Dear Crikey, it would be a lovely xmas present, if you could confine Adam Creighton's work to the "COMMENTS, CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS, AND C*CKUPS" section in future.
He'd and Tamas Calderwood would make a lovely matching pair, on that shelf labelled "Depressing Deranged".
There are extensive trade-based vocational education programs already in high school education. A demonstration of some detailed knowledge of the existing education system, other than anecdotes about students' grammatical knowledge, might lend this article some more credibility.
Yep, education funding is frequently pointed to the wrong place.
Yes, our kindergartens and primary schools need more funding, and it should only be rare cases that leave before completing year 10, but year 12? The current fetish with making children stay in high schools only makes it harder for those who actually have a purpose, and forces the courses to be dumbed down to cater for the extras.
Let them leave school if they don't want to be there.
If ‘earning or learning' is so highly regarded then tie youth allowances to learning, but don't require that it happen in high schools.
If we can spend more to catch the children with issues very early in school then most of the rest will look after itself.
Thanks for the rigorous list of anecdotes and unsubstantiated opinions, CIS and Crikey! Polemics aside, analyses clearly show that both individuals and societies benefit from increased participation in higher education.
Statistically demonstrated (as opposed to asserted) benefits of higher ed include:
- Higher earnings for individuals with any post-secondary education.
- Increased earnings are found across genders, racial and ethnic groups.
- Income gaps between high school graduates and higher ed graduates are widening.
- Increased income allow graduates to quickly recoup both fees and foregone earnings.
- Better health, lower smoking, lower incarceration rates.
You don't go to university just for the purposes of getting a particular job. No matter what you study, you acquire valuable skills and knowledge applicable to all aspects of your life, for your entire life.
Heck it's worth going to university just to develop the skills and ability to critically assess what people like Tony Abbott and Adam Creighton say. There has to be a big benefit to society there.
Adam, I can usually find something of merit in your articles, even if it is just an alternative point of view to my own, but today's effort is truly astounding in its blinkered vision of the value of education. Higher education is like art, it has intrinsic value in that it elevates the human experience above the mundane realities of life in the salt-mines. It informs people about how to research and think more openingly about the world around them. That might be a drawback from a conservative's point of view but such diversity certainly enriches my life.
BTW, I am eagerly anticipating your follow up on how a ‘professional academic' (with a Commonwealth funded masters degree from Oxford) vitally contributes to society and the economy as a whole. No need to mention the articles that demonstrate, at the very least, a limited connection with the reality of life for the majority of people who do not live life out of an economics textbook. Those have already been well-covered.
For once I agree with TA. You should do what you're good at - so if academic life doesn't work for you then get out. That being said there are a ridiculous number of job placements looking for uni degrees for menial jobs.
Ah, of course! Education is just about preparing kids for the workforce, make them "productive". Nothing to do with just learning for its own sake - say learning to read with understanding, learning to apply logic, learning some history of your own and others' cultures, learning to play music, learning to interact with others.
Furthermore, when will the responsibility to improve worker productivity be allocated to those best placed to do so - the employer. If you want motivated and skilled staff, motivate and skill them. Isn't that one of the reasons managers are paid??
Hmm, I'm betting Creighton is tertiary educated.
All students could be better catered for if education were better funded rather than being seen as an expense to keep as low as possible.
If employers are so concerned about educational standards, how come they never put any serious money into tertiary education (beyond a copuple of scholarships)? See the failure of Melbourne Uni Private.
The article above reads like it was written by someone who feels that a class divide based on education is a Good Thing and that an egalitarian society with a well educated and engaged citizenry is a Bad Thing. As one particuarly odious dinner companion once said to me: "An eductaed mass is a dangerous mass"
The real difficulty with this kind of debate is that everyone agrees we need an education system but there are many different opinions as to the outcomes of education. Is it that we want vocationally trained people to go straight into industry (alternate view - cannon fodder for industry)? Do we want an engaged and educated citizenry (alternate view - overeducated drains on the economy)? Until we can decide what education is for and what the benefits of education beyond literacy and numeracy are, then all we are left with is polemic - like the above.
As King Lear said, in part, ‘a lily-livered, action-faking, whoreson' - who meaures life as a ringing money till - or developers cranes on the skyline.
