Go, Europe, Go!

[AAAAAAAAH!]

If education is free, what value is it?

Most people think learning is valuable in its own right, but I guess in the Beniverse a degree's value is proportional to how much money you paid for it.

[Bereta_Eder]

Teaching a kid to read and write is beneficial and valuable regardless of who pays, state or family.
And that should go all the way to the end of highschool.

Then the issue is to streamline public university education and make some allowances to connect its oriantation with the direction of the job market (to a degree) allow real evaluation, strict criteria etc

For example a long overdue thing was the "eternal student" thing here. Once you entered university noone could force you out. You could get your degree after 40 years if you wanted. That will change now, 2 years of trying to pass a year and it's over. Make room for others who want it more. (of course this must be accompagnied with hefty loans to those who can't sustaine themselves. It's one thing not going to class because you're careless, it's another because you have to work to sustaine yourself)

France had a similar problem with overabudance of doctors as it were because the public university system got huge sustainance/financial support but there was no incentive given on orientation of studies.



All that's good and fair. Everything being determined with money and or market laws though is silly. Leads to a jungle like economic dwarvinism.
It's good to have a caltech but there shouldn't be a neighborhood one is afraid to walk through. (yes it has also to do with education). Do both.

(BTW after cuba who do you think has an overplethora of doctors? Greece but that's ok we're exporting them to germany now - freely trained by the state then exported to be productive elsewhere because there are no jobs here. thanks politicians and the societal expectation of being a lawyer or a doctor. Yes and then have no work. better train and be a chef or something. that's ok too. not that i have any hope. this place is falling faster than a tower of cards. but hope dies last. but if everyone looks after his hide only that's where it leads you )

I remember the bastards promising a knowledge based society in 1990. I'm still waiting. I'm a skeleton by now.

[C0ckney]

brazil is importing some cuban doctors, we have a whole programme for it, supposedly bringing in doctors from all over the world, but for obvious reasons, mostly from cuba. take up has been quite low though, probably due to language barriers, and to the fact that relatively few want to work in brazilian public hospitals.

[Bereta_Eder]

I see.

That's just a glance at a problem though. It's not the overall picture nor is it defining of a situation. But it is real.

In 2010, Greece had, by far, the highest number of doctors per capita, with 6.1 doctors per 1 000 population, nearly twice the EU average of 3.4. Following Greece was Austria, with 4.8 doctors per 1 000 population. The number of doctors per capita was also relatively high in Norway, Portugal (although the number reported is an overestimation as it comprises all doctors licensed to practice, including some who may not be practising), Sweden, Switzerland and Spain. The number of doctors per capita was the lowest in Montenegro and Turkey, followed by Poland, Romania and Slovenia (Figure 3.1.1).

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/01/index.html?itemId=/content/chapter/9789264183896-28-en

The level of doctor number augmentation happened during 2000-2008 in the years of afflouance

[Serb]

Shouldn't you be blaming Yeltsin? It was Yeltsin who rallied the protestors in Moscow and who governed Russia during the years of its greatest losses. It was Yeltsin who took the advice of GOP advisors and sold everything then did nothing while people starved and died.

They are both f*ckers. Gorby has started the crap. And people died not only in Russia, but in other former Soviet republics as well.

[molly bloom]

Most people think learning is valuable in its own right, but I guess in the Beniverse a degree's value is proportional to how much money you paid for it.

Money ? I thought it was redeemable with pizza vouchers.

[Dauphin]

If education is free, what value is it?

DO you have the same feeling about birthday gifts? Or fee-less priest-performed marriages?

[Dinner]

Pegging the currency to the dollar was a smart thing to do at the time, it provided well-needed stability to the economy (we had had 5-digit inflation in 1989). What was dumb was to try and maintain it for as long as we did.

Eh, I think the system is ****ed up in may respects. Fair? It is definitely not fair to the people who sold the debt at dirt cheap prices to the loan sharks. We made the settlement knowing that we would have to deal with the hold-outs, and so that we would be able to borrow more. And we did borrow that money to begin with. We're not going to die if we repay a small portion in full.

Frankly, I think the hold-outs are among the least of our problems, but as usual the government uses them to generate positive publicity and local support.

Yeah, there is no "perfect" policy as each has its pluses and its draw backs; for certain conditions some policies are better than others but the big problem is politicians seem slow to recognize when conditions have changed and generally don't want to change policies which have worked well in the past even if the conditions are now so different that another policy would now work better. I suppose timing is everything but politicians rarely seem to get the timing right and instead only make changes when they're forced to do so.

[Dinner]

If education is free, what value is it?

