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Keith
Let's get out timing right.
I am arguing that 20 years ago auto workers were by and large unskilled
and that over the past 20 years their numbers have reduced significantly, but
that those who are left are vastly more skilled and better
paid.
And I know that first hand, I used to work on the Ford
production line as a foreman.
Charles Brass Chairman futures foundation phone:1300
727328 (International 61 3 9459 0244) fax: 61 3 9459 0344 PO Box
122 Fairfield 3078 www.futuresfoundation.org.au
the mission of the futures foundation is:
"...to engage all Australians
in creating a better future..."
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The future of
education
Sorry, Charles, but when you worked at Ford in
Australia, what job did you have? Did you ever go onto the shop floor? How
many workers did you know? How many operations did you have intimate knowledge
of?
Perhaps Ford in Australia is an entirely different place from
Massey-Ferguson in Coventry that I used to know 30 years ago with five large
production shops and one assembly shop which I used to visit every day for
some years*. Except for workers in the toolroom, there were few jobs that
could not be learned in 30 minutes, some in 5. I suggest that you have
invalidated your own case by saying that Ford of Australia could take people
off the boat. Modern factory workers are far, far, far less skilled than they
have ever been. They don't compare, for example, with my blacksmith
grandfather who was so fast and skilful that he had two strikers.
(*At
the time I worked there it was the factory with the largest production of farm
tractors in the world and exported 80% of them. On my shift, I was in charge
of quality control with responsibilities for the results of most operations
from the hardening of the gear wheels to the final lick of paint in the
[automated] paint-shop.)
"Hugely more skilled"? No, I'm afraid not. The
only really skilled people I knew were the metallurgists and chemists I
supervised. There was also one old guy who used to ramble around the
gear-cutting machines every now and again and I never did discover what his
job was until one day a Prof of engineering at Birmingham university came into
the shop and asked for him. It turned out that this old man had a little room
of his own, slept most of the time except when brewing a pot of tea, and was a
recognised expert in gear-cutting and could do things that the Prof couldn't.
The old man used to set the gear-cutting machines for the operators. All the
latter had to do was to ensure that the cooling solvent hose-pipe was playing
over the cutting head.
Keith Hudson
At 19:40 20/06/2005
+1000, you wrote:
in 774
Keith Hudson said (in part)
"The reason why such a
large part of the education system in the larger countries has become dumbed
down is that the majority of the skills required in the job market have also
become dumbed down as a result of industrialisation, mass production,
automation, computerisation and rationalisation generally by the larger
manufacturers (and many services) which increasingly supply the bulk of the
staple consumer goods of today's society.
For example, the
manufacture of a car, which used to take 70 or 80 person-hours within living
memory now takes only 25. "
Sorry, Keith, but you have got the facts right, but the
interpretation wrong. I used to work at Ford Australia in the 1980's
when Ford basically took anyone straight off a boat into the plant.
Sure, there are now many fewer workers, but they are hugely more skilled,
and better paid, than their forebears.
Charles Brass
Chairman
futures
foundation
phone:1300 727328
(International 61 3 9459 0244)
fax: 61
3 9459 0344
PO Box 122
Fairfield 3078
www.futuresfoundation.org.au
the
mission of the futures foundation is:
"...to engage all Australians in
creating a better future..."
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: [email protected]
- Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 6:17 PM
- Subject: [Futurework] The future of education
- 747. The future of education
- In the last few weeks I've been changing my mind about the need for
education vouchers. Or, rather, I've been changing my interpretation of
what has been the reason why the standard of education in state schools in
the larger developed countries has become increasingly dumbed down.
- I still think that education vouchers will be inevitable in several
countries such as England and America, and the short item below from
today's Independent on Sunday concerning the growing amount of extra
private tuition being paid for by parents of state schoolchildren is
further grist for the mill.
- I am now beginning to think that the basic reason is that a country's
total education system -- state plus private -- really reflects the
structure of the job market. The reason why such a large part of the
education system in the larger countries has become dumbed down is that
the majority of the skills required in the job market have also become
dumbed down as a result of industrialisation, mass production, automation,
computerisation and rationalisation generally by the larger manufacturers
(and many services) which increasingly supply the bulk of the staple
consumer goods of today's society.
- For example, the manufacture of a car, which used to take 70 or 80
person-hours within living memory now takes only 25. Even within the last
five years, the largest American manufacturer of domestic washing machines
reports that the number of person-hours required to assemble each one has
declined from about 3.5 hours to 1.5 hours.
- Forty years ago, few (highly-paid) car factory workers in my home town
of Coventry -- and I knew many because I supervised them -- thought that
secondary education or any form of examination qualifications were
unimportant, particularly for their sons. Why? Because, after a quiet word
with someone in the personnel office, they could always get a job for
their sons in their own workplace. Even if it meant their sons being "on
the brush" at a lowish wage to start with, their sons could almost
automatically advance to higher-paid machining jobs within a few years --
even into the most sacrosanct (and highly-paid) of all of them, the
toolroom -- according to the informal "apprenticeship" system then
operating.
- All the time, however, automation was being incorporated step by step
and this, together with the post-war baby-boom effect of the late 1970s,
produced a dramatic increase in youth unemployment. Since then the
prospects for the young have only been partly alleviated by an increasing
number of (generally poorly-paid) service-type jobs which have blossomed
in developed countries because of the prosperity given to us by the
ever-cheaper cost of energy from decade to decade.