Education is your best personal investment to far far away, so you can understand enjoy and improve your own mental evolution rather than being a slave.
Bollocks bollocks bollocks but thank you for showing clearly how far out of touch with reality some of the ‘thinkers' on the right are. If you believe 10 or even 12 years of formal education is enough to prepare people for life - not just work, but life - then there's a good chance you're lamenting the end to child labour and giving women the vote. Modern society, to say nothing of modern work, is HUGELY complex and getting more so: we need well-educated, thoughful and creative people to build a decent society and, while they're at it, work in and generate new, innovative, high-paying (which also means high-taxing, but we can accept that) jobs. We certainly need deeper and more sophistacted thinking than that demonstrated by Abbott, Bolt, Norton and the antediluvian seat-warmers at the CIS. Most of whom, yes, let's mention this, got a tertiary education pretty much gratis.
Whilst education is more than just preparing people for the work force I agree that the current obession with degrees Y12 is distorting matters.
It has come about in oart because emploers have basically outsourced their training neeeds to the Education system and now are complaining that they're not getting what they want.
It is a little bit like the concern about childhood obesity. The Education system outsourced it's physical fitness needs to the sporting clubs and look how well that's worked!
Outsourcing..sometimes hidden but never effective
I agree wit TA on this. At present there are many kids enrolled in yr 11 and 12 who simply don't care about their own education. They should not be there as they are a big distraction to the education of those who do want more from school.
But it seems this article has ignored the real reason why they are there. And why so many are enrolled in TAFE courses.
It is of course about the unemployment figure fudging. If you are at school or at TAFE you are not unemployed. This accounting trick has removed uncounted thousands from the unemployment pool. That is primarily all it is about. It has nothing to do with educating people, it does give business a tax-payer funded skills boost a bit which is good for the unemployed at least but first and foremost it makes our reported unemployment figures look much better than they really are.
And I would be amazed if Abbott would actually change that if he were in office. I would not believe it even if he did write it in his own blood.
When the absurd subsidies paid to private schools are recoginized as middleclass welfare and a
luxury that no sane community would tolerate - meanigful reform might start.
If these billions were redirected away from the already advantaged and into needy public schools
some real and long term educational gains could be made.
I really hope Adam reads the comments to his blog!
@Adam: I wonder how old you are? Do you have a tertiary education?
Perhaps it has been to many decades since you actually looked for work!
I personally cherish any form of education, particularly tertiary education. As Matt has quoted "An eductaed mass is a dangerous mass", and we need all the education of the masses we can get in the current national and global climate!
What really irks me about Adam's poorly researched blog is that in Australia today you you need qualification to become just about anything - a retail sales assistant, for customer service, you name it, you need qualifications to get the job!
Adam's credentials:
Adam's areas of expertise include financial markets and services, tax and fiscal policy, superannuation, and political economy. Prior to joining the CIS Adam was a Senior Adviser to the Leader of the Opposition and economic adviser to the Shadow Assistant Treasurer.
He spent six months at The Economist in London in 2009, writing for the finance and arts pages. He has also written for The Spectator, Policy Review, The American Spectator and co-authored a chapter for Oxford University Press on funded retirement systems.
Absolutely nothing about having any credentials related to EDUCATION!!!
Crikey you really need to lift your game - publishing such rubbish just gives you a very bad name and diminishes your integrity!
For a much better and informative take on the education system and what we should be thinking about in regards to mass education watch
Putting a cash value on the ability to think for oneself rather misses the point, don't you think? There is more to life than money, you know.
Mr Abbott used to be the Minister for Dept Employment, Education and Training and his article re Schooling shows why he was a disaster in the role!! I worked in the Job Network and met ' Mr Arrogance Personified Abbott' with an aggressive ego as great as his inability to grasp employment and jobseeker needs. Arrogance is his best suit and a trait he has shown us in Spades over the last year , has he not ????
We need to raise the education bar, give everyone with the desire, an opportunity to go as far as they can and share in this country's breathtaking future wealth and employment opportunity.
