The PRC@LSE, Niall Ferguson and Me

From left to right: your humble IPE blogger (in need of a haircut), Li Fan who is Deputy Director of the Department of Policy Planning at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Niall Ferguson who is Philippe Roman Chair for 2010-2011

"Emmanuel, let's take a photo with Professor Ferguson before the LSE IDEAS sign!" said my colleague from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Dr Li Fan at our farewell party yesterday for The Ascent of Money guy. Despite being somewhat miffed at the Chinese government at the moment for largely unexplained strong-arm tactics over the South China Sea--or the West Philippine Sea as our local media now calls it--I couldn't begrudge the kindly Li Fan. Hence the photo. Having completed compulsory military training, I am of course subject to being called up to serve in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. While the prospects are remote, I have enduring anxieties about being sent to certain death defending Philippine interests in the Spratly Islands against the vastly superior PLA. I'm not keen on suicide missions.

At any rate, I am sure that I've mentioned that PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi is an alumni of the LSE. Being ever so fond of his alma mater (or something to that effect), they send ministry officials to visit us as Chevening Programme Visiting Fellows every half a year or so. These fellowships are partly funded by HM Foreign and Commonwealth Office and they provide an opportunity for us to interact with the current batch of Chinese policymakers. Certainly, it lets us at LSE IDEAS--staffed as it is with former diplomats--understand our counterparts in the world's rising power that little bit better.

You would expect me to say this about my employers, but the basic idea underpinning our work here at LSE IDEAS is conceptually sound: by gathering academics, diplomats and policymakers under one roof, we are able to draw from a wider range of ideas in solving questions of diplomacy, strategy and international affairs. Oftentimes academia degenerates into something isolated and impractical with lots of number-crunching for its own sake but with few policy implications. We try to strike a balance: while we attract folks like Niall Ferguson who offer distinctive (if controversial) perspectives on various economic phenomena, we too welcome diplomats who actually *do* international relations.

Though he has his detractors, Henry Kissinger who Professor Ferguson is preparing a biography about could never be accused of being a bookish academic as he hosted the now-famous Harvard International Seminar which featured many names who would soon be a who's who of global leadership in the sixties. I wonder why Americans don't have a similar programme: instead of churning blood-curdling invectives against the PRC on a regular basis, why doesn't the US have a diplomatic outreach effort centred on academic exchange to learn more about those conducting foreign policy in China? If a second-string world power does it, why not America? Though I often am at odds with what Niall Ferguson writes, I fully agree that the US has no grand strategy at the present time which it used to have with Kissinger.

I've learned quite a lot from interacting with my PRC colleagues since they are seated right next to me. Although they are quite often quick to toe the (Chinese Communist) party line when in doubt, there are moments of candour which I value as a citizen of one of China's smaller neighbours.

The occasion for this photo is the impending departure of Niall Ferguson from our happy little camp in Holborn.The day before that, Li Fan explained "What China Wants" in compressed form as she too is leaving soon for Beijing. It should thus surprise no one that my time here is limited as well since I will depart for parts unknown in due course. There's a big world out there and I shall be taking the IPE Zone show on the road for the umpteenth time. But, it will be good to recall a time when I was at the centre of it all with diplomats from the world's rising power and the famously itinerant economic historian of our age, among others.

Meet Britain's Tiger Dad, Celeb Chef Jamie Oliver

,Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver should be familiar the world over--including the United States, even--for his series of popular cookbooks and TV shows. The Naked Chef has many fans, but as it turns out, he may not be a fan of the current generation of Britons. A few weeks ago, I offered my own take on the self-styled 'Chinese Tiger Mom' Amy Chua. Just as Amy Chua bashes Americans for bringing up a generation of (literally) soft-in-the-middle youth, her British counterpart has now taken aim at a 'wet' generation of cuddled youngsters. Having actually spawned several successful enterprises instead of just a series of academically suspect publications--I'm talking about you, Amy Chua--I am inclined to listen more to Jamie Oliver. Having dined at one of his fine establishments, my belief is that he runs a tight ship. So, on to the Briton-bashing of wasted youth. Along the way, he gives formal education a fat lip:

'I left school with basically nothing, I was a special needs kid. I did feel as though my school had let me down," says Jamie Oliver at the beginning of his new crusading series, Jamie's Dream School. Today, Oliver is a multimillionaire chef and social campaigner, yet he left his Essex secondary school with two GCSEs. Which is why he feels empathy for the 47% of young people in Britain who are leaving school at 16 with fewer than five GCSEs at grade A*-C, including the critical subjects of English and maths...

And here's the part that gained a lot of attention in his interview:

Is that what you look for when recruiting staff for your restaurants?
I am an employer of 350 chefs, and when it comes to the 16- to 20-year-olds we see at the moment, I've never experienced such a wet generation. I'm embarrassed to look at British kids. You get their mummies phoning up and saying: "He's too tired, you're working him too hard" – even the butch ones. Meanwhile, I've got bulletproof, rock-solid Polish and Lithuanians who are tough and work hard. Physical graft and grunt is something this generation is struggling with.

Education secretary Michael Gove is backing the idea of hiring teachers who don't have the usual teaching qualifications, which is what you're doing with Dream School…
I think Dream School is questioning everything about schools that we know, including whether you need traditional qualifications to be a teacher – I think we both know that's a no. Govey could be on to something quite profound there.

You tell them, Jamie. We certainly don't want the UK to have Krugmanite wusses up and down this fair land, now do we?

Deutschland Uber Alles, Even in Higher Education

You've got to hand it to the Germans. I suppose they're a bit like a big brother who can do everything better than you--they're bound to create resentment. In a neat chronological and geographical inversion, Germany has been called the China of Europe as it beats the living daylight out of uncompetitive European states. Economic performance notwithstanding, it is also remarkable how well-liked Germans are worldwide. According to the most recent BBC World Service Country Rating Poll, Germany is regarded as the country having the most positive influence on the world. Again, not bad for a country that not so long ago was the main instigator of the bloodiest conflict in human history. Maybe it also points out the benefits of minding your own business and selling the best stuff possible--something a certain North American country should probably learn.

Having studied in the US and the UK, I've always thought, "Well, for all that, Germany is not so strong in education." If you thought the same thing, you and I have guessed wrong. The British Council promotes all things British, especially English language and international education opportunities in the UK. It is well-known that international higher education is becoming a major service export as countries strive to attract the world's best minds and their often-healthy pockets. While educational league tables are still dominated by American and British institutions, guess which country now ranks highest in international student satisfaction? Shocking Anglophone institutions out of their complacency, it's the Fatherland. From Auntie:

Germany has been named as the most supportive country for overseas students, in an international league table. Among the attractions for international students is the increasing availability in Germany of courses taught entirely in English, so much so that students can complete degrees without ever having to speak German. In the international zones of these classes, students from Germany, the United States and China participate in seminars conducted by German professors speaking in English...

The survey from the British Council which has placed Germany in first place is called the Global Gauge. It comes ahead of a major British Council conference in Hong Kong examining university globalisation, called Going Global, which begins on Thursday. The league table ranks university systems on measures such as openness, degree quality, how widely degrees are recognised, support for overseas students and how much students were encouraged to spend time abroad...