- At the same time as the skills of most jobs have become dumbed down
since, say, about the 1870s, a growing minority of very high-skill jobs --
in administration, financial services and in science and technology -- has
been necessary. Whereas, in the 1870s, the number of these jobs would
probably have amounted to no more than 5% of the population, the
proportion today probably amounts to about 20-25% of the total. And the
necessity for these sorts of jobs is growing. In England, this number of
highly-paid, highly-skilled (or at least highly-protected) jobs is almost
completely supplied by the 7% of those who were educated in private
schools and who were, until fairly recently, catered for by a small group
of highly favoured universities which formed, and then supplied, the
networks of administrators, media and financial people, politicians and
scientists who actually run the country even though they have to look over
their shoulders occasionally at the whims of the public when it votes in
general elections.
- But even this "establishment" of 25% of the population is insufficient
and the big divide in general quality between the state education system
and the private fee-paying schools has somehow got to be bridged unless
countries such as China and India -- where education is much more highly
valued (and often paid for) by even poor parents -- will not overtake us
and consign us to the trash bin. This is why there is now so much
controversy over the standard of state education in the larger developed
countries and why, in England and America, quite a number of alternatives
are now being (hesitatingly) explored by officialdom -- charter schools,
home schooling, special schools and (in England anyway) a new breed of
low-fee private schools, less pretentious than our traditional ones for
the rich and better-off middle class.
- It is very interesting -- and probably significant -- that state
education has only appreciably declined in quality during the last century
in the larger countries. The standard of state education in the Nordic
countries, Switzerland and Singapore is much higher. This is probably due
to the fact that small developed countries -- if they are to survive and
prosper in the modern world -- need a proportionately larger basic
overhead of high-skill jobs than larger countries even though their
"ordinary" jobs are also dumbing down. Accordingly, their social and
income divisions are nowhere near as evident as in countries such as
England and America.
- Where does this interpretation leave us? It leaves me in the position
of no longer wanting to be repeatedly calling for more private education
and free choice. It will happen anyway by parental pressure at the margin
-- such as shown in the item below. Unfortunately, this process will take
at least a couple of generations and a large number of children with
potentially bright minds at birth will continue to be blunted by both poor
state education and lack of motivation by parents who have themselves
received only a rudimentary state education.
- In the meantime, the growing social, educational and income divide
that is now characteristic of the larger developed countries will continue
to grow -- also, probably, for at least a couple of generations. And
there'll be some developed societies in which, for a variety of other
reasons, the building of the bridge between the standards of state schools
and private schools will not occur. I wouldn't dream to speculate on which
countries will succeed and which won't.
- Keith Hudson
- <<<<
- ONE IN FOUR PARENTS PAY FOR EXTRA TUITION
- Nicholas Pyke
- A quarter of parents are forced to raid their household budgets to pay
for extra tuition in basic GCSE subjects, despite fees of up to £25 an
hour.
- Research from Mori, published today, shows that 24 per cent of pupils
in England and Wales are taking after-school classes by the time they
reach the age of 16, proof, according to critics, that the secondary
school system is failing.
- The figures do not even include piano lessons or other leisure
activities. Instead, parents are paying out for help in the essentials
English, maths and science.
- The research, covering more than 2,700 pupils, was sponsored by Sir
Peter Lampl, the millionaire businessman and government adviser.
- It concludes that families from minority ethnic groups are more likely
to have paid for extra lessons than their white counterparts, and that the
most popular subject is maths.
- How much advantage is gained, however, is open to question. Boys seem
to benefit the most, according to an earlier survey by London University's
Institute of Education.
- This showed that, on average, the grades of those boys receiving extra
help went up by 0.4 per cent, enough to turn a GCSE D-grade into a C. But
girls who had received out-of-school lessons showed little if any
improvement.
- The use of private tuition to bolster schooling has become a
burgeoning industry. Famously, it was revealed nearly three years ago that
Tony Blair and his wife Cherie had hired private tutors from the elite
Westminster School to coach their two older sons, even though they attend
the London Oratory School, a high-performing state school.
- Sir Peter, chairman of the Sutton Trust educational charity, said "The
proportion of secondary school children receiving private tuition,
particularly in their last year of compulsory schooling, is incredibly
high. It shows that many parents who can't afford independent school fees
are nevertheless prepared to pay something towards their children's
education."
- Sir Peter is pressing ministers to pay for bright children to attend
private sector schools with strong academic traditions. His charity pays
for an "Open Access" scheme at the private Belvedere Girls' School in
Liverpool.
- David Cameron, the Conservative education spokesman tipped by many as
a contender to lead the party, said "There's a lack of rigour in many
parts of the education system and parents find themselves increasingly
frustrated. These figures reflect that.
- "Schools are not doing enough to stretch bright children or those in
danger of falling behind."
- A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said there is
a new focus on providing lessons "tailored" to the needs of individual
pupils.
- "The Government has a clear commitment to stretching the most able and
giving additional help to those at risk of falling behind," he said.
- Independent on Sunday -- 19 June 2005
- >>>>
- Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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_______________________________________________
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mailing list
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http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
Keith
Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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