It is still perfectly possible to shock people. Among middle-class westerners, nothing in
music or the arts can manage it any more – we’ve seen sex, seen violence, seen blasphemy. But try suggesting that it may not be such a great idea to spend £1m, or indeed £1bn more, and listen for the intake of breath.
Our governments see their main job as delivering economic prosperity and they are generally agreed on how: market economies, moderate taxes, free trade “and education, education, education”. This is not, however, education as culture, or scholarship, or as a way of becoming better citizens. Instead, education is seen increasingly and simply as a direct contributor to economic prosperity. Plug education in at one end and higher growth rates will pop out at the other and the more of each the better.
The argument is that we live in a knowledge economy where, to quote UK home secretary David Blunkett, “learning is the key to prosperity”. To stay competitive, we need to be top in numbers of graduates, to have more of our young people gaining qualifications than our competitors, and to make education more responsive to skill shortages in the economy.
This theory, however, is wrong. Wrong, because education doesn’t simply deliver economic growth in the way our politicians and businessmen believe, and wrong because this very expensive belief is distorting education.
A favourite example of the education-for-growth school is South Korea. This is a country in which, from the 1960s to the late 1990s, government made education a priority. Primary education became universal. Secondary education grew from 25 per cent to 100 per cent participation, university enrolment rates trebled, and per capita income growth averaged more than 7 per cent a year.
This all seems very convincing, but what about Egypt? Between 1970 and 1998, Egypt’s primary enrolment rates grew to more than 90 per cent, secondary schooling levels went from 32 per cent to 75 per cent, and university education doubled. It started the period as the world’s 47th poorest country; it was the 48th poorest at its end.
Like most seductive theories, this one can completely ignore inconvenient facts. On March 17 this year, the day Robert Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s president, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, spoke on the radio. The crucial difference between developing countries and the west, he argued, was simply education. “Education made the difference to economic growth; countries need to buy education because that is how we grow.” As Zimbabwe fell into economic misery, the minister apparently never noticed its 85 per cent literacy rate, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
However, even if education on its own can’t produce, or even protect prosperity, perhaps growth only occurs when governments do commit themselves strongly to
expanding it?
Again, not obviously. Hong Kong’s huge growth occurred without any such policies: secondary and university expansions came later as prosperous middle-class parents tried to help their children succeed. And what OECD country has the lowest university attendance
and graduation rate in the group? Switzerland, the richest of them all.
It is still perfectly possible to shock people. Among middle-class westerners, nothing in
music or the arts can manage it any more – we’ve seen sex, seen violence, seen blasphemy. But try suggesting that it may not be such a great idea to spend £1m, or indeed £1bn more, and listen for the intake of breath.
Our governments see their main job as delivering economic prosperity and they are generally agreed on how: market economies, moderate taxes, free trade “and education, education, education”. This is not, however, education as culture, or scholarship, or as a way of becoming better citizens. Instead, education is seen increasingly and simply as a direct contributor to economic prosperity. Plug education in at one end and higher growth rates will pop out at the other and the more of each the better.
The argument is that we live in a knowledge economy where, to quote UK home secretary David Blunkett, “learning is the key to prosperity”. To stay competitive, we need to be top in numbers of graduates, to have more of our young people gaining qualifications than our competitors, and to make education more responsive to skill shortages in the economy.
This theory, however, is wrong. Wrong, because education doesn’t simply deliver economic growth in the way our politicians and businessmen believe, and wrong because this very expensive belief is distorting education.
A favourite example of the education-for-growth school is South Korea. This is a country in which, from the 1960s to the late 1990s, government made education a priority. Primary education became universal. Secondary education grew from 25 per cent to 100 per cent participation, university enrolment rates trebled, and per capita income growth averaged more than 7 per cent a year.
This all seems very convincing, but what about Egypt? Between 1970 and 1998, Egypt’s primary enrolment rates grew to more than 90 per cent, secondary schooling levels went from 32 per cent to 75 per cent, and university education doubled. It started the period as the world’s 47th poorest country; it was the 48th poorest at its end.
Like most seductive theories, this one can completely ignore inconvenient facts. On March 17 this year, the day Robert Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s president, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, spoke on the radio. The crucial difference between developing countries and the west, he argued, was simply education. “Education made the difference to economic growth; countries need to buy education because that is how we grow.” As Zimbabwe fell into economic misery, the minister apparently never noticed its 85 per cent literacy rate, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
However, even if education on its own can’t produce, or even protect prosperity, perhaps growth only occurs when governments do commit themselves strongly to
expanding it?
Again, not obviously. Hong Kong’s huge growth occurred without any such policies: secondary and university expansions came later as prosperous middle-class parents tried to help their children succeed. And what OECD country has the lowest university attendance
and graduation rate in the group? Switzerland, the richest of them all.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..