The UK was ranked in third place, with China coming fourth, ahead of the United States in sixth place, in a table showing 11 of the biggest players in the overseas student market. The strongest overall performance was from Germany, which has promoted a deliberate policy of internationalisation.

There are more students from Germany studying abroad than any other European country and it wants half of its students to spend at least a term abroad, giving Germany one of the world's most mobile student populations. The global market in overseas students has become a highly-lucrative business. The British Council estimates that it is worth £8bn a year to the UK economy.

But one of the attractions of Germany is that overseas students do not pay any more in tuition fees than home students. Universities in many parts of Germany do not charge any tuition fees, which means in those places overseas students do not pay any fees at all..."One of the strongest motivators is finance. To go to university in [my home country of] Canada means taking on debt. It's essentially free to do it in Germany. It's incredibly appealing not to have to mortgage your future."

Sophie Perl, a student from the United States, also echoes the appeal of being able to study abroad, while paying less than at home. "I think the biggest factor is financial. In the US a graduate programme would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, in Germany it doesn't cost anything. And it doesn't cost more for foreign students than it does for German students." Dr Christian Lammert, who is leading the seminar, delivers what he says is now a "completely international" type of course. Even the noticeboards in the corridor have information in English.

So, in contrast to most Anglophone institutions, German ones (a) charge less if at all and (b) do not discriminate between home and foreign students. All the while, German institutions have made a conscious effort to teach in English and promote its system of higher education abroad on that particular angle. My goodness! They beat you on the football pitch, in the global marketplace, and now even in international education--in your own language not theirs, no less. This field being one of the few where Germany has traditionally lagged behind, I guess it's more eager to please. Those Germans are a menace--but thankfully not on the battlefield. I guess they've found...more productive outlets for their competitive urges.

BTW: The Going Global website for which this report was prepared is here.

Education IPE: Gadhafi Brings Down LSE Director

Well, I hope they're happy now. They've succeeded in ousting a person of great managerial skill--a rare feat in academia. Go ask Larry Summers. The irony of it all, of course, is in academia you are often punished for sparing the tried and true of "tradition" (i.e., not doing anything much). Especially now that public support of academia is going to be much less than it was in recent years--especially for the social sciences--you need folks like these. Having actually gone out into the world and promoted the LSE name for many, many years, this is what Sir Howard Davies gets.

It's odd that I received this message by mass e-mail when the director's office is just one floor below mine, but the breaking news is that LSE Director Howard Davies has resigned over the school's relationship with the Gadhafi government. I won't recycle my thoughts on what occurred which I generally don't think were sufficient to force the ouster of someone who's done a lot for the LSE--from furthering its international reach (admittedly to mixed effect in this instance) to improving the school's premises [1, 2, 3]. All these of course while maintaining the LSE's status as perhaps the globe's premier social science institution. Certainly, it has no peer in hosting prominent speakers from all over the world.

At any rate, the press release which contains his letter of resignation cites the following matters which will be subject to independent investigation:
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An independent inquiry to establish the full facts of the School’s links with Libya, whether there have been errors made, and to establish clear guidelines for international donations to and links with the School. Lord Woolf is to make recommendations to the LSE Council as soon as possible. He is to have total discretion as to how he conducts the inquiry, and as to the matters on which he is to report.

The issues the Council will suggest he investigates include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The agreement to accept a £1.5 million donation from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation (GICDF) in 2009 to LSE Global Governance, £300,000 of which has been received to date
• The acceptance of $50,000 paid to the university in return for Sir Howard’s advice to Libya’s sovereign wealth fund in 2007
• The academic authenticity of Saif Gaddafi’s PhD thesis, awarded in 2008
• The agreement of a £2.2 million contract between LSE Enterprise and Libya’s Economic Development Board to train Libyan civil servants and professionals, £1.5 million of which has been received to date and payment of £20,000 for tuition of the head of the Libyan Investment Authority
• The acceptance of an award from GICDF of £22,857 to support travel costs, mainly airfares, for academic speakers to travel to Libya. Furthermore, the Council notes that LSE staff have co-operated with an investigation of an allegation of an assault during a protest at the LSE on 25th May 2010 when Saif Gaddafi visited the School to make a speech. This alleged assault, involving one of Gaddafi’s associates and a protestor, is currently sub judice and no further comment can be made.
• Finally, the Council will carry out its own investigation of the administration of LSE Global Governance.

Anarchy--or what passes for it in academia--has descended on us denizens of Houghton Street. If you're (somewhat oddly) further interested in the goings-on around here, our school paper has more on the LSE student protests which perhaps helped force Davies' hand and the accusations of plagiarism against Saif al-Islam Gadhafi.
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Godspeed to Sir Howard Davies. The abovementioned issues aside, he's done much for our school since coming on board in 2003. Why is Sir Howard Davies a casualty ahead of a guy who fires on religious buildings? In a fair world, I wouldn't have to ask such a question.

UPDATE: The FT expounds on the magnitude of the LSE's loss.

LSE Alum Saif Qadhafi, Libyan Michael Corleone?

Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in - Al Pacino as "Michael Corleone" in The Godfather III.

When I was a wee lad, my uncle who was a big fan of The Godfather series forced me to watch these movies with him when I would much rather have watched The Smurfs. Being older--wiser I am not so sure of--I have gained a grudging appreciation for a genre that was already hackneyed in its heyday. We follow Michael Corleone, scion of a family with a colourful history, evolve. Although he tried to move on, make the Corleone name shed its past and go legitimate--events, dear boy, events conspire to bring him back to confront the skeletons in the closet that have piled up over several years.

Khaddafy, Khaddafi, Qaddafi, Gaddafi, Qadhafi, ...who knows what the correct English equivalent is? I have long grappled with this question as the transliteration of this name has never been constant in Western media. For obvous reasons, an old post of mine about Saif al-Islam Qadhafi has received a lot of hits in recent days. To recount, Said Qadhafi is of particular interest to the LSE crowd since he received a PhD from our government department not too long ago. What's more, he was apparently impressed enough with our programmes to give the Global Governance unit a donation of £1.5 million. As you can imagine, it was the cause of much consternation among LSE bigwigs back then. Recent events may have even vindicated the late Fred Halladay who expressed caution. No matter; it's all done and dusted now.

PhD students generally do not lead exciting lives, but Saif al-Islam Qadhafi was an exception. He successfully helped negotiate for the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi over health grounds. Though subsequent WikiLeaks indicate that Tripoli applied pressure on London, which then twisted the arm of the supposedly devolved Scottish administration in Edinburgh, involvement in freeing a terrorist is clearly not part of average grad student life. Alike the British government with its concern with business deals, the LSE has benefited from the Libyan connection in other ways. Our consulting arm organized a series of training events for Libyan bureaucrats.

At that stage, it looked like a win-win: Libya was turning its back on being an international pariah. It even attained an investment grade credit rating in 2009. You could have imagined a neat story for Libya: it would have become more of a conventional state as it opened up to foreign businesses wishing to invest in this energy-rich state. Meanwhile, the reformist Saif al-Islam Qadhafi would continue moving his country on a moderate, daresay even democratic path. Working in academia, I've also contemplated the issues behind receiving funding from sources some would consider questionable.