It, generally, has immense value plus it pays back the taxpayers many times over as better educated workers earn more and thus pay more in taxes. Not to mention more knowledgeable people tend to be better at innovation and recognizing market opportunities thus resulting in better over all economic performance when multiplied by tens or hundreds of millions of individuals.

[Dinner]

If done right? It couldn't. Over here, among the first things a family pays for after basic necessities are covered is private school for their kids.

I would be the first to tell you I know little about life in Argentina, only what I read in the newspapers which is seldom the whole story, that said... Is public education really so bad in Argentina? What makes it so bad and what makes private schools so much better? I live in San Diego, on the US-Mexico border, and I do know the Mexican public school system is complete garbage with kids lucky to even learn to read and do basic math. Worse education is only publicly funded up to the sixth grade and from junior high up to high school parents must pay for their kids to go to school. This seems medieval to me sitting in a first world country and surely it is a great economic drag on the Mexican national economy to have so many workers so poorly trained and educated. Like so many things it seems to have its roots in history. The top 10% are all of pure European ancestory, the middle group seems to be of mixed native and European ancestry, while the bottom is made up of pure natives. The wealthy whites do not want to pay for the education of native or mixed blood children and they control the political system so they make sure all the laws passed are in their best interests.

I know there are not many natives in Argentina but I do believe the situation is similar in countries like Peru or Bolivia which are nearby to Argentina.

[DinoDoc]

Most people think learning is valuable in its own right, but I guess in the Beniverse a degree's value is proportional to how much money you paid for it.

In the real universe its value is proportional to your ability to monetize it.

[Dinner]

Oh, I don't know. I can think of lots of situations where an education is still valuable even though you can't redally use it to gain cash. There are lots of ways for one to gain besides using cash.

[Bereta_Eder]

+society as well.
Unless you're happy having african like segregation.
A friend of mine during the military was let for a few hours in New York and he just started walking, not knowing where he went.
A black guy said to him: "hey don't go up north. They don't like white boys at those neighborhoods".
He was like :eh??

That's because people believe everything can be monetized. And they have managed to have their opinions taken seriously.

[N35t0r]

I would be the first to tell you I know little about life in Argentina, only what I read in the newspapers which is seldom the whole story, that said... Is public education really so bad in Argentina?

Roughly, yes. There's several exceptions, but generally, where they are needed the most, they are crap. As I mentioned, private (or semi-private) education is among the first thing parents pay for their children. As an example, the cleaning lady here at work works two jobs (6 hours here, and then 4 hours at a pizza place) to send her children to private school.

What makes it so bad and what makes private schools so much better? I live in San Diego, on the US-Mexico border, and I do know the Mexican public school system is complete garbage with kids lucky to even learn to read and do basic math. Worse education is only publicly funded up to the sixth grade and from junior high up to high school parents must pay for their kids to go to school. This seems medieval to me sitting in a first world country and surely it is a great economic drag on the Mexican national economy to have so many workers so poorly trained and educated.

Historically (50+ years ago), public education here was very very good. In fact, with a few exceptions, private schools were seen as places where parents sent their dumb/lazy/troublesome kids, and paid to ensure they finished. However, a combination of economic troubles and neoliberal economics (which saw education as an 'expense') resulted in increased defunding of the system starting with the last dictatorship, as well as increased politization. The 80s and 90s saw a proliferation of private schools, which generally offered more up-to-date curricula, better quality teachers, more parent influence/feedback, and no teacher strikes. As more and more kids turned into private schools, pubic schools were generally left with the children of the lower classes and unemployed, which only served to exacerbate the push. The 1998 recession and later 2001 crisis further increased the gap between private and public schooling, and the ongoing inflation has meant that, despite funding increases, real values have only gone down.
The populist, short-term, vote-seeking measures that have been promoted by the current administration have also meant that little effort has been placed to improve the situation, to the point that a high percentage of public schools, especially in low-income areas, are effectively only day-care centers where kids might get something to eat.

Like so many things it seems to have its roots in history. The top 10% are all of pure European ancestory, the middle group seems to be of mixed native and European ancestry, while the bottom is made up of pure natives. The wealthy whites do not want to pay for the education of native or mixed blood children and they control the political system so they make sure all the laws passed are in their best interests.

I know there are not many natives in Argentina but I do believe the situation is similar in countries like Peru or Bolivia which are nearby to Argentina.

Native population here is very low; especially when compared to other latin american countries (wih the possible exception of Chile and Uruguay), mainly because the original population was orders of magnitude lower (most of the country was populated by bands of nomad hunter-gatherers). As mentioned above, the political interest that maintain the situation as it is is (at leat currently) that investing in education does not generate short-term political gains, and that an uneducated population is easier to sway to gain its vote.