We will have enormous demand for Trade qualified people for the Mines/Natural Resources employment areas for the next 15/20 yrs and beyond, and Supervisors and Managers and trained Retail and Hospitality staff; and Abbott does not want our own people to prepare for that ??? Do the Libs want more 457s ??? Ask Mr Abbott how successful his Dept was at resolving the staff shortages in our Abattoirs, and how did they resolve the unmet need for trained Hospitality staff .
Better still, ask the Abattoirs and the Hospitality industry.
The Liberals want dumb, disempowered people on Workplace Agreements and/or Permanent Casual employment working under constant threat of losing their jobs, in reducing conditions, and unable to improve their financial standing while the Liberals allow penny pinching ruthless HR managers to ingratiate themselves with the really moneyed Liberals.
Mr Creighton is either a ‘marketing spin -man' for the Liberals or he is in need of training and education himself !!!!
Creighton is another very good reason why my renewal of the Crikey Annual sub is in doubt. His writings are a pathetic excuse for maturity, I presume Crikey are not paying him for his tripe
Job requirements have changed, Mr. Creighton. Being a mechanic doesn't just mean being good with your hands and having a feel for mechanism. 25 years ago you already needed at least Year 11 Physics (car electronics) to apply for an apprenticeship. Being a hairdresser isn't just about arranging hair and having a sense of style. 25 years ago you already needed at least Year 11 Chemistry (chemicals used on hair) to apply for a traineeship. Jobs have just become more complicated since. The more we can do, the more we need to know.
I have years of practical experience working with apprentices, trainees and people following other non-university job pathways. Do you?
This is just shit.
The plural of anecdote is not data. How about you go and have a look at some of the stats on education and employment - it's not like they're hiding or anything.
Honestly, this entire ‘article' reads like some brain-dead bogan having a ‘university is for poofs' rant.
Creighton is a muppet - an ex-Liberal party adviser with stuff all to advise.
How is it that Crikey can have someone like Margaret Simons writing excellent pieces on the requirements of modern journalism (such as evidence) next to a piece of rubbish like this?
How is it that Crikey can have Keane thoroughly debunk the myth of decreasing productivity next to Creighton's musings on the exact same issue?
Tertiary education has become more of a commodity, than the social investment it should be.
" Few jobs require the rigours of a university degree, or even six years of high school. Past generations got by perfectly well with three or four years of high school."
" Where once a single bachelors degree would have been sufficient to signal one's ability, now two, three, even four degrees are required."
So which is it Adam? Without any actual facts or research included, and your confusion about the number of degrees required to be "productive", this opinion piece doesn't seem very productive to me at all (but then I'm not a "research fellow" ;o) ).
A few of the commentators in this forum seem to have forgotten how to read - well either that or they have read something into Creighton's article that isn't there. My reading of his intent is to state the bleeding obvious in that a University education is not for everyone shouldn't be a pre-requisite for ranking ability to do many jobs. I've got a uni degree and its amazing how many of my colleagues are now doing MBAs - not because they want to but because they see it as giving an advantage in job hopping. At least an MBA is coming out of their own or employers pockets not the taxpayer.
Never thought I'd be writing to defend something TA said - but there it is.
As someone who has three higher education certificates, I can confirm I contribute little to Australia's "wealth". Ends.
I have trouble using TA as shorthand for the leader of the oppostion
Tony is short for Anthony therefore shouldn't we be using "AA" instead of "TA".
To those threatening to cancel their subscription because they don't like and article or consider it poorly researched.Get over it.
Don't make threats make reasoned rebuttals.
Crikey is and should be a bit of a wild child I actually its getting a bit too civilised IMHO.
Wombat the example you cite is should be one of the attractions of Crikey
@Clytie. I think that's the point. Year 11 Chemistry to be a hairdresser. How is the study of "atomic and molecular structure, nomenclature, the Periodic Table, stoichiometry, equilibrium, kinetics, common reaction types, acids and bases, and the fundamentals of organic chemistry" (taken from VCE) going to help you? Some might be relevant but I'll guess say that most is not.
BTW - I strongly advocate completing yr 11 12 as now there are very good trade based courses that are relevant to non acedemic professions which teach practical skills. I have three kids - one finished uni (is working but not using her degree at the moment although may later), one completed year 12 is now working in hospitality, and one is about to start year 11. Kid one three were/are uni orientated. Kid two was trade orientated and is now working. Point being that it should be horses for courses (pardon the pun) and uni is not the only answer.
