OECD 2012 Education Rankings: US, Leftists Get Dumberer

I am annoyed with the leftist Economic Policy Institute's spin on the results for the OECD's standardized tests known as PISA. The EPI is complaining that the results portray an unfair picture of American academic performance, and that US policymakers paint an unnecessarily dire picture of US education. Another year, another batch of crappy (should I spell that "KrapPi" to make it more intelligible to certain North American audiences?) results. Ho-hum. Among other EPI complaints we have the following:

• There is a test score gap between socioeconomically advantaged and disadvantaged students in every country. Although the size of the gap varies somewhat from country to country, countries’ gaps are more similar to each other than they are different.
• Countries’ average scores are affected by the relative numbers of advantaged and disadvantaged students in their schools. The United States has relatively more disadvantaged students than the usual comparison countries. If average scores were adjusted so that each country had a similar social class composition, U.S. scores would appear to be higher than conventionally reported and the gap with top-scoring countries, while still present, would be smaller. Adjusting for differences in countries’ social class composition can also change their relative rankings.

While I appreciate the retro-Marxist class warfare stylings, the EPI argument boils down to this: "social class," i.e., household income (I aspire to the petty bourgeoisie, in case you're interested) is the largest determinant of PISA test performance. If we accept this premise, then the picture they paint is even direr than that portrayed by American policymakers. Why? Because Stateside incomes are going nowhere fast--and so there's no point in trying to improve test scores when they are tied to stagnant-to-declining incomes. Next, try this observation:

• Some countries to which the United States is frequently unfavorably compared currently have higher test scores, but their test scores have been falling over time, while scores in the United States have not been similarly falling. It is not apparent to what extent U.S. policymakers should attempt to learn from the experience of countries with high scores, or from the experience of countries with rising scores.

Actually, US scores have been falling over time--see an older post--while those of others have only on a case-to-case basis. For them you have this explanation: Given that any number of developed countries are just as stagnant-to-declining in income growth terms as the United States, you would expect similar performance in terms of academic achievement. The EPI told us this, right?

IMHO both parties get it wrong. American policymakers should target raising incomes if they really are concerned about raising test scores. There are endogeneity biases possible here, but the wealth of nations is seldom discussed in education reform for obvious reasons despite good reasons to believe they are linked. It's not politically correct, is it? Meanwhile, the leftists do not manage to brush off this issue with Alfred E. Neuman ease but actually exacerbate it by tying it to American's economic fortunes in engaging with well-worn class warfare discourse. US incomes are going down the toilet (or floating around a porcelain bathroom fixture), and so are US test scores.

Bottom line: Results from Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Macau are definitely not representative since they are neither OECD members nor are they sampled nationwide but only in major cities. That said, their economies are not stagnant-to-declining, so there's really no surprise they're faring better. Do we really need more evidence of the shifting balance of knowledge?

There is no conspiracy here to keep Americans poor and stupid. As you get poorer, you get stupider; well no @#$%, Sherlock. Ask this guy...

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Is the IMF Beating Colleges at Online Learning?

There is a big debate raging in academia about the relevance of university education as we know it today: First, it is becoming increasingly expensive as salaries remain stagnant or even decline as in the US and other Western nations. Second, do what universities offer have relevant course content, or are they becoming increasingly isolated in ivory towers without much practical application? Third, doesn't a higher education degree become obsolete far more quickly nowadays with the rate of advancement in all fields of human endeavour?

More and more educators believe that today's university paradigm is outmoded--and I am one of those who are asking this same question. That is, what value-added does having a college degree really offer? One of the solutions proposed, of course, is delivering course content online via what they call Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) that can potentially deal with the issues raised above. First, delivering courses digitally allows universities to deliver courses--save for face-to-face interaction, of course--more cheaply and to a geographically broader audience. Second, material can be more readily tailored online to reflect the latest real-world trends and developments in various subject areas instead of sticking to the inbred world of folks who've been stuck in academia for years and years--like me! Third, updating of content is easier when you're not stuck with using sporadically updated textbooks and other dated course materials.

