Meritocracy, Academic Intelligence, Vocational Education
 |
| Merit Francesco Guardi (1712-1793) Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery [CC BY-NC] |
...Our present version of meritocracy is profoundly corrupted by money. Rich parents have proved highly successful at buying superior education for their children either by sending them to private schools or moving near superior state schools... But the solution to this is surely more meritocracy rather than less; giving academy schools more freedom to select on the basis of ability; forcing private schools to give free places to, say, half of their pupils on the basis of their pure brain-power and improving vocational education so that people who don't flourish in academic schools have an attractive alternative...
(Adrian Woolridge, The Times, 2021)
Could not private schools become centres of excellence in an individual area - Maths, English, Science, Art, Music, Sport, Technology etc? Entrance would be determined by potential in that area and not by background or ability to pay. Fees would be means tested on a sliding scale. Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, for example, is a mainstream, independently funded junior and senior school. Admission is by audition. Parents who earn less than £20,000 a year pay £600 towards boarding fees and education. Parents who earn more than £196,000 pay the full fees. Everyone in between has to contribute on a sliding scale.
Shouldn't apprenticeships should be seen as of equal status as those attending university? In Germany, for example, young school leavers who aren't university bound enter a three year apprenticeship programme. Half the time is spent on on the job training whilst the other half is spent in special trade schools.
Academic Intelligence
...Academic intelligence is absurdly overvalued. For many at the top of society, schools, universities and exam results have become an all-consuming mania. Almost every high status or well-paying job requires a degree. If you tell a middle-class friend their child is athletically incompetent you might get a knowing eye-roll.If you suggest the child is stupid, you will probably find you have imploded the friendship.
We have forgotten that intelligence is one admirable human quality among many. Previous societies were better at valuing courage, or manual dexterity, or social skills...
Most alarmingly, many highly educated people are in the habit of automatically associating intelligence with moral superiority: this is the reason Hilary Clinton dismissed Donald Trump's uneducated supporters as a "basket of deplorables" and it is the reason so many of today's ideas about moral progress come tangled in academic jargon...
Although university attendance continues to rise, its material benefits are harder to discern, especially for those with less prestigious degrees. A third of graduates are working in non-graduate jobs and for young men who attended non-elite institutions the graduate pay premium has shrunk to almost nothing.
Cognitive scientists increasingly agree that the kinds of intelligence measured by exams are limited and arbitrary... A degree may even threaten some forms of intelligence. Several studies suggest education is detrimental to critical thinking. As students progress through their degrees, they get better at supporting their own arguments but don't improve at looking for evidence that might undermine their opinions and help them come to a more balanced point of view...
Most experts agree that the jobs safest from the consequences of the coming work revolution are those that involve interpersonal skills. Academic intelligence matters but our faith in it is beyond logic...
(James Marriott, The Times, 2021)
Vocational Education
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that unemployment could hit 13 per cent in the next few years from 4 per cent now. Millions of people may find themselves in need of retraining. And it is far from clear that the system is equipped to provide them with the skills to switch to new careers.
... Britain has been successful in driving up university attendance to above 50 per cent of school leavers from about 30 per cent a few years ago. But the reality is that too many graduates leave university loaded with debt and unable to find a graduate-level job. Meanwhile the number taking technical courses has been in freefall, despite clear evidence of strong demand for many technical skills.
... The result is that just 10 per cent of adults hold a higher technical qualification, compared with 20 per cent in Germany.
... Why Britain has so persistently failed to address this problem is a mystery.
... Others have noted a lack of funding as resources were diverted to universities, endlessly changing qualifications, a lack of clear division of responsibilities between central and local government, employers and unions that makes skills-based training so effective in many other countries, notably Germany. Nonetheless the biggest obstacle may be cultural, or what Mr Johnson referred to as the "pointless, snooty and frankly vacuous" attitude towards technical education. That will be harder to fix.
(Times Editorial, 2020)
Boosting the profile and the status of the electronic communications, engineering, construction and care sectors would be a start. If these sectors are recognised as "high worth" entities then their pay should reflect this. This would mean government intervention.
Germany has always been seen as a leader in vocational education so why have the politicians not copied some or all of their policies? Their degrees in technical education are seen as of similar value to "academic" ones. Their policy of "dual training" combines theory and training embedded in a real life-work environment.
How many secretaries of state for education have there been in the last 50 years and how many of them have served their full term at education? Chopping and changing does not create the necessary stability to see through much needed reform in vocational education.
*Tony Blair once joked that you could declare war in a speech about skills and no one would notice.
The lack of interest in vocational education has long been a cause of hand-wringing shame among the policy-minded political class.
Boris Johnson's end to the "snooty" distinction between the academic and the practical joins a long line of his predecessors making much the same appeal.
... Rishi Sunak's winter economic package, which replaced the furlough scheme with a less generous subsidy for short-hours working, was notably short on new skills policy.
... Mr Johnson suggested that the coronavirus crisis was an opportunity to speed a mass reallocation of labour that automation and other technological change was going to require anyway. That's a brave message to deliver to those expecting a P45. Unless it comes with meaningful help - and soon - it is unlikely to be kindly received.
(Francis Elliott, The Times, 2020)
*The technology institute founded by the inventor Sir James Dyson will soon have the power to award its own degrees - the first of a new wave of alternative providers.
The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, which opened in 2017 on the site of Dyson's design centre in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, has 150 engineering undergraduates who pay no tuition fees and receive a full-time wage during their four years studying and working alongside Dyson staff.
The Office for Students, the higher education regulator in England, has said the institute can award degrees in its own name from next year, the first to do so under legislation that created the route in 2017.
Dyson is estimated to have spent more than £30m on the institute and its campus, which includes study-bedroom pods. It claims to attract more applications from qualified school-leavers than many Oxbridge courses, with 14 applying for each place.
(Richard Adams, The Guardian, 2020)
Comments
Post a Comment