It is during the turmoil in the Middle East / North Africa that events proved unkind to such scenarios. Just as Michael Corleone was a victim of events, it appears the same can be said of another favoured son--not the eldest, likewise--with Saif al-Islam Qadhafi. As the protesters mounted their challenge, he soon appeared on TV speaking of "thousands of deaths" and "rivers of blood." Apparently, this was the last straw for the folks at Global Governance as it decided not to receive any more money from Saif al-Islam Qadhafi's foundation. David Held, co-director of Global Governance, was also rather shocked by the TV appearance:

Professor David Held probably knows more about the beliefs of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, than anyone else in Britain. For four years, Held was an informal academic adviser to Saif, who has warned in an address on state television that protesters in Tripoli will be eradicated if they continue their unrest.

"Watching Saif give that speech – looking so exhausted, nervous and, frankly, terrible – was the stuff of Shakespeare and of Freud: a young man torn by a struggle between loyalty to his father and his family, and the beliefs he had come to hold for reform, democracy and the rule of law..." Held was not Saif's tutor during his years at the LSE but the young man frequently sought out the professor for advice on his PhD, which called for greater democracy in global governance.

The discussions were passionate and often "very, very heated", Held said. "When I first met Saif, he was struggling with himself and his place in the world, in the context of his family. By the end of his time at the LSE, he had discovered a deep commitment to liberal democratic reform of his country. "The man giving that speech wasn't the Saif I had got to know well over those years. The Saif I knew will be in turmoil over the beliefs he had to betray in order to demonstrate his support to his father. "My support for Saif was always conditional on him resolving the dilemma that he faced in a progressive and democratic direction. The speech makes it abundantly clear that his commitment to transforming his country has been overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in."

Held remembers Saif as man with a curiosity for knowledge and a huge appetite for reading and learning. "He always wanted to test arguments for his views, always wanted to engage in dialogue," said Held. But the professor was appalled by the contrast between the relaxed, charming student who took a masters in comparative politics at LSE and a PhD in philosophy and the man who scorned protesters on Monday, talking of "drunkards and thugs" driving tanks about the streets of Benghazi.

"I was appalled to see him on the television. That young man was not the person I knew: the funny, witty man who, while always guarded about his family, was always willing to talk frankly with me about the fundamental questions about his own country and the Middle East in general," said Held. "Saif arrived at the LSE very set in his opinions. I was of the view that here was a relatively unformed young man, struggling to make sense of his life as a member of the Gaddafi family and someone who was also increasingly aware that the democratic reform of his country was essential to its continued existence. Over a period of time, however, he showed every sign of being committed not just to opening up his country but reforming it on liberal democratic principles."

Held pointed out that, far from just talking the talk, Saif put his newfound beliefs into action. He played a key role in opening Libya to the west, in helping to disarm his country when it looked capable of developing a nuclear programme, and in coming to a settlement over the Lockerbie plane bombing. When campaigning organisation Human Rights Watch planned to launch its report on Libya from Cairo, Saif arranged for its staff to present the report in the country's second biggest city, Benghazi.

"The Saif I came to know was one committed to strong liberal values and democratic standards," Held said. "He looked very much to Britain and to the US for inspiration and he certainly was passionately committed to constitutional reform of his country, the rule of law, to democratic elections and to human rights.

"After his speech on Monday, there is no way now in which he can be a credible agent of reform. He was developing a set of democratic and liberal beliefs and he was putting those into practice. He saw them as seeds – as a stepping stone for the reform of his country...The only way I can make sense of his speech is that the speed of change in the Middle East has caught him unawares and overwhelmed him. The position he has taken compromised him in every way, and made him the enemy of ideals he once proclaimed."

Let me say that, had I been in Professor Held's shoes, I'd have done the same things. As an academic with limited sway, how else do you help normalize the rest of the world's relations with a country like Libya? Also, Saif al-Islam Qadhafi's foundation has done a lot of good work that most Westerners don't often recognize. Take the Telegraph (please). For instance, in our part of the world, it has helped broker reconciliation talks in the restive Southern Philippines between Christians and Muslims. In this day and age, must a son be identified as being one and the same as the father?

They say that truth is stranger than fiction, but it seems that truth has emulated fiction in the rather sad case of Saif al-Islam Qadhafi. Despite the best intentions--and you know what they say about those--he's come undone by events that culminated in an ill-judged TV appearance, to say the least. Say what you will about the LSE, but it's usually never dull when you're at the epicentre of global events.

UPDATE 1: Some of our militant students have made a sit-in protest demanding that the LSE return the £300,000 contributed by Saif al-Islam Qadhafi's foundation and that his alumni status be revoked.

UPDATE 2: Aside from being slow on affairs in this part of the world in typical American commentariat fashion, Martin Peretz fails to make distinctions made above.

Let the PRC Fund (Broke) US Primary Schools

We see in China things we used to see in ourselves...can do, initiative...that used to be us! - Thomas Friedman

I've been watching the BBC's interesting series The Chinese are Coming documenting the effects of China's rise on the continents of Africa [episode 1], South America and North America [episode 2]. Sorry readers outside the UK, these are supposed to be only available to local viewers--but that should give you a clue about what to do if you really want to watch. Display some Chinese-style initiative instead of American-style La-Z-Boy sloth.

This blog has long featured stories on China's activities in Africa and its associated controversies. More recently, I discussed the emergence of "bikini wars" between Brazil and China based on a story that comes from the second episode of this documentary. It turns out that, aside from Thomas Friedman dumping on how pathetic America has become--plenty obvious even for that flat earther--even primary school has become an ideological background of sorts.

If there is a world that best characterizes American finances, it's "broke." These wastrels of the West are set to run a $1.5 trillion deficit in 2010 according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), while the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) predicts a $1.645 trillion deficit. Meanwhile, the state of California where this educational battle is being waged is not only the largest state in the union but the most fiscally challenged as well according to a watchdog group. Good luck with that, you'll need it:

In 2007 California stared down a $14 billion budget deficit; in 2008 the deficit hit $18 billion; in 2009 it jumped to $24 billion; and by this year we were attempting to close a relatively manageable $19 billion deficit [???]. Every year the budget was way overdue and every year the governor and legislature cobbled together a flimsy mix of spending cuts, some well hidden tax increases and accounting gimmicks that papered over another year of deficits, and every year the state’s political leadership seemed like they were right back at square one when the fiscal year end rolled around in June. History is repeating itself once again at the Legislative Analyst Office is projecting California’s deficit for 2011 will be $25.4 billion, which is twice as large as officials were expecting. With a new governor taking office and an economy that could improve somewhat over the course of the next year, is there any reason to hope that California’s broken record won’t keep on playing the same terrible song?

Now to the meat of this story: California is massively overstretched, and the same trend generally holds in its K-12 educational system which is mediocre in typical modern American fashion. Last year, a Chinese-American school board president in LA, Jay Chen, decided to do something productive and incorporate Chinese language teaching in his school district. Given the way this world is going, it certainly seemed like a good idea. However, controversy soon surrounded the source of some of the funding Chen procured. You guessed it: the PRC government helped fund these programmes by making them available through its consulate. His opponents are now trying to pull a Gray Davis on him. From the Associated Press:

Four members of a suburban school board are being targeted in a recall effort over their support for a middle-school language program funded by the Chinese government, one of the members said Friday. Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen said he and the three other members of the five-member panel were being served with notices of intent to circulate recall petitions, each signed by 12 residents of Hacienda Heights in east Los Angeles County.

