a sustained effort to make the necessary sacrifices for its consummation, will set in motion forces of such magnitude, and draw upon both communities blessings of such potency, as shall excite the wonder of the believers themselves, and cause their Faith to enter an era of unprecedented expansion and marvellous and fruitful development. ”

“ In the economy, let us move forward from stabilization and restructuring to measures and policies designed for growth. One step above all is essential: the formulation of a national mid-term development plan for the six years from 1993 to 1998. In the framing of this plan, I invite the participation of congress; and this can be facilitated by the speedy creation of a Legislative-Executive Development Council, which i recommend to you. ”

“ After two years, in our company, the policy is incontestable."
"Two years? That won't do for me. Can't you make it one year?"
"I'll tell you what I will do," said the agent, lowering his voice, "I can ante-date the policy, so that the two years will end just when you like, say a year from now." ”

“ If the resources of the Government will permit the work to progress as it has during the present year, through communication may be opened within two years, when this portion of the country, which contains so many undeveloped elements of wealth, and a population as large in proportion to its extent as any other part of the Republic, will commence a development, which, with peace, will exceed the brightest anticipations of the friends of the enterprise. ”

“ Education, too, when attempted, should be gradually introduced as a means of personal advancement, the requirements of the public service being raised year by year, as the younger generation has had opportunities of better qualifying themselves. ”

“ Every one of these changes, every step we take, has to be measured in a job that a mother or father finds or an opportunity a child gains or in better prospects for a business owner or in safer streets and a more secure future. Every step forward, if it helps to invigorate our economy, our community, our families, is a step worth taking. ”

“ Even as the plan balances the budget, it also maintains the balance of our values. To prepare our people for the 21st century, I have challenged our Nation to build the world's best educational system. ”

“ As we look to that future, we must not forget our rich history. We are fast approaching the dawn of a new millennium, and my Administration is marking this historic milestone with family-oriented programs that honor the past and imagine the future. ”

“ Under this plan the children in our public schools could study with understanding, not only the form of our government, but also the machinery for making it work successfully, because the plan is not only clear, concise, comprehensive and constructive, but it is so simple that any one can understand it and our youth could be fully equipped for the duties of citizenship when they become of age. ”

“ If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead, certainly five, possibly even ten years. They must reflect the knowledge that before the end of five years we will have a population of over 190 million. ”

“ Those who are below 21 years of age will be educated at the expense of the State, whilst those who are above 65 will be maintained in a similar manner. All private enterprise and productivity have, of course, ceased. ”

“ A comprehensive development plan is therefore badly needed. The objec­tives of education, in the context of planning requirements, need to be translated in more operational terms. At present the objectives define a scope of responsibility that is not feasible for the educational system alone to achieve. ”

“ If we save even ten minutes a day in the setting-up exercises, we save, with a hundred thousand men, 16,666 hours daily toward perfecting their other knowledge. If we can make an able officer or a competent executive last a year longer or even six months under the increased strain, it gives us a year or six months more in which his understudy can gather the necessary experience to take up his task. ”

“ All young people will be allowed to continue at public schools and universities and will not be required to take any part in the work or the nation until they are twenty-one years of age. At the age of forty-five, everyone will be allowed to retire from the State service on full pay... ”

“ I am one of those people who believe that the minimum age at which whole-time general education should cease is sixteen, and that for at least two years more education in some form, a technical or industrial training at least, associated perhaps with productive employment, and a continuation of the general intellectual work should be given. ”

“ Your family may increase, and your wants will increase in proportion; out of what fund can you satisfy their demands? Some provision must be made for the future, and made quickly, while youth and health enable you to combat successfully with the ills of life. ”

“ As the social life of nations has become broader and more complex, a longer period of guidance has become necessary to prepare the future citizens of the State for intelligent participation in it. As a result, child life everywhere has and is still experiencing a new lengthening of the period of dependence and training, and all national interests now indicate that the period devoted to preparing for life's work will need to be further lengthened. ”

“ This administration can offer hope and start to remedy our
fiscal prognosis, brightening the horizon for our children
and their children. It is critical that they have all the
opportunities the Greatest Generation made possible for you
and me. Our grandchildren should set ambitious goals, and
believe that hard work will be met by opportunity. ”

“ And I am confident that we will – in the weeks, months, and years ahead – build on what we have already achieved and lay this foundation which will not only bring about prosperity for this generation, but for generations to come. ”

“ But I may perhaps point out here how integral to a sane man-making scheme is the raising of the minimum age at which children may work. A day will come, I hope, when even the partial employment of children under fifteen will be prohibited, and when, as Mr. Sidney Webb suggested some time ago, employment up to the age of twenty-one will be limited to so few hours a week—his suggestion was thirty—as to leave a broad margin for the more or less compulsory college work and physical training that are becoming essential to the modern citizen. ”

“ The utmost support, if the Plan is to yield its promise, should be continually and increasingly extended to every pioneer, both moral and financial, who will arise to contribute his or her share to its success. ”

“ The first is that under existing conditions, saving and investment constitute the only way to rest and security in old age, to leisure, study and intellectual independence, to the safe upbringing of a family and the happiness of one’s weaker dependents. ”

“ This keeps young men from entering, and finally results in failure or in some form of "reorganization" that drives out the older members. The assessment plan carries with it the seeds of its own decay. ”

“ It is a time for action-strong, forward-looking action on the pending education bills to help bring the light of learning to every home and hamlet in America-strong, forward-looking action on youth employment opportunities ”

“ To these the children of more tender age can be entrusted, and by diligence and wise economy, which in any case are necessary, these institutions will be mainly self-supporting. At first, so long as there are none of these older pupils, the institutions will need rather large contributions. It is to be hoped that people will be more disposed to make contributions, when they see the prospect of an end to them. ”

“ For all these workers and students, their lives and livelihoods depend upon the power of investment. Overall, this plan will create more than 8 million public and private sector jobs over the next 4 years. ”

“ Prepare Vocationally for Old-age Needs.—The third demand, that every man and woman in early youth or in later youth shall be trained in some light and agreeable occupation that can be pursued, perhaps to economic return, in the days when strenuous labor can no longer be carried on, is one that has as yet received little attention but which should be a matter of deep concern. ”

“ Check Extreme Requirements for Youth in Labor.—There are many requirements for youth in offered opportunities of training and of work which are distinctly detrimental to respect for, and possibility of continued service of, the old. Take, for example, the age limit in many departments of business and manual labor. During the war we had in the countries most denuded of young men a new sort of trial of the middle-aged in positions where it had been thought youth was required. ”

“ Our first year in office has been devoted to making hard and painful decisions, to arresting deterioration, to restoring hope, faith and confi­dence, to economic consolidation, and to laying the foundations for realistic growth. ”