Education: Some facts

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "Education: Some facts" by Inferno.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/reason/education-some-facts/

 

[PAB]

This is a good post, i look forward to the future follow ups.

One thing which deserves the most attention, in my opinion, today, is the consequence of the global economic crises of capitalism and the austerity that has followed from it. Because, firstly you highlight the problems of economic inequality which are only set to worsen under austerity (in fact in many cases they already have with cuts to welfare the poorest are hit hardest). But this also has an effect on the school system itself.

Taking Britain as an example (and it would be interesting to see whats happening in other countries too):

• there is a drive to make schools more "efficient" - i.e. cheaper -
• there is little investment in the building of more schools, meaning overcrowding and large class sizes (rare cases of children having to travel hours (3-4) by public transport each day just to get to primary school)
• there is creeping privatization in the form of free schools and academies which teaching unions appose
• Pressure to work increased hours , and plans to extend school hours and cut holidays

Good article here by a member of the UK teaching union NASUWT on Education for Profit
In my view there is a catch 22 situation...under the present government and economy. No money is available for investing in education. Or open education to the terror of profiteering, turning public institutions with forms of democratic accountability into private unaccountable market driven institutions.

With the UK and elsewhere there is the much wider political-economic debate- i.e. spending on war and nuclear arms, the bailing out of financial institutions , tax evasion ,Cause of the crises, cause of inequality etc.

(as a side note - online learning is up and coming. Richard Wolff, former lecturer of economics spoke quite skeptically and cynically about this. He sees it as cheap education, a degree will only cost a fraction of the price it did before. Meaning for example, an Nepalese worker can get a degree from Princeton in a particular field. And this is great from the view of venture capitalism which seeks to increase profits because the Nepalese worker now qualified in "X" can be paid a smaller wage in regards to an American with the same qualification in "X" (..even from the same institution), due to standards of living lack of government regulation weak unions etc. And i think this quite a correct assesment. But the good side should be stated, their is now the potential for anyone in the world to be able to get a quality education from the other side of the world, in a way Princeton is now available (for cheap) to those 2nd world and 3rd world countries. And in terms of human labour , the Nepalese worker is a now educated worker in that specific field he is a skilled worker. But the cynical argument alone is essentially a Luddite one -instead i see it as a great potential a development that instead of simply developing humanity puts one against another and begins a fight to the bottom it divides people, creates tension and resentment. What will the American worker have to do when his hopeful employer takes on the Nepalese worker...retrain ? accept lower wages?..probably both)