On Sun, 11 May 2008 20:24:21 +0100, Alasdair wrote:
> At school, we learn a lot of stuff which is of very little use in later
> life. When I was at school a long time ago, they taught us to read,
> write and count which was very good but did we really need to learn
> algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus unless we intended to be
> engineers? I never used what I learned of Shakespeare's plays since I
> left school although I did find learning Latin did help in my law
> degree. As far as madrigal singing was concerned, I avoided it like the
> plague.
There is a slight difference between 'education' and 'training'.
Education is designed to broaden one's horizons, to make one aware of
what is available in life beyond the nine to five and the need to earn a
crust for an employer. Even to point to the need for important values,
and the human experience on which they are based.
Training is designed to equip one with useful skills, that may enable a
person to perform tasks essential to earn a living, or create wealth in
an economic sense. Skills are essentially value-neutral, that is, they do
not depend on whether one is a 'good' or a 'bad' person, and of course
the skills of using a lethal weapon can be used by good people as well as
by bad. In the same way, the skills of using financial knowledge may also
be used by good people as well as bad: by ethical business people as well
as by shysters.
Now the problem is this.
In order to minimise their costs, businesses want schools and
universities to concentrate as much as possible on providing training
(which businesses are very poor at providing, because they refuse to
invest in it) rather than education (because businesses want a compliant,
skilled workforce that does not argue the toss about things like ethics.
Therefore, it is in everyone's interests to emphasis the need for
education rather than training in the schools.
Otherwise the world economy is going to have to suffer credit crunch
after credit crunch, as poor practices in businesses simply go
unchallenged.
Education pays off, in the long run. But, in the wrong hands, no amount
of skills can save businesses from themselves.
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