On Sun, 27 May 2012, Keith Hudson wrote:
> Every country acquires the education its economy calls for, no more > and no less. It isn't the overall standard of education that raises > one country's standard of living above another. If that were the case > then China, with its hundreds of thousands of engineering, scientific, > maths and economics graduates every year, would already be leading the > world in every possible advanced technology and business sector. > Instead, it remains in the mass-produced consumer goods department and > still has to plagiarize, or to import, its high technology from > (mainly) America and Germany. > > Innovation is a different matter entirely and depends on a much more > subtle blend of features already present in a culture. By my > calculations, about 70% of all the Nobel prizes in the sciences have > been won by researchers in only three countries -- America, Germany > and the UK (mostly, but not necessarily, by those who were born > there). Yet, in America and the UK (and maybe Germany, too -- I don't > know the figures), about half the adult population (and a quarter of > newly graduated state school teachers) can't do maths beyond simple > addition and subtraction. Calculations involving percentages or square > roots or more than single digit fractions are beyond them. I don't have a reference in front of me, but I think it should be possible to find, but I recall a discussion from some decades ago (1970s or 80s ?) about the quality of US education, where the Nobel Prize count as proof of the quality of the education system was refuted by figures showing that most - I think almost all - of the US Nobel winners had had their pre-graduate-level education in europe. I don't know how it stands now, but I would guess the balance is still toward foreign educated winners. -Pete > > In the UK, about half of our tenured research scientists were born > into the 20-class (those educated in private schools), the remainder > from the 80-class (those educated in state schools). Well . . . all > one can say is that, compared with the rest of the world, we're still > not doing too badly on the innovation front, whether of new ideas or > products. We could do better and, of course, in this increasingly > specialized scientific age, we'll need to do better in order to hang > onto some income from trading with others. Our politicians (as in the > US) are constantly calling for higher educational standards and, > indeed, in recent years, they are even allowing some experiments -- > Academies and Free Schools -- outside the state system run from the > Department of Education in London. It will only need a modest > proportion of these experiments to do as well as the existing private > schools (only 7% of the whole) before we'll be swimming in bright > creative minds. > > A preponderance of Academies and Free Schools (particularly the > latter) -- both in existence and being proposed -- lie in and around > London because that's where most of the parents who are deeply > concerned about poor quality state education live and work. They've > been attracted there in the last 50 years or so because they were > already among the more talented of the 80-class of the economically > declining provinces who migrated to London find better jobs. For > vote-catching reasons the government will hope to scatter a reasonable > number of Academies around the country in the coming years, but in the > case of Free Schools, which are entirely dependent on the initiative > and organizing abilities of concerned parents, a large majority are, > and will be, in and around London. > > My money is on the Free Schools rather than Academies but the evidence > as to whether they will succeed or not is beyond my allotted span. > My point in writing today's piece is simply to record for my own > benefit that I've turned my previous life-long ideas about education > on their head. Considering that education is a byproduct of an > existing inherited culture rather than its primary cause, now seems to > me to be a better way of looking at things than that which still > mostly occupies the minds of governments today. It's a change from > Keynesian precepts (shovel more and more money into state education of > declining quality) to Say's Law (the demand of concerned parents in a > more demanding age will create its own supply of high quality > schools). > > Keith > > > Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
