We do need more education

Back in 1999, the then-chancellor of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Guillermo Jaim Etcheverry, wrote a best-seller in which he warned that the “tragedy” that had overtaken Argentina’s once much-admired educational system boded ill for the country’s future. Politicians, business leaders and, of course, cerebral journalists loudly agreed that something drastic would have to be done to improve matters. Needless to say, nothing much was. Though on occasion more money was pumped into the system and some attempts to decentralise it were made, Argentine youngsters continued to fall farther and farther behind their peers in the rest of the world.

As the results of the latest PISA exams sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have made embarrassingly clear, young Argentines learn even less than those of a similar age in many other Latin American countries and come nowhere near to performing as well as kids in Eastern Asia. According to the OECD, Argentina ranks 72nd out of the 91 countries that were tested.

If the many who say that a country’s place in the world will depend increasingly on the educational level of its inhabitants, Argentina is bound to remain among the laggards, despite the easily exploitable natural resources she is blessed with. Is “human capital” one of them?   Many, perhaps most, take comfort from the international success of a few writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, the scientist César Milstein who won a Nobel Prize for his work and sporting stars, but they are talented exceptions. What a country needs are tens of thousands of men and women of almost equal ability who can form what one might describe as an “officer class” capable of providing leadership in dozens of different fields. As of now, Argentina does not seem to have one.

Though it is not much of a consolation, alarm bells are also ringing in the United States, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Spain and other European countries. The only ones that made it into the top 10 dominated by the Far East were Estonia and, somewhat surprisingly, given the constantly publicised woes of the white working class and some ethnic minorities, the United Kingdom, Nonetheless, as measured by the PISA results, in most parts of Europe, educational achievement is still notably superior to that of Argentina.

Educationalists are finding it hard to explain just why, in much of the world, young people are learning less than their predecessors and, it would appear, just about everywhere intelligence quotients are trending down. Most think the phenomenon is due to a loss of interest in reading for pleasure and to the evidently entertaining distractions made possible by the plethora of digital devices that many even relatively poor children now possess, which is why in most countries they are getting banned from the classroom.

Up to a point, blaming the educational slump on the high-tech moguls and their products makes sense, but there are also other factors at play. One is an aversion to anything that smacks of competition and allows the most gifted students to outshine their contemporaries. Paradoxically, this is not the case in Communist countries like China where, to get anywhere, ambitious students know they have to do better than their fellows. Much the same can be said about Japan and South Korea where, as in China, Confucian attitudes towards learning remain deep-rooted. In those countries, highly competitive exams are part of the natural order of things. Success in them can bring about a degree of prestige that, elsewhere, only footballers and pop-singers can hope to enjoy.

The egalitarian mindset, which is incompatible with outstanding achievement in any field, has spread quickly thanks to the widespread feminisation of the teaching profession. For reasons that inquisitive geneticists sometimes go into before they get “cancelled,” women tend to be more community-minded than men and are prone to be far more concerned with people’s feelings. This may be debatable and those who delve into it are liable to come under attack by progressive upholders of the “blank slate” view of the human brain according to which “nurture” matters much more than “nature,” but there can be little doubt that boys usually do better when taught by demanding male teachers who refuse to coddle them or tell them they are being unfairly treated if they fail.

Another factor that should be taken into account is the currently popular notion that older folk, especially those belonging to the “boomer” generation, have made such an unholy mess of the world that they have no right to tell members of their offspring what they should think or do. Though such sentiments have been expressed for thousands of years, the onrushing changes that are transforming life everywhere are making them seem more plausible. Since education has always been seen as a means to pass onto young people the accumulated wisdom of previous generations, the feeling that they have little that is valuable to offer is surely having an effect. It is now taken for granted that even pre-teens are already more capable of finding their way in the digital universe than their parents, let alone their grandparents, who have to ask them for instructions when they get flummoxed by smart phones and the difficulties involved in performing transactions by computer.     

Throughout the world, the labour market is changing at such a rapid rate that acquiring what were once prestigious academic diplomas is no longer regarded as essential to success. In developed countries, most notably the US, it is now clear that for many people investing large sums of money in getting a degree can be a huge mistake. The worst-hit so far have been young adults with degrees in the humanities, but of late those who specialised in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic) subjects have also been affected, what with Artificial Intelligence and its derivatives taking over a widening range of  tasks they once hoped would be theirs. The mere fact that lively debates are being held about the monetary value of education and the jobs having a good one can get you must be influencing already confused youngsters and giving some an additional excuse to have as little to do with it as possible.