Chen, along with board members Norman Hsu, Joseph Chang and Anita Perez, voted last year to approve the agreement with China's international language-teaching agency to cooperate on the so-called Confucius Classroom Mandarin program. Under the program, which already is in place at dozens of other schools across the United States, the district was to receive $30,000 a year for language and culture programs at Cedarlane Middle School, along with some 1,000 textbooks, CDs and other educational materials.

The program attracted scorn from some community members, who have said at board meetings it was a vehicle to indoctrinate students with communist ideology and other foreign influences. The recall petition served to Chen claims he "believes that the United States will be subservient to China and manipulates students to serve China's government," among other claims.

Chen said he was surprised that a program as seemingly innocuous as Confucius Classroom would inspire such rancor. "I do sense a strain of xenophobia and even racism," he said. "There's a real fear of China that permeates some of the allegations." He added that most of the Confucius Classroom opponents do not have children in the school district, and the program is generally popular among parents and teachers...

Chen said he believed the recall effort was prompted by a recent vote to approve the teaching materials for classroom use. School officials had previously decided to refuse the $30,000 grant amid the strong community resistance. They also turned down an offer to have the Chinese government place a teaching assistant in Cedarlane and pay his or her salary...

Chen Zhunmin, who directs the Chinese consulate's education office in Los Angeles, said Hacienda Heights was the only community he has encountered where the Confucius Classroom program has stoked controversy. He said many schools have contacted the consulate seeking to set up programs. "Confucius Classroom has nothing to do with ideology," he said. "Its primary role has to do with the teaching of language and also to promote mutual understanding."

There are a whole lot more of these stories about Cederlane if you're interested. So as it turns out, the Chinese government has already been funding many of these innocuous Confucius Classroom programmes in US public schools. Like Jay Chen, I do sense xenophobia and racism. Maybe even some tiger parenting fears thrown in for good measure.

The ironic thing is that, regardless of what this school district decides to do, the PRC government has already lent the US federal government billions and billions that trickles down to US states anyway via "stimulus packages" and the like. So, here's my general advice to the broke United States of America, its broke states, and its broke municipalities: If you can't beat China, you might as well join it and not object so much about where the money is coming from. After all, America has long lost the ability to fend for itself.

Heck, the American K-12 system could probably be improved if it were run by the Chinese lock, stock and barrel. Perhaps they'll succeed in educating Americans since Americans can't do that basic task themselves.

Hedgie John Paulson, 21st Century Robber Baron?

What could be less likely to produce useful generalizations than a debate over vaguely defined moral issues based on unexamined ideological assumptions and presuppositions? - John Chandler, author of The Visible Hand

Outrageous fortunes tend to elicit suspicions of how they were amassed. In American history, this phenomenon is crystallized by the so-called "robber barons" prominent at the turn of the 20th century. Their names should be familiar to people the world over: John D. Rockefeller, Andre Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Leland Stanford, and so on. Something these folks and their kin have done to take the sting from public scrutiny of how they amassed their wealth is to create foundations and sometimes institutions of higher education. Even today we have the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and the JP Morgan Foundation, Meanwhile, Rockefeller also founded the University of Chicago, while Stanford did the same with his eponymous education institution.

The intersection of money and academia is of great interest to me personally for obvious reasons. Contrary to popular beliefs that academics are more interested in prestige or knowledge than wealth, I am often surprised how those in academia are among the worst money grubbers you'll find. There are certainly odd examples to be found. For instance, so many years after Enron became the very symbol of American corporate malfeasance, the University of Houston still awards--get this--the Enron Teaching Excellence award. Instructors also very much welcome chaired professorships. If you thought winning an Enron prize for excellence in anything was bad enough, the University of Missouri has a Kenneth Lay Chair in Economics. Malodorous dead company or malodorous dead guy--pick your poison, but it's still money either way. (A former American colleague tells me of someone offered the Playboy Enterprises Chair [!] who turned the offer down since he was a family man, but I sometimes doubt the veracity of this story even if it does make for great dinnertime conversation for academics,)

Anyway, just as episodes of corporate malfeasance symbolized by Enron were symptomatic of the excesses of the dot-com bust, so do we have our superstar hedge fund managers of today who are in serious need of...image rehabilitation. Like the robber barons of yore, John Paulson has made an outrageous fortune--in his case by taking out credit default swaps against issuers of subprime mortgages. The $15 billion he netted has been called The Greatest Trade Ever. The lustre of this move has dimmed somewhat with the revelation that Goldman Sachs offered a package of securities that Paulson shorted unknowingly to its buyers, but hey, read John Chandler's caveat above. Certainly, Paulson has his share of defenders in much the same way vultures have their defenders in the fauna food pyramid:

It’s widely accepted that while short sellers of stock are despised by corporate America, they serve a useful purpose. They enable people who don’t believe CEOs’ happy talk to put their money where their scepticism is. You may not believe the stock (or house prices) are a bubble, but those who think they are serve to restrain valuations by betting against them. In the process, they actually mitigate bubbles. One of the structural shortcomings of the housing market is that it is quite hard to short; houses are illiquid and heterogenous. This, all else equal, makes housing more inefficient and prone to bubbles. Arguably, devices that addressed this market flaw made the market more efficient. (Like Mr Sorkin, I am ignoring for the moment the legal question of whether Goldman made the right disclosures in marketing its synthetic CDO.)

Moralizing aside, I was reading my copy of the LSE employee newsletter when, lo and behold, I discovered that John Paulson was trying to cover his name in glory (or so he may think) by associating himself with our school. To remove the possible tarnish of dirty trading tactics, his pre-emptive strike is to fund a unit investigating Europe's role in combating financial crisis. It's interesting timing, of course, given that other hedge fund managers are using lower key tactics in taking advantage of EU turmoil. Maybe it's his way of washing his hands of the matter. Having had run-ins with US authorities already during the subprime fiasco, what better way to wash his hands of the matter as troubles head to Europe and its even more busybody lawmakers and civil servants...for the paltry sum of £2.5 million?

Paulson & Co. founder, John A. Paulson has donated more than £2.5 million to fund new research and teaching on Europe's unique role in the post-crisis financial world at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The gift will establish the John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy, a position which will be occupied by a leading scholar who combines expertise in finance, policy and the European Union with the reputation to speak to a global audience.

The chair will be located in LSE's European Institute which applies a broad range of academic disciplines to understand Europe's complex and developing role in the world. This comes at a time when the euro crisis has focused attention not only on the currency's future but also on how EU governments can restructure their politics, economies and social affairs in response. It is hoped the holder of the chair will be able to take up the appointment in September. The donation also includes funding for an associated five-year research programme.

Question their methods but robber barons of a century ago left behind buildings, railroads, universities, and so forth. What will the current generation of budding industrialists (de-industrialists?) leave behind? I'll bet John Paulson is giving it some thought as evidenced by his donation to the LSE. Fair enough. And I certainly wouldn't mind being the John Paulson Chair in International Political Economy one day [just kidding--but only just ;-)].