A potentially surprising vote of confidence in this idea is coming from, of all sources, the IMF. It faces the challenge of providing knowledge to many stakeholders in far-flung nations who wish to train officials better in matters of public financial management. Delivering technical assistance (i.e., advice) after all is one its main lines of business--see the table above taken from this 2011 IMF survey. What's more, it is in fact not hard up given steady incoming funding at this time because of various financial crises in different parts of the globe, but it is nonetheless moving with the times in trying to shift more courses online. Say what you will about the IMF--its critics are legion and include me--but it definitely has a 'brand' when it comes to public financial management. Unlike many middling universities, the IMF also does not lack takers for its educational services regardless of your opinion of its content:

The International Monetary Fund will make its training sessions on financial policy and debt sustainability available online this year to government officials worldwide, allowing it to reach a bigger audience at lower cost, it said on Wednesday. IMF financial workshops are meant to help governments address economic dilemmas and are currently held in eight training centers worldwide, meaning officials must travel and remain onsite for weeks, said Sharmini Coorey, director of the IMF's Institute for Capacity Development. That model is expensive for the IMF and its donor countries - and the classes fill quickly, Coorey said. In 2012, the IMF trained 7,800 officials in 270 workshops held in places like Singapore, Brazil, Kuwait and the African island of Mauritius.

"We have a lot of demand for our training and we don't have the scale to meet that demand," Coorey said. The online courses will be hosted by edX, a nonprofit consortium founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So far, the platform has primarily been used to host massive open online courses, or MOOCs, from elite universities.

The learning arm of the IMF, by the way, is known as the IMF Institute for Capacity Development. Get this: the IMF is even looking to expand its 'student base' insofar as others may wish to learn more about public financial management including civil society actors, consultancies, and so forth. Its marketing is sharp, too, with course offerings being made in different languages in the near future:

The classes will be in English, but may carry subtitles in other languages. They will open first to government officials within the next few months. Coorey plans to open them to the broader public in 2014. "We hope it will enhance public awareness and elevate the debate about economic issues," she said. The financial arrangements have not been made public, but edX President Anant Agarwal said the IMF courses would bring in revenue for the consortium. If it's a success, Agarwal said he would seek similar deals with other institutions, as well as corporations and nonprofits.

Who'd think that the IMF of all institutions would be an innovator in delivering online education modules? You may not agree with IMF policies and prescriptions (I usually don't). You may not even believe that it performs its functions well as the world's lender of last resort (ditto). However, when it comes to keeping in tune with the times in delivering timely and cost-effective solutions in education, it is making noticeable strides. It's hard  to imagine, but yes, the IMF seems to understand the logic driving MOOCs more than any number of universities still wedded to increasingly outmoded learning models.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but perhaps it's time that we let the IMF show us the way in higher education.

In the meantime, repeat after me, class: Savings...good! Debt...bad!

UPDATE: Details for the distance learning modules, AKA MOOCs, are already listed online.

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Language Games: Should French Unis Teach in English?

I have long been fascinated with the France's Academie Francaise, a body intended to guard the French language from the barbarisms of other, uncouth languages. The erstwhile linguistic barbarians have changed over the centuries: whereas the Academic Francaise was developed as a bulwark to Spanish, nowadays it's English, of course, that needs to be guarded. Recently, French higher education minister Genevieve Fioraso caused an uproar by suggesting that more courses need to be offered in English to attract international students. To this the traditionalists were of course up in arms. However, this reaction neglects the fact that several elite institutions alike the Sciences Po already provide instruction in English:

Elite French business schools, and Grandes Ecoles such as the Institute of Political Studies also known as Sciences-Po, have been teaching in English for the last 15 years. Why, she asks, shouldn't other less prestigious universities follow suit?

The crux of the counterargument goes like this: if part of the attraction of studying in France is learning French, why dilute this by offering second-rate English-language instruction? Another is the ever-popular idea that speaking French lends the speaker a different worldview from that of English speakers, making (surprise!) French education incommensurate with English education:

Teaching English is very different, they argue, from teaching in English. They support the teaching of foreign languages, and suggest starting it even earlier - in nursery schools - but they oppose the teaching of subjects such as mathematics, history and literature in any language but French.
 

Antoine Compagnon, a distinguished French scholar who taught at Columbia University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, maintained in a public letter that it would be better to teach foreign students French than tolerate "Globish" (the primitive English of non-English-speakers) and the dumbing down of teaching that would inevitably follow.

