Saturday, June 18, 2011

If there's one thing we need in the world, it's better education for ALL

People often ask me out of all the Coalition's policies, what is the one that I am most pissed off about? This is easy. The university fees rise. This is the least progressive in my opinion, the one policy that really sets Britain back years in terms of equality. "Oh but they don't have to pay the £27,000 back straight away." No, they don't. But they shouldn't have to pay ANYTHING back. University education should be based on ability to learn, not ability to pay. Otherwise too many great minds are wasted. Communism doesn't work, we know that but the principle that we are all born equal and it should remain that way is wonderful.
Maybe we will never achieve complete equality, maybe we will always have the class system but we should be progressive, we should be giving EVERY young person a chance to achieve their dream. Too many are falling by the wayside, society has failed to give them the proper chances in life. The least we can do is make sure that every young person has the CHANCE to go to university, to achieve their potential. If they are intelligent enough, they shouldn't be put off by the thought of having to pay back £50,000, and it's not the middle classes who worry about this. It's the same the other way round too- too many middle class gimps go to university cos Mummy and Daddy will pay for it, they fuck around, they don't have a part time job whilst studying, they get pissed all the time, they couldn't care less about their degree, but they pass it because yet again Mummy and Daddy help them, and then they help them to get a good job in a good firm, or in their firm. And they are set for life. They spend their entire life blagging people and brown nosing their way up to organisations, or politics, and think they are invincible, and then they do the same for their kids.
Whereas the people who actually have a brain, and want to do well in life, don't. Society doesn't let them achieve their full potential. They may have great minds but their neighbourhood, their surroundings leads them to drugs, alcohol, homelessness, crime, prostitution, and an early death.
I'm not just talking about in the western world- I'm talking about children in Africa who are born into poverty, disease, famine. No one gives them a helping hand, a chance to achieve their potential. I just watched Bjorn Lomberg giving a talk at the TED conference in 2007 where he asks people to rank the biggest problems in the world such as AIDS, Malnultrition, people lacking drinking water, climate change, and he asks them to prioritise them if we had $50 billion to spend. Where would we spend the money? Well I would say why not spend the money on making sure as many children as possible get the education they deserve in the world?
That would be a long term investment for sure, and wouldn't save lives immediately. But if you think of the world as an organisation and its people as employees, would you send employees for more training and development based on how much their parents earn and where they live, or based on their potential and intelligence? This will then create more talent, create better ideas of all kinds- business, economics, medicine, technology, entertainment, philosophy, politics, etc, making us all wealthier and creating a better and fairer world for all

No comments:

Post a Comment