OECD on Education: Chinese Bury US Students

About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

One of the signature statements of the Cold War was Nikita Khrushchev saying the above phrase to Western diplomats in 1956. While it was certainly enjoyable bluster alike his alleged shoe-banging incident at the UN General Assembly four years later, let's say that history was not on his side. However, let's now turn to an altogether different sort of command economy of the "market authoritarian" sort.

Call it Michael Fay syndrome. I needn't remind readers about the pitiful performance of the American educational system or "K-12" from kindergarten to the twelfth grade. High school leavers' continuously declining performance is certainly no reason to be optimistic about the decrepitude of American education. In international comparisons, American pupils underwhelm--to put it mildly. Now, the OECD has just released its 2009 edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) comparing the performance of 15-year-old students from 65 countries on a standardized test with reading, science, and math portions. While the 2006 edition flagged up the unsurprisingly poor performance of the United States, let's say things haven't gotten much better overall. Despite marginal improvements, the overall picture remains the same. In comparison to its peers, the US lags.

More embarrassingly, this is the first edition of the PISA to include evaluations of students from mainland China. (Note that this is being done for comparison purposes, not because China is an OECD member.) While students from Hong Kong have routinely kicked Yankee student butt for years, we now understand that the youth from the town of Shanghai do a pretty damn good job of doing the same (not that it's so hard given the bedraggled state of modern America). The table above from the Sydney Morning Herland should ram home this point: the sample of Shanghainese students are tops in reading, science, and math. In comparison, their Yankee peers are...near or below OECD average in all three areas. From the Christian Science Monitor:

The latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released Tuesday by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show Asian students – particularly those from China, who participated in the exam for the first time in 2009 – at the top of the pack, with the United States generally in the middle or, in math, toward the bottom.

“We are in the middle of the pack; that’s not where we want to be,” said Stuart Kerachsky, deputy commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, in a call with reporters. “That’s not the goal, but all I see in these numbers is things maybe inching in the right direction.”

The test is given to 15-year-old students in dozens of countries around the world every three years, and aims to assess their reading, math, and science literacy as they prepare to enter college or the workforce. It has long been used in the US to raise alarm bells about American students falling behind in a global world.

And indeed, the most striking result from the 2009 PISA may be the top performance of Chinese students, who participated in the exam for the first time with a pilot program that tested students in several cities. Mr. Kerachsky and others cautioned not to read too much into the comparisons, since they are from cities – those which draw many of China’s top students – and are hardly representative of all of China. But the results from Shanghai, in particular, which came out No. 1 in all three subject areas, were remarkably high.

In math, for instance, Shanghai students scored an average of 600 (on a scale with a 500-point average). Students in Korea, the top OECD country, scored a 546, and in the United States, they scored 487. That score puts them in 25th place among the 34 OECD countries, though the score is statistically lower than just 17 of those countries, and indistinguishable from 11 others.

American students scored below the OECD average of 496. The countries outperforming the US include Finland – perennially a top-shower on PISA, along with Korea – Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, France, and the Slovak Republic, among others. US students scored higher than those in just five OECD countries: Greece, Israel, Turkey, Chile, and Mexico.

Yes, you can complain that Shanghai isn't representative of the educational performance of China as a whole. Then again, why not get American students from the largest US cities of New York or Los Angeles to participate and I'd still wager that the kids from Shanghai will utterly demolish the US kids. The thankful difference between Cold War-era Soviet Union and China is simple: unlike Khrushchev and others full of his sort of bluster, the Chinese don't really brag about their achievements, preferring to be low-key about them. But on a day like this, the world wakes up and realizes that Chinese students seem to be leaving their American brethren far behind in terms of academic performance. With so many near-insolvent US states left with few choices but to cut education budgets, I am not optimistic about future US performance in international education comparisons like PISA.

I do look forward to these OECD reports that tell us what we already suspect but now have hard evidence to back up. Yes, Americans are getting fat as all get-out. And now, yes, American kids aren't exactly the brightest. So actually Nikita, as American students demonstrate, there's no need to bury America. It's doing a pretty damn good job burying itself.

Welcome to British Higher Education "Apartheid"

Ah, student protests turning into violence. These have now happened on three separate occasions in the UK: November 10 featured the break-in of Conservative headquarters. November 24 had more of the same in the general vicinity. There's a distinctly Sixties whiff about them as 153 protesters were arrested while protesting at Trafalgar Square on Tuesday. What's more, these incidences are going on all over England. Now, British higher education is arguably the world's next best after that of the United States. However, dire financial times may have direr consequences for universities in the UK than those in the US. Why? Simple: nearly all higher education institutions worth their salt in the UK are public institutions, while there are far more private ones in the US. Hence, when the coalition government goes on a budget-cutting spree here, next to none worthy of note are exempted...in England. So even if cash-strapped American states reel in spending on their public universities--most notably California--it doesn't affect the likes of Ivy League universities or their ilk.

Followers of British politics know that the legislative processes in the UK have been undergoing "devolution" since 1999 that transfers rulemaking to the national [England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland] level. That is, the likes of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament have more discretion over any number of matters--including education, particularly higher education. (For overseas readers, the Beeb has a neat primer on what areas have and have not been devolved such as national security.) This peculiarity of British politics is making for interesting times when it comes to the cost of attending university.

As you most probably know, the coalition is implementing measures moving towards the removal of caps on university fees. Not so long ago, university students were bellyaching about the ceiling being raised to £3000-some a year. Now, the coalition is in the process of removing ceilings altogether and charging home students the same as non-EU students, i.e., the full fare of £9000 and above. This change has been particularly challenging for the Liberal Democrat minority coalition partners. They bear the brunt since, prior to the elections several signed off on a pledge not to raise tuition fees. The interesting thing, however, is that the Welsh and the Scots are not following suit. So, not only are English students aggrieved by these fee rises, but they feel hard done by since others in the UK will not have them. Cue education "apartheid":

Thousands of students clashed with police in London in the third major protest against the fee rises, with children as young as 10 joining the marchers. Further demonstrations took place in Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol...A group of up to 200 people was eventually surrounded in Trafalgar Square and refused to leave. Graffiti was daubed on public statues and fires lit at the base of Nelson's Column as missiles were thrown at riot police.

Meanwhile it emerged that the English face a university education "apartheid" after Welsh students were told they would be exempt from a sharp rise in tuition fees. The Welsh Assembly government announced that it would heavily subsidise the degree courses of about 90,000 students each year, even if they studied at universities in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

It means that Welsh students will pay about £3,200 a year to attend university, while the English will be charged up to £9,000 under Coalition reforms. English students taking courses at Welsh universities will still have to pay full fees. The disclosure led to claims last night that English taxpayers would effectively be subsidising cheaper courses for Welsh undergraduates.

At present, the Welsh Assembly receives an annual grant of £15 billion from the Treasury to fund devolved services including health, education and housing. Spending per head was about £5,500 this year, compared with £4,800 in England. The Welsh announcement coincided with growing conflict in the Coalition over higher education policy...

