[Futurework] Microskills and macroskills

[Keith Hudson]

The fact that some of the developing countries, such as China and India, are now hollowing out the middle-skill jobs of the developed countries -- that is, all those jobs which are to do with mass produced goods and services -- means that the latter countries must now raise their educational game in order to hang onto any semblance of a sustainable job structure suitable for the whole of their populations.

Otherwise, developed countries, even those as large as America or Germany will, be reduced to a situation rather like Switzerland's -- that is, with a relatively small number of highly specialised industries which are profitable in the world marketplace. There's nothing wrong with a Swiss-type economy -- indeed, Switzerland itself has a very high standard of living -- but only if the specialised part of the economy is a relatively significant proportion of the whole. In the case of very large countries with centralised governments which have a predominant effect on the educational and skill standards of the country as a whole it is doubtful whether they will be able to be sustained by a sufficient number of specialised industries. The evidence is strongly to the effect that in such large countries educational standards -- particularly in the science subjects -- have been steadily declining for the past few decades. It is difficult to know where sufficient numbers of specialised industries are to come from.

Raising the educational standards of the developed countries is now the most important problem that they have. It is formidably difficult but, at the risk of over-simplifying, it can be divided into two problems which can be termed "microskills" and "macroskills" -- each represented by the two articles I follow with below. In the first one, Wendy Piatt, of the left-leaning Institute for Public Research, is saying that the environment of very earliest years of a child can blight its mental development and prospects for the rest of its life. In the second one, Miranda Green is reporting on a recent Unesco study which claims that boys in particular in the developed countries are becoming alienated from school during their puberty years (the "laddish culture")and that their academic results are sinking towards those of countries such as Bangladesh and Colombia. I would generalise a little further by suggesting that the problem with boys is but an early and extreme version of the failure of secondary schools generally to adequately prepare young people for adult life and which will continue to grow in the coming years. Boys have a stronger genetic need than girls to establish their status and this is why the problem is so much more pronounced in their case.

Both of these problems can be directly related to recent neurological research which suggests that the "thinking" part of our brain -- our cerebral cortex -- develops in two distinctly different ways in the rear cortex and in the frontal lobes in the life of the child and the teenager. The first has to do with what I am calling "microskills" -- the basic skills that a child acquires -- and the second has to do with "macroskills" -- the way in which the child, skilled to a greater or lesser extent, then integrates into the adult world during puberty, adolescence and young adulthood.

The rear cortex -- roughly that portion of the outer crinkled brain which lies behind a line running for ear-tip to ear-tip -- has to do with the processing of perceptions. Visual, auditory and boy sense impressions are received there and increasingly honed into sharp perceptual and practical abilities during the pre-puberty life of the child. The way this is done is not only by the strengthening of networks between specialised regions of the rear cortex, but also by the dying-off of huge numbers of excess brain cells that the child was born with. If the environment of the young child is deficient in stimuli then much larger numbers of brain cells during very early childhood and pre-puberty years. Thus, just to choose one small example, a Japanese child never hears the "l" sound during childhood. The brain cells in the auditory part of the rear cortex that would have specialised in the hearing (and subsequent production) of the "l" sound die. The post-puberty Japanese individual is subsequently unable ever to pronounce the "l" sound, or indeed hear it with the precision of the western European child who has heard it from its earliest days.

So, what Wendy Piatt is saying is fully compatible with this developmental fact of the rear cortex. She is saying that recent research (at the more psychological, sociological end of science) is showing that the early childhood environment, and the support of parents, is overwhelmingly more important than class or income. It is much more to do with the cultural, psychological environment which bathes the child from its earliest years.