What a crock of you know what. Yet again. From people that went to a private school. Yet again. If I'd have followed the herd out the school gate at the end of Year 10, never to return I'd have never had the opportunities to succeed.
In 1977 I was one of 225 students in year 7 my western suburbs Melbourne Secondary School. 51 of us made it to Year 12. Seventeen of us passed. I was one of three to get to University.
I've since discovered many many of those 221 went back to study to ‘get ahead' . That said, I'm all for the return of the trade school or tech school. Pushing them into vocational training at TAFE where the cost is incurred on the parents not the state is not the way to skill up Australia.
MikeB I think you've made my point. You seem to know more about the realities of the current education system than Mr Creighton.
Universities these days make me so %)*@)%*_ angry.
I don't disagree with this article, but it makes me sad to agree.
Universities are not and should never be training colleges, but the current funding model has totally degraded their purpose so they now seem to serve only the job market rather than their original purpose of extending knowledge.
ABS Stats for 2006 show that 59% of Aussies had a non-school qualification but only 24% of those were a Bachelor degree or above. So that would indicate that 35% of the population have some other vocational qualification - perhaps having completed an apprenticeship, or a diploma. Then of course there are still the other 41% that don't have any qualification. So what's the problem? Give us a break from biased "anti-education" rhetoric and look at the facts. I love Australia and I think we are doing OK for the most part.
I had a WTF moment when I started to read this, which was quickly resolved when I saw who wrote it. Surprise, surprise, according to the CIS our society will be better off with trade certificates than art degrees. I am increasingly disappointed with Crikey for giving (once upon a time) alternative media space to these corporate whores.
Tertiary education is about opportunity I would have thought. There are highly intelligent people who make their way through life without it. On the other hand, there are plenty of degreed drongos.
It comes unstuck where those who want to go to uni are unable to do so, while the drongos still can. That is the waste.
Apart from that, I am always suspect of conservatives who either want to reduce expenditure on education and/or try to deter some of the population participating.
I think it was H L Mencken who had the personal ethic of work hard, play hard, but above all else, think.
The ability to think and having a tertiary education are not necessarily dependent one upon the other.
Is this just the most ignorant article ever printed or just the most dishonest? Ask Richard Tesse or John Polesel about the direct correlation to higher education and higher earning through life, longer life less disease and so on.
‘ Past generations got by perfectly well with three or four years of high school' That would be the generations before computers
‘ Yet educational standards, at least the ones that matter to employers, have not improved commensurately' Who says? by what measure?
‘ some would argue that educational standards today are lower than they were 100 years ago' well some may but not credibly
education up, productivity down must be educations fault.
With rubbish like this it's pointless to even raise the idea that education is a tool for living a full life not just a way to get a job.
What Abbot is really saying through this sock puppet is that working class people are only fit to hew wood and draw water. For shame.
It is interesting that, despite having a valid point - not all benefit from staying on at high school uni - this article is so blatant an appeal to all the worst aspects of tory ideology, that the poor should appreciate the crumbs from the masters' tables when unblocking their drains tuning the fossil fuel guzzlers. "oi be most exceeding grateful" as Uriah Heep might have said in the Olde Worlde in the cold Northern Hemisphere. Not here.
As I've asked on previous occasions when publishing this sort of rightard mental masturbation, could CRIKEY please state whether it is paid for these advertorials for the Born-to-Rulers.
Surely the hired pens are NOT paid for such boiler plate drivel?
Articles like this frustrate me. I am interested in views contrary to mine (this fellow is clearly against everything I believe in - including meritocracy) - as I am keen to learn how such people relate their views and arguments to facts and reality. Maybe his conclusions are reasonable - but how can you tell from reading an article which comes across as a mumbling rant in a pub?
Can't Crikey find some literate capable conservative persons to put forward their case ?
" Can't Crikey find some literate capable conservative persons to put forward their case ?"
Agreed. This effort to be "balanced" is so poorly prosecuted.
The question this article raises for me is, how does Mr Creighton propose we decide who are the "right" students to go on to higher education?