Yesterday, Leighton Andrews, the Welsh Education Minister, said universities in Wales would be able to increase tuition fees to £9,000, but students from the country would not be expected to bear the extra cost. Instead, they will pay the same fees in 2012 as they did this year, with the Welsh administration subsidising courses.

"The public purse will continue to subsidise higher education for Welsh domiciled students," said Mr Andrews. "Higher education should be on the basis of the individual's potential to benefit and not on the basis of what they can afford to pay." He claimed the fee reforms would be funded by cutting the direct teaching grant for Welsh universities. Some 69,690 Welsh students currently study in their home country and another 18,475 in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But wait, it gets even better--if you're a Scottish student, that is. For, they may yet to continue with current policies that allow Scottish students free attendance to university:

The threat of a tuition fee "apartheid" affecting English students is heightened by the situation in Scotland. Scottish students do not pay tuition fees, although a discussion document on possible reforms to the system will be published in coming weeks.

So the English will effectively be subsidizing Welsh students, the charge goes. Their universities will maintain fees near the $3000 level. Consider that Welsh institutions include some of the UK's best alike Aberystwyth and Cardiff and that's a pretty good deal. Meanwhile, it's sweeter still if the Scots keep their universities free for Scottish students or raise them slightly. St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, etc. are undoubtedly quality institutions.

Apartheid thus takes two forms: First, it's your misfortune being English and being at or near the age for applying to university just when fee rises will come into effect. Second, English taxpayers may actually be subsidizing other nation's students. It's not-so-fun stuff, and it certainly points out challenges in devolution. While meant to increase local discretion, it does have the potential to raise equity issues of who gets what education when and where.

Methinks the nagging question is why jobs are hard to come by for newly-minted graduates. It should be the focus of attention rather than going to obtain a university degree that doesn't necessarily promise employment thereafter.

Do You Want Fries With That US College Degree?

You've got to hand it to our American friends when it comes to exporting thigh-slapping, mock-serious deadpan humour. Take their econocomedian of a finance minister Tim Geithner with his utterly riotous "Strong Dollar" slapstick routine. Or, if you prefer something more tragicomic, consider the "American Dream" of home ownership that led to the subprime crisis that's messed up the world economy in the process. (Home prices never fall continuously, right?) For kicks, you can also try that Horatio Alger-ish "Land of Opportunity" howler in the OECD country with the second lowest level of income mobility next to one where they still call people "Sir," "Lord," and "Your Majesty." So, there are excellent reasons why Leslie Nielsen hails from America where they perfect this brand of deadpan humour given such patently absurd material to delude themselves with day in and day out.

Today, however, let's consider another truism that will have you rolling on the floor laughing (unless you're a newly minted US college graduate), the "University is the Key to Lifetime Success" shtick. Noted labour economist Andrew Sum offers this lowdown on the prospects of college grads after the US-induced subprime fiasco:

Young college educated workers, particularly those 25 and under, however, have not fared very well over the past three years. They have experienced rising joblessness, underemployment, and malemployment problems (i.e. working in jobs that do not require a college degree). During the January-August period of 2010, we estimate that fewer than 50 of every 100 young B.A.-holders held a job requiring a college degree.

And then come the structural problems that, to me, are highly reminiscent of certain European countries:

This growing problem of malemployment and joblessness among young college graduates has a number of dire economic effects on both the graduates themselves and many other young adults across the country. Those college graduates working in jobs that do not require college degrees are earning substantially less per week (30-40 percent less) than their peers who work in jobs that require college degrees. These substantially lower weekly earnings reduce the private and social economic return to college education for such individuals to close to zero. The presence of large numbers of jobless and malemployed young college graduates provides adverse signals to younger high school students contemplating whether to attend college especially among males living in lower income communities. The non-college labor market jobs obtained by these young graduates displace less educated young adults from employment, increasing joblessness among young adults with only a year or two of college or among high school graduates. This rising degree of malemployment among young college graduates, thus, has adverse consequences on the rest of society, pushing down the growth of real output and employment, wages, and earnings of the non-college educated. There is a critical need for national, state, and local political and educational policymakers and administrators to address this growing labor market problem.

This, of course, comes on top of steadily decreasing incomes among those who've pursued higher education. What to do? For those contemplating college, it's obviously important to look at labour market trends and ensure that you wind up with qualifications for occupations where they're still hiring. (Some of which do not necessarily require a college degree.) For those already with a degree who have trouble finding work, look abroad. And for public policy? I have begun suggesting an American iteration of the PRC's one child policy given the bleak US landscape. A still-growing population + few employment prospects = bad mojo.

Like almost everything else about America, you've been sold...a whopper.

≈70 Applicants per Job: Is College in UK Worth It?

It's galling to yours truly as a university instructor in this day and age that my job may increasingly involve telling prospective students that a university degree is not all that it's cracked up to be. While it may be the honest thing to say, it certainly doesn't help generate demand for my services. However, since this blog is supposed to be the International Political Economy Zone, not the Parochial Factually Challenged Zone, let me bring up yet another chink in the armour of those who believe a college degree opens endless doors of opportunity. One strand concerns ever-diminishing returns to a college education in many places--paying more for a 3- or 4-year degree to get less in terms of salary. Another strand--also very relevant--concerns too many college-educated applicants chasing too few jobs requiring a university degree.

Earlier on, I discussed Manpower's fascinating worldwide employer survey that suggests many in-demand jobs nowadays do not require a college degree but technical or vocational training. As it so happens, another survey by the British Association of Graduate Recruiters composed of major firms doing business here points out that competition is exceedingly fierce for newly-minted graduates. The AGR Graduate Recruitment Summer Survey 2010 notes that each vacancy will now be contested by nearly 70 persons. It's certainly not the most appealing jobs picture.

For those of us in Britain at least, read the press blurb and weep. There is, actually, a massive glut of college graduates already out there:

The number of graduate vacancies has fallen by nearly 7% this year [2010] according to the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), which published the summer edition of its bi-annual survey today (Tuesday 6 July), on the final day of its annual conference. Today’s reported decrease follows a drop of 8.9% in 2009. The median graduate starting salary has also failed to rise and remains at the 2008 figure of £25,000.

The drop in vacancies has caused a corresponding increase in the number of applications for each much sought-after graduate job — the average now stands at 69 for every vacancy, compared to 49 last year and 31 in 2008. This is due not only to a decrease in jobs but also to the number of graduate job seekers being swollen by 2007 and 2008 graduates who have yet to find work and an understandable move on the part of graduates to send off more applications during a downturn. Graduate recuiters have responded by retreating to the safety of the minimum 2.1 degree selection criterion in order to cope with the influx. The AGR survey shows 78% of employers now insist on this as opposed to 67% in 2008.

Carl Gilleard, Chief Executive of the AGR, said: “Two consecutive years of decreases in vacancy levels is a familiar pattern during an economic downturn and this latest fall mirrors the two-year drop in graduate vacancies prompted by the dot.com crash in 2001/02. Employers’ earlier predictions for this year’s recruitment season have turned out to be somewhat premature in their optimism and today’s findings suggest that the recovery is going to be slower than previously thought.