Foreign students who choose France over Britain, Compagnon says, are not only choosing the French lifestyle but also its culture and language. Teaching them Proust in English, in France, would be a travesty.

French MP Pouria Amirshahi, who represents French expats in North and West Africa, backed him up. "The signal given out to those everywhere who learn French abroad and in francophone countries throughout the world is not reassuring," told The Daily Telegraph.

It looks as though, in France, if you want to teach students in English, you have to do it quietly like the elite universities which never asked permission but never boasted about it either.

I believe that some market research is truly in order to enlighten this debate:

1. Do international students come to France purposely to study in French?
2. How many more international students can France realistically hope to attract if it had more course offerings at the university level in English?

Both questions are certainly worth investigating.if France is serious about addressing the needs and wants of international students.Either way, it's better to proceed from a position of knowledge than from one of ignorace in addressing these language games.

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Ramchandra Guha on Why London Outdoes NY

With all due respect to our readers from the Big Apple, I still hold that London is the world's capital for reasons both fair and foul. Quantitatively speaking, you can cite trading volumes in various financial markets to argue that London truly deserves the title of "the world's financial capital" unlike what you keep hearing on CNBC. It is also considered more open to all comers regardless of race, colour, or creed (unless you're an intolerant sort like Captain Hook). Throw in the astonishing buoyancy of its real estate market even as economic times are difficult--not something that can necessarily be said of New York--and the quantitative evidence for London's supremacy is overwhelming.

But, there are also qualitative aspects to this designation. Ramchandra Guha, the renowned Indian historian who succeeded Niall Ferguson at our LSE IDEAS as the Philippe Romain chair (see his recent WSJ interview as well), serves up a fond reminisce of his year in London that also bolsters the case that it is indeed the world's capital:

New Yorkers may contest this judgement, but despite the many attractions of the Big Apple, London still holds the edge. For one thing, the architecture is more appealing. The buildings are elegant, and on the human scale. They speak to you in a way that skyscrapers cannot [I can only assume he did not spend a lot of tie in the City of London!]. The city’s crescents and squares lend it an eccentric charm that the straightforward grid of Manhattan does not contain. And there are many more parks in London, as well as water bodies of various shapes and sizes.

London is also, in social terms, at once more diverse and more integrated than New York. On its streets and subways, Arabic and Hindi jostle with English and French (and, increasingly, Polish). New York, by contrast, is essentially monolingual. (To be sure, first-generation immigrants speak their language at home, but on the streets at least it is mostly all English). At the same time, in London, blacks and whites and coloureds are less rigidly separated by social class or place of residence. As a result, there are more mixed groups in the parks and restaurants of London than in the parks and restaurants of Manhattan.

To be sure, the academically inclined also have huge benefits by virtue of its unique place. He mentions the absolute wealth of speakers who would come on campus to speak. While the relatively younger LSE is not quite up there with Cambridge and Oxford in the prestige sweepstakes, the sheer volume of top-class speakers from academia, business, civil society and government who would come to speak is astounding since they inevitably come to (obviously English-speaking) London to be heard if they are in Europe:

The LSE has, however, one inestimable advantage over those other places of learning — it is located in a city in the centre of the universe, and thus regularly visited by scholars from Asia and Africa, North and South America, and of course Continental Europe. Its location and its attractions mean that a Mozambiquan historian wishing to travel to Brazil is very likely to route his journey via London. So too the Indian sociologist travelling to San Francisco or the American political scientist studying the Congo.

Making use of this strategic location, the LSE showcases a more impressive series of public talks than any other institution in the world. Harvard or Columbia might have specialists from other universities coming in for departmental seminars, and occasional public lectures for a wider audience. But the LSE has, during term time, as many as four different public lectures every day. The student, professor and alert private citizen are all spoilt for choice. Thus, on the same evening, one might have Paul Krugman speaking in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, the lawyer who attended on Nelson Mandela speaking in the Old Theatre, and an expert on Egypt speaking at the Hong Kong Theatre. 

Geographically speaking, the LSE's place at the centre of London which is in turn the "centre of the universe" cannot be bettered. Heck, my very own boss hosted John McCain prior to the US elections. As I like to point out, though, you're not out of luck if you don't happen to be in central London since most of the events are recorded and podcasts if not videos are available online. Enjoy...but don't expect our NYU colleagues or others from Noo Yawk to offer the same sort of amenities for reasons Ramchandra Guha so eloquently makes!