Before the compulsory extending of the school-leaving age in NSW to 17, I would suggest those students self-selected. But if those students then decided to return to education, is Mr Creighton suggesting that opportunity be denied to them?
I failed my HSC and after 25 years in the workforce and raising a family, I completed an undergraduate degree, went on to do Honours and am now on the homeward stretch of a PhD.
Another friend left school in Year 10 and, again, after many years in the workforce and raising two children as a single mother, completed a law degree and is now a practicing solicitor.
There are many stories like ours. Thank goodness people like Mr Creighton hadn't yet decided we weren't the "right" people.
I think we should just let the "market" decide, just like that nice Mr Cameron did in the UK when he tripled student fees.
We just cannot have too many people thinking and all that crazy stuff. It's important that people stay home and watch ACA/TodayTonight or pop out and get slaughtered on cold piss and pokies. They can then go and beat each other up, whilst we enjoy the view over the harbour…
Some of the comments here seem to draw a simple conclusion: University educated = high class and priveleged, and no secondary education = low class and servant of the Born-to-rulers. (AR, I'm calling you out). It just doesn't follow. You would be astounded the requirements to be, for example, a registered Builder. It requires the obvious practical construction skills, in addition to; a thorough knowledge of legislation and contract law, engineering expertise, commercial acumen and strategic planning skills. All built (a pun!) over years of experience and formally examined before a licence is awarded. A successful builder can reach the top echelons of society (if social class is what you obsess over in the Arts faculty) without completing year 12. Going to Uni doesn't make you a better person than those who don't, on any measure.
Left school at 14,am retired on $34000 per annum,pay no tax as small proportain of income tax free,but could never agree with abbotts,ludicrous proposal ,he fails health ,economics ,leadership,and is now a failed so called expert on education,his rhodes scholarship was from boxing,think he suffers from to many punches to his big ears,seems he is deaf to anything intelligent.
@ LILIWYT - You asked who are the "right" people to go on to tertiary education? It used to be said in the "olden days" that you could only get into Uni if…"Daddy was a doctor, and Mummy was a debutante". Not too much has changed, really!!
Like you, I finally went to Uni later in life, graduating in my early fifties. After almost 30 years in the workforce, and raising my family. I completed my studies over 6 years because I still had to work. While I was too old by then for it to make much difference to my work situation, I am so happy now that I decided to go to Uni. As many commentators have said, the benefits (apart from the workplace), are immense.
As someone who was probably seen as not the "right" person, I have to say, Adam, you do not know what you are talking about.
I've read all the comments here and initially I was in agreement with this article, however, now I am not so sure.
I have two Uni degrees, as well as 2 industry qualifications and to be honest, I'm not getting paid well enough to reflect them. I feel this is partly my fault, as well as a healthy dose apportionable to the GFC smashing my industry, but after reading the comments here I've realised Uni was about more than getting a job.
Uni taught me how to think critically and, more importantly how to think for myself. I'll never forget my first year lecturer, Malcolm, who was one of those people who teach you more in a few short months than some others will in a lifetime. This was what the experience was about - not all textbooks and exams, I learned more at the pub with him than I did in a number of the subjects I took.
It's a shame we view Uni just as a way to pump people through the system to get a few letters after their name - they should be the learning and cultural institutions they were designed to be, not dumbed down international student processing centres.
@MikeB "@Clytie. I think that's the point. Year 11 Chemistry to be a hairdresser. How is the study of "atomic and molecular structure, nomenclature, the Periodic Table, stoichiometry, equilibrium, kinetics, common reaction types, acids and bases, and the fundamentals of organic chemistry" (taken from VCE) going to help you? Some might be relevant but I'll guess say that most is not."
Two things here… firstly we need people to be educated because as part of a democratic society we expect them to be able to rationally understand big and important issues. An example of this is climate change, I suspect if more people had education in at least some meaningful level of science then we would see less opposition on actually doing something meaningful about this problem.