"Recruiters are under intense pressure this year dealing with a huge number of applications from graduates for a diminishing pool of jobs. Those of our members who took part in the survey reported a total of 686,660 applications since the beginning of the 2010 recruitment campaign. It is hardly surprising then that the number of employers asking for a 2.1 degree has shot up by 11 percentage points. However, while this approach does aid the sifting process it can rule out promising candidates with the right work skills unnecessarily. We are encouraging our members to look beyond the degree classification when narrowing down the field of candidates to manageable proportions.”

Again, the overall point is that a college degree is not an automatic ticket to success in finding and keeping remunerative employment. Diligent folks will do their homework in seeing the issue of which training to undertake as a question of supply and demand. How can I equip myself with skills that others will pay good money for? Some people unquestioningly buy the hoopla of college; others should be more circumspect. For instance, despite their lack of glamour, why not take an apprenticeship in a trade with known shortages and hence future demand for skilled workers?

Apprenticeships, which are likely to expand under the coalition government, might provide an alternative career path for some students, the survey noted. [ACR chief executive] Gilleard acknowledged there was snobbery about apprenticeships, but said the children of the middle classes should not assume they had to get a degree to succeed. "I think many middle class parents are actually questioning, is this [a degree] the right route that my son or daughter should follow.

"Too many young people go [to university] because it's expected of them, and they don't think it through from a personal perspective – what will it be like, apart from having a good time."

So yes, the UK government is apparently keen on promoting apprenticeships. Snobbery aside, it's time others considered doing so, too. I will try and bring you more on the situation in other countries, but the larger implications remain: Think for yourself. You are not a lemming.

The Knowledge Worker Myth vs Blue Collar Reality

Never let it be said that there's no art to blogging. Alike in the offline world, there are talented folks who know how to weave a compelling narrative out of a mundane story, and there are those who weave a mundane narrative out of a compelling story. Today, I will of course try for the former--as I always do ;-) IMHO, something that separates a good blogger from a pedestrian one is an eye for something everyone else misses...

Once more demonstrating that you don't have to look far for IPE-relevant material, I came across this featured story on Yahoo!'s front page yesterday. There it was staring me in the face: a pretty damning indictment of what I've been taught all my life. Like me, you probably grew up in a generation that disdained blue collar work. That is, work which actually involves physical exertion and being good with one's hands has been frowned upon. It is not that these biases were made up on our own; our parents also had a role in drumming in the message that "manual labour" was something dirty. Hence, many of you are also of a generation told that lawyers, bankers, businessmen, and the like had it made. The white collar life was supposed to promise the land of milk and honey.

Certainly, academia has had an interest in propagating this story since it provides fodder for ensuring a steady stream of tuition-paying students in law, commerce, and business. Various American commentators like former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan have constructed an entire narrative out of "knowledge workers." In recent times, that has meant training to be a software engineer or some other lofty position that makes the most of conceptualizing abstract ideas and similarly high-faluting rhetoric. The truth, though, is much less compelling. Take America (please). Not only are there scores of unemployed college graduates there, but wages of college graduates have been on a downward trend since 2000. So much for the college myth.

The aforementioned Reuters article rubs it in further by pointing out that, actually, the skills which are most in demand worldwide are not those requiring fancy college degrees but fairly "mundane" blue-collar certification:

Workers with specialized skills like electricians, carpenters and welders are in critically short supply in many large economies, a shortfall that marks another obstacle to the global economic recovery, a research paper by Manpower Inc (MAN.N) concludes. "It becomes a real choke-point in future economic growth," Manpower Chief Executive Jeff Joerres said. "We believe strongly this is really an issue in the labor market."

The global staffing and employment services company says employers, governments and trade groups need to collaborate on strategic migration policies that can alleviate such worker shortages. Skilled work is usually specific to a given location: the work cannot move, so the workers have to.

The shortage of skilled workers is the No. 1 or No. 2 hiring challenge in six of the 10 biggest economies, Manpower found in a recent survey of 35,000 employers. Skilled trades were the top area of shortage in 10 of 17 European countries, according to the survey.

While the short-term way to address to shortages is to embrace migration, the long-term solution is to change attitudes toward skilled trades, Manpower argues. Since the 1970s, parents have been told that a university degree -- and the entry it affords into the so-called knowledge economy -- was the only track to a financially secure profession. But all of the skilled trades offer a career path with an almost assured income, Joerres said, and make it possible to open one's own business.

In the United States, recession and persistent high unemployment may lead parents and young people entering the workforce to reconsider their options. The skilled trades category also includes jobs like bricklayers, cabinet makers, plumbers and butchers, jobs that typically require a specialist's certification.

Older, experienced workers are retiring and their younger replacements often do not have the right training because their schools are out of touch with modern business needs. Also contributing to the shortage is social stigma attached to such work, Manpower argues in its paper published on Wednesday.

A poll of 15-year-olds by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found only one in 10 American teenagers see themselves in a blue-collar job at age 30. The proportion was even lower in Japan. Education could address that stigma. Students should be reminded that blue-collar work can be lucrative: skilled plumbers can make upwards of $75,000 a year, Manpower argues. Overall, Manpower's fifth annual talent shortage survey found 31 percent of employers worldwide are having difficulty filling positions due to the lack of suitable workers available in their markets, up one percentage point over last year...

And there's also the problem of developed countries reluctance to accept more migrants despite a lack of workers with the requisite skills:

Examples of successful, targeted migration include an Ohio shipbuilder that brought in experienced workers from Mexico and Croatia, and a French metal-parts maker that hired Manpower to find welders in Poland.

Obstacles to such migration include differing standards for certification in skilled trades, as well as political barriers to immigration, which remains an "emotive" subject in many countries, Manpower's CEO said. Japanese employers, for example, have difficulty attracting skilled workers. Sweden, on the other hand, is innovative and aggressive about strategic migration, for example by removing obstacles to workers being recertified in their specialty, Joerres said.

Coming from a country that is a large sender of migrants, I myself work on these issues of international certification and similar qualifications. In the end, all I ask is that we be allowed to compete on a level playing field despite obvious disadvantages of relative poverty and the need to traverse often vast distances away from hearth and home. For obvious reasons, though, many of those in the West would rather not extend the opportunity to foreigners to compete for qualifications on similar terms. I prefer to think that hard work will help me overcome prejudices in a white man's world.

At any rate, do read the Manpower publication Strategic Migration - A Short-Term Solution to the Skilled Trades Shortage discussed in the article above as it is quite illuminating, Manpower certainly knows its business as it is the second largest staffing company in the world. While lifting limits on migration in order to combat global slowdown is certainly of interest to me, the fact that much-maligned blue collar work is actually what's in short supply should be a wake-up call to others. Perhaps higher education is a fraud foisted on me that I've helped perpetuate. It's not a comforting thought, but hey, sometimes the truth hurts but needs to be told.

* * *
On my walk home, I usually pass Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Dirty Dancing, and Legally Blonde. Obviously, the Brits are fond of making musicals out of blockbuster movies. Guess what's opening soon in London's theatre district? I kid you not: Flashdance: The Musical [!] Critics have always disparaged this movie and its plot that beggars belief. IMDB's plot summary sums it up nicely:

Alex Owens is a female dynamo: steel worker by day, exotic dancer by night. Her dream is to get into a real dance company, though, and with encouragement from her boss/boyfriend, she may get her chance. The city of Pittsburgh co-stars. What a feeling!