The frontal cortex develops in a different way from the rear cortex. It actually starts growing brain cells, particularly from puberty onwards and this continues up until about the age 25 -- that is, when the individual can be considered fully adult, able to take his or her place as equals (even if not yet very experienced) in the rest of society. The frontal cortex is not so much concerned with skills as such, but with the ways in which the skills of the rear cortex are actually implemented. The frontal cortex is much more concerned with future planning, with dealing with novel events, with over-riding dangerous emotions such as anger,  Thus the growth of brain cells and their specific development are concerned with opportunities, particularly social and status opportunities. If the opportunities are not available during the time they are capable of shaping the development of the frontal cortex -- say, from the ages of 12 (puberty) until 25 -- then an individual is insufficiently civilised to a greater or lesser extent. Stepping outside the educational field for a moment, we can instance the fact that the vast majority of crime occurs precisely in that age group. Even someone who is a psychopath at that stage will develop what we call a "conscience" and some form of empathy with others when he (as it usually is) is in his 40s or 50s.

So developed countries have two main problems which the following articles illustrate. Firstly, how do they compensate for the arid cultural and educational environment of so many very young children and thus the limited number of basic skills that they learn during pre-puberty years? Some form of nursery experience must be made available to many more children and for many more hours in the day that is usual now. (In England, infant schoolteachers are now saying that an increasing number of children do not even know how to speak conversationally. Their words are pronounced in a "fluffy" way, they cannot speak in ordinary phrases and sentences. Why? Because their parents hardly ever speak of them and they are plonked in front of TV for most of the time while they are at home.)

Secondly, how does society give opportunities for valid adult activities to young people as soon as they leave puberty behind them. In middle-class families, the post-puberty teenagers will gain the confidence from their parents' example that, sooner or later, they will have opportunities to enter adult life. But many more post-puberty teenagers are totally bemused at what opportunities may be available as they work through yet more tedious years at school, college or university. Raising the school-leaving age, as developed countries have done repeatedly in the last few decades, has only made the problem worse. Those children who don't want school after puberty should be allowed to leave and employment regulations should be eased. Yes, some of these children will be exploited no doubt (as they can be anyway, at any age), but many more will be able to learn the skills of adulthood out of school than in school.

All this amounts to a great transformation of our education system. Thankfully, some governments are realising that great changes must be made and many experiments with different sorts of schools are now being made in the state system and also in allowing more private initiatives. But there's a huge way to go to reverse the theories of education which have held sway in the last fifty years and which, quite in contrast to their intent, have been a method by which the middle-class has been able to strengthen its hold on the establishment at the expense of the rest.

It is interesting -- and significant -- that in the two countries which are seen as the biggest dangers to employment in America and the rest of the developed world, China and India, their education systems are far less regulated than than ours. They have very large inputs of private education indeed, even for very poor parents. This is very similar to the situation in England in the 1870s when the parents of most children in the large industrial cities paid for the education of their children, until the state took most of it over by offering cheaper, and then, free schools. The responsibilty and motivation by parents started falling away, and the notion grew that post-puberty children were to be kept away from learning about the real responibilities of adulthood for as long as possible. In effect, adults were beginning to protect their jobs from their own children! And, with the growth of credentialism, this has been continuing ever since.

Keith Hudson

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THE CLASS DIVIDE IS NOT ALL ABOUT MONEY

Wendy Piatt

Clarke's recent pledge of extra funds for schools may receive a warm welcome from parents, teachers and LEAs. But is spending on education the most effective way of raising educational attainment? The Government is certainly marrying investment with reform of the education system but are we still tackling the symptom not the cause of underachievement, particularly of the disadvantaged?

This question is burdened with ideological baggage from both ends of the political spectrum -- the defeatism of left-leaning sociologists about overcoming the impact of social background or traditional Tory scepticism of the power of money to improve public services. But it has been given renewed relevance and a fresh perspective by recent research.

Leon Feinstein became something of a celebrity in the education world for his stark graph which demonstrated how the child from the top social group with a low IQ at 22 months has overtaken the poor but clever child by the age of six in terms of cognitive development. The gulf widens even further after the age of 11. By school leaving age, the pupil from the lower social strata is at least three times more likely to drop out than her more privileged peer. It comes as no surprise that lower social groups are so under-represented in higher education.

The link between class and educational performance is well-attested. But identifying the key ingredient which boosts the life-chances of the middle-class offspring is more complicated. It may simply be wealth. We know that poverty has an adverse effect on life-chances from the moment of conception, that diet affects ability to concentrate and lack of space and resources handicaps educational performance. In this case measures to achieve the Government's goal of halving child poverty by 2010 are probably more effective than direct funding of schools.