I think this dumbing down of society is in fact a very bad thing on a number of levels - look at the rise and rise of ‘alternative medicines' that are basically just ‘big fat placebos'; look at the ease of creating moral panics about anything from small numbers of asylum seekers (hysterically called ‘boat people'); look at the number of people with insufficient critical and analytic skills to see through coalition economic policies that are contradictory and nonsensical; hell simply take a look at the ever increasing power of shock jocks on radio and their equivalent ilk in other media.
The second point is that in fact whilst many jobs don't require university level education the creation of those jobs does - mining booms are kinda hard to have without geologists for example. Further if you look at the amount of extra revenue generated long term by investments in science, engineering or for that matter arts then you'd realize that any government considering cutting these areas is shooting our nation in the foot in order to acquire short term political gain. There really is no other explanation for it - investment in science in particular pays off at something like ten times the money spent on it within even a relatively short period.
Yes we do need to put more money into technical education, no university isn't the only or always the best way BUT it is very important to have a good education system that includes well taught and funded academic education. Indeed a good education system would open up to even those not intending to pursue a career in that particular area so as to allow Australian's to pursue intellectual interests - whether that is a chemist learning technical skills or a hairdresser learning chemistry - because that enriches our entire society rather than just producing job ready drones who know little beyond what they need to fit into their economic niche.
Just my 2 cents worth anyways.
Two other things.
As a number of replies suggest many people who aren't interested initially in university go on to later attend and this gives them a way of changing careers to something that may be more rewarding both financially and intellectually. This also allows important ideas that might otherwise never have been brought into a discipline to arise because people with greater life and work experience are able to enter academic disciplines.
Secondly parents who are well educated tend to pass at least some of that on to their children - this is an invisible but vary under rated factor. If everyone is just taught as much as the job they intend to go for requires then what happens to this incalculably valuable method of passing on knowledge and skills? What happens when changes in the nature of the economy require different skills and knowledge than were previously assumed and all those taught just for one job suddenly find themselves having to move outside that area simply to find work?
Brewesan - you need to work on "reading-wot-be-written". The BtRs are the tories, nowt to with uni or early leavers. It's an attitude, almost entirely uneraned and certainly undeserved.
Like Schnappi - I left skool at 15, and am well replete with the spoils of toil in my retirment.
Congratulations. Crikey made the loon pond.
The number of comments on this piece of hollow concern trolling demonstrates why it's worthwhile for Crikey to publish extremist nonsense from time to time.
My, my, people getting their jock straps in a knot over whether they've wasted their time or not. In the dim dark ages, and this will give my age away, we had technical schools. These institutions were specifically for those who knew their goal was to be in the trades or technical fields. I went that little step further and moved onto Tafe to become a Designer.
Never the less, those were the days when a basic four function calculator cost hundreds of dollars so it wasn't worth taking into an exam. Ever heard of a slide rule and log tables? Jesus, we were graded on legibility and layout of calculations. Kids who wanted to enter an apprenticeship could do so at sixteen. Now, many of those guys are charging you $90 just to sit it their Hilux and drive to your home and $100/hr plus parts to actually perform the repair. They may be, as you like to call them, Bogans, but they have the 50 square Mcmansion, the HSV V8 Senator and the Landcruiser in the driveway. Complete with a 25' half cabin cruiser fishing boat. Personally, as a senior draftsman, I earn a six figure salary, more than many degree qualified engineers. That's because of my technical education (technical / tafe ) and hands on background.
In the olden days, a toolmaker could finish his apprenticeship, move into the drawing office and take on a designers traineeship whilst going to Tafe at night school. Then if he wanted to, he could continue to complete a degree as an engineer by going to night school at say RMIT. Degree level night school doesn't exist anymore so they churn out kids during day classes with no life experience.
At the end of the day if you want to attend uni and obtain that degree make damn sure it has some relevance in putting food on the table. It sounds wonderfully noble to learn for the sake of learning, but the day will come when you'll need "stuff". However, I do concede that a degree does make it much easier to move on to a career change, and many jobs which at one point needed an advanced diploma as a maximum qualification now requires a degree. Not because it's anymore difficult, but because they can get a young engineer and pay him half what they would pay me, but then who needs experience.
My opinion is, universities and Tafe colleges primary responsibilities is to turn out practical and prepared professionals, technicians and tradies. Ones who can enter the work force and integrate into their chosen field comfortably and confidently. Minimising costs to the employer and making sure the new employee feels positive in his new role.