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Get Lost Foreign Students: Today's United Kingdom

Having been one at various points in life, I generally believe foreign students are harmless. While they are certainly easy targets for xenophobia--recall how the United States tightened student visas in the wake of 9/11 before universities that had become reliant on full-tuition paying foreign students complained--demagoguery aimed at them is usually unwarranted. Aside from generating services related to their stays, however, there remains the general suspicion that their motives are base. The UK has been having this debate for years now as immigration numbers have been elevated for quite a while, buoyed as they have been by foreign students. Sometimes they are even treated like criminals. Yes, there are indeed substandard educational institutions and dubious programmes that blight the UK higher education scene alike elsewhere in the world, but even legitimate institutions are now feeling the pain of anti-foreigner sentiment:

Not so long ago business students flocked to Europe. Compared with their American counterparts, European schools were cheaper and their student bodies more diverse, both attractive features—and the salaries of European MBA graduates were often higher, too. Some of these attractions remain undimmed. But they are no longer enough to bring in the punters. Data from The Economist’s latest ranking of full-time MBA programmes (see article) suggest the appeal of an Old World business education has gone into a rapid decline.

The lack of opportunities for post-study work are also hurting enrollments alongside tightening of visa rules. Besides, are there even jobs to be found in the UK which has had three straight quarterly declines in GDP?

One obvious reason why students might stay away is the dire economy. MBAs can look like a good way to sit out a short downturn. In a longer one they lose their charm. With no job-producing European recovery in sight, going there for an MBA seems not so much cleverly counter-cyclical as stubbornly contrarian.

Europe’s slide also reflects a problem specific to its most important MBA market. The average class size of the British MBA programmes ranked by The Economist has decreased by 11% over the past year. Schools blame Britain’s newly toughened visa requirements for non-EU students. Graduates used to have an automatic right to stay and work for two years. Now, they must find a sponsoring company and land a job which pays at least £20,000 ($32,000) a year. The number of visas available to students wanting to start their own business is piddling.

Where to go then? Aside from tighter visa rules for foreign students, the UK and US share scant job prospects and declining wages besides. It's up to the more progressive lands of Australia and Canada to pick up the slack, then. While those nations also have their fair share of xenophobes, the general sentiment toward foreigners and the economic outlook is brighter in these lands:

The fact that European schools are struggling is particularly galling because America has also made it more difficult for foreign students to work in the country after graduation, providing what should be an extra opportunity for the Europeans. American MBA programmes are typically twice the length of those in Europe, making both the cost and the opportunity cost of studying there higher. The salaries earned by American MBA graduates have been stagnant for over a decade. All this should have spurred students from poorer countries to apply to European schools.

Instead, the countries doing well out of America’s closing doors and high costs are Canada and Australia. Australia recently ditched its own strict policy on student visas in favour of a more welcoming approach. And Canada has perhaps gone further than any country in wooing overseas students. As of 2008, all students who have completed a two-year master’s degree automatically have the right to stay in the country and work for three years. They do not need to have a job lined up and are not restricted to working in a field linked to their studies, as they would be in America.

As before, I think that the university system in the US and UK are the canaries in the coal mine for higher education in these countries. Locals graduates cannot find jobs--nor can foreign students it seems who you would think have more opportunities elsewhere. What then is the rationale for universities that prepare local and international students for non-existent jobs?

While you may not get the impression reading different blogs from others in academia (professorial rent seekers ey?), make no mistake that higher education is broken in these countries and needs much fixing to stay relevant. Alas, I believe that the gales of creative destruction will remake higher education as we know it--especially if it continues to be increasingly irrelevant to the fundamental task of improving employment prospects.

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Patrice Lumumba Friendship University Revisited

Younger readers probably don't know what the USSR's Patrice Lumumba Friendship University was, so a short introduction is required. Having spent a while in Western academic circles, I can assure you that although many instructors have leftist sympathies--they know their Antonio Gramsci and Karl Kautsky by heart--they simply don't live the communist lifestyle, preferring the petit bourgeoisie sort of existence. British and American academia have more than their fair share of champagne socialists and the gauche caviar. Call it an inherent contradiction of leftish Western academia.