Many argue that the key factor is not money per se but parental particularly maternal education. Educated parents create an enriched cultural and linguistic environment which nourishes the child's cognitive development. Ideally, governments should aim to replicate those conditions for less fortunate children through high quality nursery education and, of course, schooling. But children spend only a quarter of their time at school. Moreover, reducing the advantages afforded to the offspring of the educated is well-nigh impossible. Many on the left might wish to legislate against private schools but would probably stop short of banning bed-time stories. But the latter are probably more instrumental in perpetuating the gulf between rich and poor.

Feinstein's latest research identifies parental interest rather than education as the magic ingredient. He found that having a parent who takes an active interest in a child's education is eight times more important in securing good exam results than wealth or social class. Substituting for parental interest is an even more formidable challenge.

Feinstein warns against simplistic responses to all these findings -- either despair that our fate is effectively predetermined by class or the eager belief that throwing bucket-loads of cash at the early years is a panacea. He cites further research which shows that any gains made by investment in the early years may be lost if they are not sustained by financial and educational support for the child's development between the crucial years of five and ten.

The positive flip side of this sobering message is that if children can be helped to improve at primary school, the negative effects of low initial attainment and a disadvantaged background can be reduced. Researchers in Tennessee are even more optimistic -- they claim that teacher effectiveness is 10 to 20 times as significant as ethnicity or socio-economic background.

It is, of course, possible that there is a magic formula for effective schooling and our eureka moment is imminent. But in the meantime policy-makers should have no illusions about the complexity of the task of overcoming the adverse effects of a disadvantaged background and appreciate the political and financial investment needed to make a reality of equal opportunity.

The Independent Education Supplement -- 6 November 2003

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research
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SCHOOLS RISK FAILURE AS BOYS SCORE POOR MARKS

Miranda Green, Education Correspondent


The UK is in danger of breaking international agreements unless it tackles the underperformance of boys in secondary schools, a report says today. Laddish behaviour, peer group pressure and disregard for academic work are leading to such poor results and high drop-out rates that the UK is set to miss targets alongside countries such as Bangladesh, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago.

An independent study for Unesco, the UN educational, scientific and cultural organisation, claimed that the UK will not meet the agreed target of achieving gender parity or equality in secondary schools by 2015. Gender equality is defined as equal opportunities to attend school, equality in outcomes, absence of sexism or discrimination in teaching and school environment, equal job opportunities and future earnings. Gender parity, which should be achieved by all countries by 2005, is defined as equal proportions of girls and boys enrolled in school.

Christopher Colclough, who directed the research, said industrialised countries tended to believe the Education For All targets agreed in April 2000 were relevant only to poorer states. Now, he said, "there is a gender problem in secondary schools in a number of countries in Europe, including the UK". Britain, the Irish Republic, Sweden and Denmark were at risk of failing to meet the parity and equality targets by the later deadline of 2015.

Reforms to examinations and to the curriculum had given girls in the UK more of an advantage, the monitors found. Girls had a better start in reading, opening up a performance gap that was maintained throughout compulsory schooling. By 2000, about 15 per cent more girls than boys obtained high grades in English at age 16. "The introduction of a national curriculum requiring boys to engage more in language-based studies tends to improve girls' relative performance," the report says. Overall, about 10 per cent more girls than boys achieve five or more A*-C grades at GCSE, and 3 per cent more girls achieve three A-level passes.

David Miliband, schools minister, said "Under-achievement by boys is a long-term problem in schools but we are committed to cracking the lad culture that stops too many young boys doing well." Researchers attribute girls' increasing success to greater maturity at all ages, better collaboration and more effective learning strategies. Some boys disregard authority, academic work and formal achievement, and male peer group pressure weakens the academic work ethic, research has shown. Laddish behaviour, bravado and noise disrupt learning as boys seek to define their masculinity, and male employment prospects give boys a different attitude to work, and different goals and aspirations.

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons education committee, said last month he was disappointed with the amount and quality of research on gender presented to the committee as part of its investigation into secondary schools.

Financial Times -- 6 November  2003
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>