" Yet educational standards, at least the ones that matter to employers, have not improved commensurately. Australian productivity continues to decline. " Glib, unsubstantiated rubbish
Short term thinking by employers as promoted by Mr Creighton's Centre for Independent Studies is at the root of the problem, not education standards. Once upon a time medium size and large private employers as well Govt and semi-govt agencies had their own employee tradesmen and apprentices in training.
Nowadays the short-term thinking that has right wing zealots like Creighton baying for more IR flexibility has meant everyone is a sub-contractor and no-one is taking responsibility for training and skills development.
The change in productivity is, in the view of many, attributable to a tighter labor market and a higher employment participation rate which have allowed the lesser skilled to enter the workforce. On this basis lower productivity as a trade off for lower unemployment with its direct and indirect costs is no bad thing.
@THE PAV - I think you missed my point. Simons writes about the use of evidence to build an argument, whereas Creighton uses nothing but hearsay. And Keane wrote convincingly about the myth of falling productivity, whereas Creighton repeats the statement as though it were unassailable fact.
I agree with the comments of others, that this attempt by Crikey to be even-handed to all sides of the political spectrum will only work if you have people from the conservative side who are capable of putting together a reasoned argument, instead of a mish-mash of conservative talking points backed up by a few "When I was a boy"s.
Bazza Smith is absolutely correct. An educated population is needed for an effective democracy. Too many people rely on regurgitated agitprop dished out by unqualified loudmouth shock jocks.
On chap I heard on a talk station seriously asked whether the carbon ‘tax' could be avoided if he subscribed to one of the many green energy schemes on offer. Abbott had clearly confused himinto thinking that the CPRS was a GST type retail tax. It is hard to blame him as it has clearly confused the ABC which has regularly used the Abbott inspired carbon tax label to describe the carbon pricing scheme.
MBODE;
please let us have your source data references, or your guilty of the very thing of which your accusing the writer.
The only skills that I have kept from my uni days involves alcohol.
I learnt more in the first few months of my job out of uni than I did during my whole degree.
NANTHONY - kinda illustrates the point that uni isn't for everyone. Or, you chose the wrong course.
Short term thinking by employers as promoted by Mr Creighton's Centre for Independent Studies is at the root of the problem, not education standards. Once upon a time medium size and large private employers as well Govt and semi-govt agencies had their own employee tradesmen and apprentices in training
Good point. And TAFE Colleges offered a larger range of technical courses to support the apprentices. These have now been bled dry.
Actually prefer people who have intelligence,like common sense,than a high education,but then people like Sir Gustav Nossel or say Bob Hawke have Uni Degrees ,but think their biggest knowledge degree is common sense inlelligence.
With degrees from both UNSW and Oxford University, Creighton is clearly a smart character, which makes his willingness to toe the conservative line so blindly all the more puzzling.
A generous interpretation might be that his understanding of the real world remains, unintentionally, mired in the intentionally oversimplified models of first year economics, despite his years of further economics study and of work at the Reserve Bank and other policy institutions. The core of his argument here - that "[p]eople out of the workforce in training are a cost to society, unless they are pursuing a qualification that enhances their long-term productivity" - could conceivably be taken to include all the diffuse but important benefits of having a more educated society, such as better decisions at the ballot box, more responsible family and career planning, and the simple utility of interacting with fellow citizens who are well-informed about history, science and social issues. But we all know that Creighton really means benefits that are quantified on the market, in the form of higher measurable output, presumably corresponding to higher wages. This interpretation of Creighton's thinking is reinforced by his later, otherwise nonsensical observation that "median incomes for arts graduates are similar to those holding a vocational Certificate III/IV".
Unfortunately, Creighton, the market doesn't price in all the things that society should care about, and it won't in this case either. This, generically, is obvious to non-economists, as well as to economists who choose to use their training to analyse problems thoroughly rather than simply to justify preconceived position. But I am going to assume that it is navety rather than disingenuousness that keeps you from acknowledging it.
A more sinister interpretation would be that Creighton wilfully selects the theory and evidence that support policies that would benefit him personally, and ignores the rest. He is skilled at persuading those with less training than he that he is presenting a balanced and well-considered argument, even when he is not, and he knows it.