However, during the cold war (LSE IDEAS used to be the Cold War Studies Centre, mind you), the Soviets actually had an educational institution dedicated to spreading the revolution to other parts of the world instead of wallowing in faux-socialist stylings as many Western academics still do. The People's Friendship University of Russia was established in 1960 at the height of the aforementioned ideological conflict. A year later, it acquired the even more grandiose full name of the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University of the Peoples to symbolize the struggle of oppressed people all over the world for freedom and independence. I have not yet visited the LSE registrar to confirm whether Carlos the Jackal studied at the LSE as some claim, but rest assured that the self-styled professional revolutionary Ilich Ramirez Sanchez did study in Russia. (Talk about famous, world-changing alumni.)

Westerners usually prefer not to dwell on their complicity in anti-American and anti-European sentiment, but the name Patrice Lumumba remains evocative. The CIA openly acknowledges having orchestrated the demise of Iran's democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadeq to return the more pliable Shah of Iran to power (and set the stage for today's fundamentalists and other blowhards in the process). In what was then the Belgian Congo, however, the similarly democratically-elected Patrice Lumumba was also removed due to Western insecurities--especially about his purported Communist sympathies. Mossadeq lived a few more years after being eased out, but Lumumba was executed under Belgian instruction. American complicity in Lumumba's death is still debated, but the larger point is that Westerners need not wonder why us coloured peoples remain wary about their endless harangues about democracy when they have a long history of forcing out third world leaders they found, well, inconvenient.

It was in this spirit that Patrice Lumumba Friendship University operated as the USSR styled him as a martyr. While Westerners branded him a communist in order to get rid of him, the Soviets embraced this categorization to make him a martyr (see the commemorative stamp). The interesting thing though is that while Lumumba was certainly a nationalist, there is no consensus that he was a communist (although Americans of the time reflexively made the connection more often than not). At any rate, the university's goal was very much similar to that of Western academic institutions in training young professionals sympathetic to the USSR instead of the USA.

The end of the cold war was something of a shock to the (academic) system. What would Patrice Lumumba Friendship University be without the goal of world revolution? Worse yet, this university has actually been subject to market forces arguably even more than British academic institutions insofar as its stipend from the Russian government has been markedly reduced in the wake of 1991:

The university opened its doors in 1960, at the height of the Cold War, providing a training ground for young communists from developing countries. The terrorist Carlos the Jackal studied at this university, along with guerrillas and revolutionaries from Latin America, Africa and Asia. It was called Patrice Lumumba University, in honor of a first prime minister of the former Zaire, who was killed in a coup blamed on the United States. Now, with the Cold War over and Russian communism in tatters, the institution has a new name Russian Peoples Friendship University [actually, that's the old school name before Lumumba was killed]. And students who once were schooled in Marxist philosophy now take courses in capitalist business.

The university is now forced to survive in a free market economy. And since it gets only about a third of its budget from the government, most of the rest comes from student tuition fees, which run about 2,000 a year for international students. In order to attract students, the university added new courses and spent [$]350,000 on new equipment, including computers. "We've learned the rules of the market economy and adapted as much as you can in Russia, and were doing quite well, especially when compared to other colleges I've seen," said the university's Vice Rector Dimitri Bilibin.

And that's what has become of this legendary educational institution--famed less for its academics and more for its aims and roster of students from a bygone era. Is this progress? In certain senses yes, but it's also lost a lot of its notoriety as current students now come more from Russia than from abroad. Then there are those business courses. To be fair, a lot of course offerings sound more like IPE than International Business, but I digress...

[The] Institute of World Economy and Business (IWEB) qualifies top specialists, capable of efficient business and management activity in the context of the modern market economy. Being one of the first educational institutions in business not only in Moscow but in Russia as well, today IWEB is a major international study center. The Institute has been member of the Russian Business Education Association practically since the very moment of its creation and a member of the Business School Association of Central and Eastern Europe.

One of the principal features of IWEB is its commitment to the needs of business education not only in Russia, but in CIS countries, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Multiple contacts with PFUR [People's Friendship University of Russia] graduates working in the majority of countries around the world are a big advantage of the Institute. PFUR IWEB pursues wide international policy. It actively develops collaboration with universities of the USA, France, Great Britain, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Spain etc.

