Education is the underlying motive of many of the
articles posted in my blog. It is the reason why I decided to relocate more
than once; it is a key factor that has played a fundamental role in my life.
Education is ultimately part of who I am and here I want to share some
thoughts about this world that should improve our lives providing us with all
the skills deemed valuable to make us citizens of the world. We have to
distinguish though how things used to be in the past and how they are today, in
higher education in our home country and abroad.
Formal education has been elevated in dignity and
consideration at the turn of the 20th century, where schools weren’t
only workshops for human minds, but also the place of social and cultural
redemption. Education could indeed open the golden gates to once precluded,
prestigious and well paid professions. We could say, there was a return of
investment.
Our society has embraced the concept that education
goes hand in hand with democracy, implying many issues, one of this giving
everything to everybody, which apparently seems fair, but ultimately it doesn't differentiate the talents in front of us, taking into account their own
interests, inclinations, aptitudes and why not…even dreams. But what do we deem
to be a good education? Like more educated people on this matter, I also think that
education should not be for its own sake, but aimed at real life skills that
are meaningful and make sense. It has to be dynamic, keeping up with the
outside world, and approachable, meaning that it must bear some relevance to
students' experiences. Eventually, it must provide the tools for students to
become independent, critical, aware and self-aware of the realities surrounding
them. In theory it sounds all good, but how are things in the real world?
In the last twenty years, mandatory education has
changed radically. Pupils must attend school
for a longer time than ever before, after all life expectancy has increased
significantly. In the old days it was probably enough be able to write, read
and do some mathematics; and students were left to their own wits with the basics they learned at school.
Nowadays, in our global village, children must speak at least a foreign language and be computer
literate, besides other skills that are part of their portfolio. And this is all great
news; we have to become citizens of our time. But if we look around ourselves
and draw comparisons with other parts of the world, we find competitive systems
where standard tests determine the future of students. One wrong question can
change your life forever. And all this starts at kindergarten! Meanwhile, in
other countries creativity has had the upper hand in order to develop
individuality, but sacrificing knowledge and inflating grades in such a way
they have become meaningless. And things get out of hand with higher
education.
Not too many years ago, a high school diploma would
suffice to give you a good, respectable and well-paid job. Nowadays things
have changed radically. A higher, more qualifying degree is always requested for any given
job. And in this flourishing market of degrees, universities are thriving.
Let’s see for instance how this works in Italy. The
university system has turned
degrees into mass commercial products. We have more lawyers than
plumbers, creating inflating numbers in some already saturated fields. Once
there was only an academic degree, the so-called laurea, which required 4 years of academic studies plus one for the
dissertation thesis. Back then this was the highest academic degree; in our
system there were no words for masters and Ph.Ds. The laurea has been downsized in meaning and downgraded to a mere B.A. even
though they don’t correspond to each other in the least for two reasons: the
substantial age difference when students achieve the diploma (in Italy at the
age of 25 in the best case scenario, meanwhile in the Anglo-Saxon system
students get there three years earlier), and consequently the level of
preparation achieved in the former system is way higher than in the latter.
When Italian universities realized that the rest of the world
was luring students into their own university programs abroad such as M.A.,
M.S. ,Ph.D., they decided to do the same, by launching fashionable masters without even knowing what they were
(I guess they liked the sound of it, so exotic, so non-Italian, so it became a
catchy thing to have). The concept of laurea
was altered, deprived of its original meaning and status. Now with the new
reform that shook the system from its roots, there are two types of laurea in place, plus all the Anglo-Saxon
degrees imported and adopted in the BelPaese. In this global fish market where
you can buy two pieces of paper for the price of one, education has been
reduced to a sellable good. Therefore, I must bitterly and regretfully admit
that the concept of education has been undergoing a transformation, becoming a
self-referential monster created to produce ever more degrees in order to
support itself. Education, in this guise, becomes overrated.
The temples of knowledge have turned a high demand for
education into a lucrative business model. In the USA, a four-year-college
education can cost as much as a house. Tuition and fees are not the only
massive costs that burden a family; freshmen must stay in a dorm for their
first year, so more money is disbursed for accommodation and meal plans. If
life of students is expensive, their teachers’ life is not that easy either.
New generations of researchers and instructors working
in academe must publish articles at the speed of light as if there were something
new to discover or invent every day. How long can the system go on like
this? Let's face it, the risks are foreseeable: plagiarism, which is
spreading like the plague and the incredible amount of publications of
meaningless research about fried air. Honestly, do you really have to tell me I
need to sleep well to be productive at work?! Well, thanks for researching that, now we know it, we can all sleep deep and sound.
A higher education doesn't necessarily secure you a
well-paid and gratifying job. But prestigious schools can guarantee an
impressive resume only with their name on it. If you can afford an Ivy League
education, it will get you a high paid job, that’s the truth. But if you
compare the subjects and materials studied with other less prestigious schools
you will be surprised to see there is no substantial difference and recruiters
know it very well.
And yet the appeal of higher education is hard to die.
European students are drawn like bears to honey to the prospect of pursuing
university degrees in the USA or other countries because they have more future
prospects and who can blame them?
What I admire in the American school system is its pragmatic
attitude towards education. As they were moving their first steps as a colony
and a young democracy, they invested a lot in education. Benjamin Franklin, a “plain
editor” with no formal education, contributed in founding what is today Penn State
University. He believed in giving a fair change to the ones who showed the
aptitude to learn. Through education it was possible to achieve a more
democratic and just society. Whereas a basic education must be provided to
everyone, higher education should be attained through meritocracy, a word that
is getting out of fashion.
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