With a solid tertiary education and employment history, Creighton is clearly above the average on pretty much any socioeconomic measure you care to use. But, while above average, he is not so far out in the tail of the distribution that he can afford to be complacent about the prospect of others overtaking him. So, as for many middle class conservatives, Creighton chooses to maintain what prestige he imagines he has, not by striving for the betterment of society but by arguing for self-serving policy that helps ensure that others cannot catch up with him even if they want to try.
Creighton, this is a sad way to advocate policy. At the end of the day, your legacy is not going to be the rank of your lifetime earnings or, indeed, probably anything that the market might sensibly price. Your legacy is going to be the sum of all the incremental changes to quality-of-life for those people affected by policies that you help put in place or tear down. The world will be a better place, and I will respect you more, if you used your rather appreciable skills to make commentary that is not just partisan or self-serving, but objective and well considered.
I hope that is still possible.
Being the Prez of a University Student Union I read this and understood it for the joke it really is. Either you understand that education is a lifetime process or you join the Centre for Independent Studies and simply read aloud from the little black book of capitalism.
It is simply not worth engaging this author with th substance of his essay as it is a reactionary piece impelled by ideology rather than rationality.
Might as well argue with Bolt over freedom of speech.
Or argue with henderson over the International Refugee conventions.
These individuals are not interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. They see no wonder or delight in increasing the depth of intellectual insight within our society - they are simply interested in money and power and their place at the intersection of hese two streams. Their pontifications are, in the main, simply straw man inventions enabling them to label, categorise, and so insinuate and argue their largely bankrupt ideologies.
Mr Creighton, you might try looking at the General Skilled Migration Skilled Occupation Lists (SOL) available at which is the identified list of occupations that we are so short of in this country that we are willing to give additional priority to for immigration. The list includes:
ANZSCO Group 1 "Managers" (generally Bachelors degree or higher expected) - 8 occupations listed.
ANZSCO Group 2 "Professionals" (generally Bachelors degree or higher expected) - 54 occupations listed.
ANZSCO Group 3 "Technician/Trades" (at least Cert III or higher expected) - 22 occupations listed, almost all engineering related.
ANZSCO Group 4 "Community and Public Service" (generally Year 12 or higher expected) - 4 occupations listed, all dental.
ANZSCO Groups 5-8 (including Clerical, Sales, Machinery Operators, Driver and Labourers) - None listed.
Says it all…
If you need to go to University to learn about the world I pity you, I truly do.
It beggars belief that posters here could seriously believe that the contemporary secondary and tertiary education systems are all about preparing one for a career or for life.
Fact: they are largely a crock of shit. Their main aim is to preserve and extend the employment opportunities of those who staff them, largely through the creation of bogus qualifications for career choices that, in reality, require nothing more than on-the-job training.
The "traditional" role of education - life preparation and enculturation - has long ago fallen by the wayside. I've been there, I've seen it.
Stiofan, your absolute certainty is impressive, even if not very convincing. So it's a "fact," is it? You know because you've "been there" and "seen it." What, you've been to *ALL" of them? Really? I may have missed you. I'm fairly sure I'd have heard you if you had been there.
Certainly if the purpose of the tertiary education system is indeed life preparation and "enculturation" (yuk) you've done better at picking up the academic's arrogance and taste for jargon than you have at working out that dealing in absolutes rather leaves the flank exposed.
@Steve Carey
I think that your reaction to the word "enculturation" says as much about your intellectual abilities as does your rather confused final paragraph.
The fact that I have not attended all secondary and tertiary education institutions does not negate my argument (as any statistician could tell you). I have attended or interacted with a reasonably large number of them, either directly (as a teacher or student) or through their graduates and/or teachers. My comments were based on that large sample.
I guess Marty McFly uses self-trained surgeons.
Jim Moylan
Posted Thursday, 1 December 2011 at 9:01 am
" Being the Prez of a University Student Union"……"simply read aloud from the little black book of capitalism."
Wonderful, a Labor/Greens politician in the making.
Hands up those who don't thing McFly is MPM/TTH other paid astroturfers.
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