Aside from business courses, it now collaborates with American and British universities [!?] What would Patrice Lumumba do about loss of authenticity? I'll make a plug here and say that you might as well study in our dual degree with Columbia in International and World History or with Peking University in International Affairs. They may be less retro-cool, but prestige matters in this day and age when there is no longer a real alternative to "mainstream" Western education that Patrice Lumumba Friendship University represented way back when. Go ask Carlos.

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Yale, Money Lust, Academic Freedom & Singapore

There's much talk about how American academia differs from British academia. Separated by a common language and all that as applied to the ivory towers. To me, nowhere is this more evident than in views about revenue generation in academia. Unlike in the US, nearly all quality UK institutions of higher learning are government-funded. This situation cuts both ways: On one hand, British universities appear underfunded relative to their American peers. What's more, often lacking real incentives to "market" themselves, they have not been as active in the global craze to establish satellite campuses in places such as the Middle East or Singapore. On the other hand, they may be truer to such things as academic freedom in not pursuing extensions that go against deeply-held principles.

All this brings me to the recent news that Yale University has set up shop in Singapore in partnership with NUS, together with attendant controversies arising over academic freedom in the city-state. It's not as if Yale needs more cash; I believe it's down to an attitudinal difference between American and British academics.As I've mentioned before, Americans are generally easy to understand in seeking their material interests first and foremost. Despite staying in Britain for quite some time, I cannot necessarily say the same of the British, who have eccentric preoccupations and hang-ups that are not easily understood--alike profiting off higher education, for instance. (Sociologists like suggesting that they're still searching for a identity after loss of empire though I have my doubts.)

So, even if Yale has the second largest endowment among American universities at a whopping $19.4 billion, it is not particularly surprising that it has sought to parlay its name in spinning even more cash in Singapore despite the obvious risks to its reputation for academic freedom (whatever that is):

[The Yale] Singapore campus won't allow political protests, nor will it permit students to form partisan political societies. The venture has come under sharp criticism from Yale professors and rights advocates who say the New Haven, Conn.-based school's mission as a haven for free thought and expression is incompatible with Singapore's tightly controlled political system, which includes restrictions on public assembly, limitations on free speech, and laws that criminalize homosexuality.

Students at the new school "are going to be totally free to express their views," but they won't be allowed to organize political protests on campus, said Pericles Lewis, the college's new president, in an interview last week.

While I am amused by the spin, the honest truth is that the Yale folks would not have to apply so much of it if their Singaporean students didn't have to toe the government line so much. Certainly I'm not much of a stickler about academic freedom, but some people who trumpet it far more seem to have an uncanny ability to paint themselves into a corner.

In contrast to Yale, consider the UK's Warwick University. Especially given its emphasis on the social sciences, it had reason to believe that its reputation would be damaged by setting up shop in Singapore. And so unlike Yale, it scuttled its Singapore dream when it had the chance to set up a full-fledged university there and not just a piddling satellite campus:

Meanwhile, many people are asking what went wrong with Warwick? That may be best answered by how Warwick's supreme governing body - the senate - expressed its displeasure through its 48 members. It would appear the snub was all about the school's lifestyle and reputation - in essence the "Warwick way of life".

The bottom line was that Warwick's senate was concerned about academic freedom, Reuters news agency reported. "In the absence of a positive commitment from the academic community, [the council] resolves not to proceed with the plan for a second comprehensive campus of the University of Warwick, in Singapore," the university said in a statement.

Thio Li-ann, a Singapore law professor who drew up an advisory report for Warwick University, warned the school that "the government will intervene if academic reports cast a negative light on their policies", Reuters reported. Singapore requires foreign educational institutions to abstain from interfering in its domestic affairs.

Well there's one surefire way to deal with the matter of academic freedom in a way that doesn't put one's reputation at stake: don't go to Singapore altogether if that's what concerns you. Again, I believe it boils down to a matter of attitudinal difference. Despite all the lip service to academic freedom, Americans will ultimately follow the money. Meanwhile, the more complicated British will often be...more conflicted about putting profit ahead of principles (among those who care about such things at least).

And no, I don't believe anyone is particularly convinced by Yale's apologetics. It's all about the money, though some are more ashamed to admit it than I would be for instance under the pretence of academic integrity.

