Harry, Thank you for your interesting biographical posting (which I'll now delete for brevity).
As you have possibly inferred from my ramblings about education, I've been thinking recently that the whole matter of education for future jobs is a great deal more problematical than merely casting state education (at least in the highly centralised form as in England) as the devil. There seem to be two inescapable facts about modern developed society: (a) the proportion of high-grade jobs is growing and becoming increasingly necessary; (b) the evidence from America, England and Germany (representing three of the half-dozen most advanced economies which I know more about than the others) is that developed countries don't seem to be able to find, or educate, sufficient numbers of high-grade people from their own populations and have to recruit from abroad. A corollary of this is that a highly stratified meritocracy seems to be developing already -- a prospect that various eminent commentators such as Michael Young and Richard Herrnstein have been warning us about for some 30 or 40 years past. An hourglass (or brandy-glass) structure of job-skills seems to be developing apace. Despite all the egalitarian opportunities created by educationalists in England since WWII, working-class children are less likely to get into our 'Top Ten' universities today than ever before. The conventional wisdom that has dominated most of the "chattering classes" of our lifetime is being overturned by reality. Can anyone doubt that stratification -- of ability, incomes and lifestyles -- will continue so long as high-tech economic development continues? It seems to me that western civilisations face a clear choice in the coming years, even though they may not be aware of it at present. It's either: (a) Stop further development, or (b) Be prepared for further stratification and disparities both within and between countries. It's not as though it hasn't happened before. Both the Chinese and Islamic civilisations, far larger and more prosperous than European civilisation in the 15th century, both consciously stopped further progress, the former by Imperial edict, the latter from the teachings of the mullahs and imams, both trying to reach back to "purer" forms of their traditions. This, to my mind, is the great drama that is being played out just under the surface. In western countries one symptom of this is the growing tension between the intelligentsia and Christian fundamentalists (and allied secular ideologists). But there are other symptoms, too -- for example, the increasing disarray of our education systems, the increasing lack of credibility in politicians and nation-state government, an increasing sense of cultural and regional identities, etc. Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