OK, so I too thought Flashdance was more of a vehicle for the 80s soundtrack than the other way around. The new musical is in the same vein: more a platform for catchy 80s songs than plot-driven drama. Still, it begs the question: if a musical featuring a hackneyed tale about a welder can be made into a London musical, what is there stopping blue collar trades from being made "glamorous" as well? It's a task of changing perceptions that begins with parents who influence their offspring's career choices. I personally believe that unemployment is unglamorous, so the blue collar stigma is undeserved.

Ultimately, perhaps it's those of us with degrees in higher education who are the real dummies. Moreover, I suspect this world would be a much better place if there were more welders than, say, investment bankers--whether they choose to be exotic dancers at night or otherwise. Young son or daughter, in the immortal words of, er, Irene Cara, take your passion...and make it happen.

UPDATE: Kindred over at IPE@UNC suggests that I was mistaken over a "few facts" about US income trends. Now Kindred's a good kid, but he is wet behind the ears as he tends to put words in my mouth and gets embarrassed for it. Anyway, I decided to look up the numbers for myself instead of relying on other's charts. Below are the figures for US income for those 25 and up for the years 2000 to 2008 from US Census Bureau tables P-16 and P-18. It doesn't matter whether it's the mean or the median or if you're male or female; real annual income has been falling there since 2000. It doesn't matter either if you're a college graduate or have a higher educational attainment [click to enlarge image]:

I guess the furriner is more familiar with US stats than the American. Also at grad school, you are taught not to compare apples and oranges, but he does so by quoting another data series and naively suggesting differences have something to do with using "mean" and not "median" data. The table above should shelve that schoolboy howler (and I even use the same data series!) Maybe Kindred should visit Singapore for I suspect the educational standard there isn't declining as markedly as it is in America. R-E-A-D-I-N-G comprehension suggests this post is about college prospects post-(US led) financial crisis, so there you go with regard to time frames. Oh well, it's good he at least recognizes income there isn't rising unlike before. As an educator, I find patience with the recalcitrant to be a virtue. Lastly, the point Manpower makes is that there are technical and vocational degrees that stand you a good chance of landing a job while there are many college degrees that don't. Again for the S-L-O-W learner, it's not college vs. non-college but in-demand technical or vocational degree vs. not-in-demand college degree. And don't get me started on this being a worldwide survey instead of another boringly parochial American one.

You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to put one over ol' Emmanuel, Wizened IPE Buzzard ;-)

"I've Kent Right!" US vs Singaporean Education

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization - Georges Clemenceau

[NOTE: This is the second of two posts on Singapore and the United States.] Blogging is truly rewarding nowadays as the United States is receiving its proper comeuppance for severe indiscipline on a daily basis. It's good to be vindicated. In the end, it doesn't matter who you are; you eventually reap the misery that you sow. Here, though, I would like to focus on the state of education in the United States as it captures a poignant picture of American decay. I've been meaning to post this for quite some time, but a new report arrived to bolster the argument that US education is headed down the tubes like the rest of it.

Deficit fetishists will of course suggest that chronic budgetary shortfalls don't matter. However, with nearly all US states on the brink of financial ruin, it is no surprise that schoolteachers are facing the axe lest the federal government ante up more debt to dump on future generations in typical American fashion. Yet, the damning thing is that lawmakers are not trying to improve the US educational system but to stem further declines. For, the state of US education is in a truly sad state.

The first shoe to drop came about this same time last year. It was reported that average scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), a test required many colleges to gauge the ability of high school finishers to study at the tertiary level, fell after several years of stagnation:

High-school students' performance last year on the SAT college-entrance exam fell slightly, and the score gap generally widened between lower-performing minority groups and white and Asian-American students, raising questions about the effectiveness of national education reform efforts.

Average scores for the class of 2009 in critical reading dropped to 501 from 502, in writing to 493 from 494 and held steady in math, at 515. The combined scores are the lowest this decade and reflect stalled performance over the past three years. The reading scores are the worst since 1994.

Many observers Tuesday viewed the flat results of recent years as discouraging in light of a more than 25-year effort to improve U.S. education. "This is a nearly unrelenting tale of woe and disappointment," said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "If there's any good news here, I can't find it."

Good job, America. What's this, "All Children (Except Asians) Left Behind"? Certainly, it looks like things are getting worse in an already highly racialized and inequitable society. I am particularly baffled by the excuse that inclusion of more Latino test takers resulting in lower scores is encouraging just because they're taking SATs. Given impending demographic trends in America, raising their scores should be a priority. If these numbers weren't bad enough already, more recent scores from the American Collegiate Test (ACT) depict an even more despairing result. Insofar as many high school graduates are required to take ACT instead of those just aspiring to go to college, ACT may be more representative:

"High schools are the downfall of American school reform," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington. "We haven't figured out how to improve them on a broad scope and if our kids aren't dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally."

President Barack Obama has said the nation's long-term prosperity depends on fixing the nation's high schools and preparing students to compete in a global economy. A recent study [by the OECD] found the U.S. ranks only 12th in the percentage of adults aged 25 to 34 who hold college degrees, and Mr. Obama has set a goal of becoming No. 1.

To accomplish its aims, the administration will need to finesse the co-operation of the powerful teacher's unions, Congress, parents and local school officials—groups that aren't always on the same page when it comes to education reform...The average ACT composite score has actually fallen since 2007, after increasing during the five-year period before that. This year, the average composite was 21.0, compared with 21.1 last year and 21.2 in 2007. The test is scored on a 1-36 point scale [my emphasis].

So far so bad, but that's not surprising at all given the subject matter here. What can we offer in contrast to this utterly predictable tale of woe? I humbly suggest that America's leaders look towards educationally progressive Singapore. Sometime ago, Tom Davenport of the Harvard Business Review blog thought that the city-state was a model of judgment for the US. Unlike America, Singapore places a high value on education and actually does something about it:

Singapore is obsessed with education — not just for children, but throughout life. Another of its declared challenges is, "How to design job-training programmes and wage supplement schemes for low-income older workers?" The country tops the ranks of educational achievement regularly. While it was once justifiably criticized for emphasizing rote learning, it has introduced programs that encourage creativity.

There will of course be objections that the Singaporean example is not applicable to the United States given the latter's diversity. But guess what? Singapore is also a melting pot of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and other cultures. Instead of wasting time on Islamophobia and similar bigotries, Singaporeans have laboured to create a truly multicultural society:

Singapore is a highly diverse society, with lots of citizens with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Arab backgrounds. Yet they all seem to get along pretty well, and the country's culture is greatly enriched by the diversity. Public housing is ethnically and religiously integrated. Other countries could probably use a version of its "Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act," which prohibits religious rabble-rousing.

Take that, Sarah Palin and various Tea Party acolytes.

We all know who successfully patterned their development after Singapore instead of blindly following the example of the US into its current oblivion. Why, for instance, would you want your education system to resemble America's when you could aspire to have one like Singapore's? You can gather even more information on US trashiness till the cows come home but, suffice to say, the evidence clearly points to widespread American decay: It certainly isn't getting any smarter (see above), fitter, or better off than it was before. Let Singapore show America the way.