Education versus Training

Education or training is currently a hot issue in the UK. It affects all British people and young Brits particularly.

The debate is whether to train young people for specific jobs, or to give them a broad education. What do you think?

In some countries the 'more intelligent' children are selected because of their higher academic ability to receive education. The less intelligent' children are selected because of their lower academic ability to receive training. The more intelligent' children go to university. The 'less intelligent' children do apprenticeships.

Isn't it very inflexible and limiting to train a teenager for one specific job? With advancing technology, that job may simply cease to exist. Surely teenagers need to be given the knowledge of how to retrain, to adapt existing skills, and to learn new ones? But is it necessary to train fully in one specific job in order to know the process of adapting to one specific set of job requirements?

The idea of 'education', in contrast, is that the educated person has a large body of knowledge learned in later schooling and in university.

That knowledge is for its own sake, it is pure knowledge, interesting in itself, and has helped to expand the potential of that person. Only after university education does that person train in a specific job which may or may not use the knowledge gained in the degree. Would that suit you or not?

In the l970s and l980s in the UK some sort of compromise was attempted. The message was "Yes, go to university, but no, don't study knowledge for its own sake". There was a great expansion in 'practical courses' which trained people for particular professions - mechanical, civil, electrical and electronic engineering, for example.

The polytechnics which had lower status than the universities were raised to the same status and called 'universities' to help attract more academic candidates. Research for pure knowledge had funding cut, and more funds were put into 'applied research' which had a definite end in view.

Do you agree with those changes?

The counter argument can be expressed in an analogy, you go to the seaside. You want to find specific things on the beach for building your house. You walk along the high-tide line looking only for building materials. You find boxes and branches and drag them to your building site. Yes, your narrow-viewed specific search was rewarded. The house got built. But, being so narrow-viewed you missed the amber which was also washed up on the beach. Had you collected that, you could have sold it to buy materials for building your house, or you could have set up in a new field of carving amber to make necklaces.

In other words if we focus too closely on the utilitarian, we miss the perspective. Which is most useful in a changing world, exploring the known (training) which belongs to the past, or exploring the unknown (education) which belongs to the future? What is your opinion? Has your schooling so far narrowed you or broadened you? Do you feel equipped by your education and training to adapt to the rapidly changing future?

What system of schooling would you create in your country to give the young people of your country the best preparation for the future? What about the elements of the future which you cannot predict? How can your system of training and education prepare for the unknown?

You have thought deep and long about the system of schooling you would create. You could get together with other like-minded people to make your system come into existence. Why not, if it is a valid and useful vision?

A DEGREE OF DISMAY

Is a university degree a definite passport to a career? Many young graduates in Britain don't obtain what they set out to achieve at the beginning of their studies. Cathy Scott Clark and Ciaran Bryan report on the young people's reaction to the graduate glutt and on how the government intends to resolve or at least reduce this growing problem.

From The Sunday Times

Francesca Canty thought she had the CV of a high-flyer. As a teenager she won a scholarship to a private school, taking top grades in her A-levels in French, English and history. She studied for a degree in Russian and French at Clare College, Cambridge, and expected glistening prizes when she went down. Two years on, all she has to show for her education is a job as a secretary, working in the city at the "glistening bank", the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

For Canty the fast track has been closed off. This is no temping stopgap, this is where she must build her career. Any hope of joining the higher layer of executive life has to be hard-fought in the new meritocracy where everybody has a degree. During a fruitless search for a career in which she could use her languages Canty has stuffed envelopes, worked as a temp for £6 an hour and done voluntary work. At least as a secretary with the EBRD she occasionally gets to speak Russian. "This is the best job so far. I grab opportunities when I see them to make my work more interesting. I'm surrounded by talented graduates who are all secretaries or clerks, said Canty, 29, who was the first of her family to go to university

We're all questioning our futures. Surely we studied to do more than this? There is a sense of resentment about being offered jobs that would have been filled by secretarial college-leavers five years ago." Canty is typical of the new generation of graduates who are having to accept low-paid, mundane clerical jobs in the realisation that a degree, even from Oxbridge, is no longer a passport to a career, never mind a golden future.

A clerical position as close as possible to the desired career path is seen by many as the best they can hope for. This bitter pragmatism is confirmed by a government study which found that almost half the graduates going into full-time employment in the service industries, including retailing, banking and finance, are now in "non-graduate" jobs. They are secretaries, clerks and office juniors earning salaries of £8,000.

More students are rolling off the higher education assembly line than ever before, smashing expectations of a structured career and forcing employers to reconsider how best to select the few they need for the fast track. Although the l990s expansion of higher education for all has been celebrated, it is proving to have far reaching repercussions, causing some to ask: "What is a degree worth when everybody has one?"

Alan Smithers, professor of education at Machester University, says modern students are so desperate to make themselves attractive to employers that they have lost sight of the true purpose of university. "In the past a degree wasn't really a qualification for anything. University education was about self-development," he said. He concedes that higher education is a "sieve" used by employers looking for intellectual ability' but even that rough measure is becoming increasingly redundant as the engine of higher education churns out graduates. Not surprisingly, employers are adjusting their tactics. "Jobs done 10 years ago by 16-year-old school-leavers were five years ago being done by those with A-levels. Now it's graduates. It's an inevitable effect of mass higher education", said Smithers.

The future for the next generation of students looks bleak.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 685