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Egypt, Spain & Far Beyond: Youth Unemployment

As an educator, I believe there is a personal responsibility on my part to ensure that my students are able to find gainful employment. I am not paid so that those seeking work won't be...simple as that. While there are others in academia who see themselves as  "preparing people for life outside of work" instead of "preparing people for working life," I must disagree. The hoity-toity idea of a liberal education being removed from the humdrum existence of everyday life has deep roots starting from ancient Greece. But, the ubiquity of capitalism and democracy--both disliked by then Greeks way back when (and arguably even today[!])--necessitates a practical approach. That is, contemplating higher pursuits in life doesn't quite work if you don't have the means to support it. To get all structuralist on you, someone must have laboured to erect those ivory towers.

Unfortunate college-educated unemployed and underemployed aside, what does this have to do with IPE, you ask? Plenty. Egypt has been paralyzed by unemployed youth with nothing better to do than protest again and again. So they overthrew Mubarak, but things have gotten even worse economically. Some change, and certainly not the sort you'd expect to help land jobs for the youth. Same thing in Spain: With the unemployment rate for those aged 15-24 reportedly above 50%, headlines numbers like these are hardly inspiring. While the relationship between youth unemployment and economic crisis is complex, you can at the very least say that high rates of the former are indicative of the latter.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has a neat publication from late last year that notes that these trends are not unique to certain troubled countries but are evident the world over. For another woeful statistic, consider that about 40% of those unemployed worldwide are the youth:

Of the world's estimated 207 million unemployed people in 2010, nearly 40 per cent – about 75 million – were between 15 and 24 years of age. In many countries, this grim unemployment picture is further aggravated by the large number of youth engaged in poor quality and low paid jobs, often in the informal economy. Many youth are poor or underemployed: some 228 million working poor youth in the world, live on less than the equivalent of US$ 2 per day.

The abstract does not hide the bleak global situation:

In August 2010, the ILO published the Global Employment Trends for Youth: Special issue on the impact of the global economic crisis on youth. The report presented an analysis of the latest available world and regional aggregates of key labour market indicators for young people aged 15 to 24 years, with a specific focus on how young people fared in the face of the recent global economic crisis. One year later, with an environment of growing uncertainty in the economic recovery and stalled recovery in the job market, the ILO revisits the much publicized youth labour market figures and draws the unfortunate conclusion that the situation facing youth in the labour market has not improved and that prospects for the future are not much better. Not only do youth unemployment rates continue to rise in developed economies, but also the increasing length of the job search is leading some young people to become discouraged and fall out of the labour force entirely. In developing regions, on the other hand, many young people continue to work while living in conditions of extreme poverty.

It is certainly worrisome in a number of senses. First, where has all the education gone? Despite massive increases in enrollment the world over, it has been noted that work opportunities remain scarce for supposedly better-educated people. The ILO publication makes for a very sobering read that suggests such employment for youth is often the exception rather than the rule--especially nowadays. Second, various nations being unable to accommodate their justifiably angry youngsters is a political-economic threat of the highest order. 

There is certainly no lack of poster children for dysfunctional education systems nowadays alike erstwhile models the Anglo-Saxons. While it may have few answers, the ILO report at least suggests where to start. Make no mistake, youth unemployment is no small issue, and it's certainly one with severe ramifications the world over if it continues unaddressed. Ask Tunisia, Egypt, Greece and Spain...I fear this list will run and run.

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Is Being Fat Related to Being Dumb? The US Case

Being apart from the Anglo-Saxon blogging crowd allows me to probe questions they are generally uncomfortable with but need to be asked. Yesterday we considered the general unresponsiveness of Anglophone academia to reforming higher education despite producing so many unemployed and unemployable graduates. Today I consider the unpalatable combination of being overweight and intellectual underachievement. Is there a link between the two? Once more, let us consider the United States which exemplifies much of both.

It is not exactly a secret that the performance of the United States' education system is middling at best compared to other developed nations' systems despite considerable spending on the godforsaken thing. What's more, recent OECD data suggests some from developing nations alike China are walloping American kids. Which is not difficult to do, really, but to see some PRC youth topping OECD league tables is a warning sign. Further evidence is shown in other standardized tests. Not only does the United States' youth underperform their international peers, but they are falling behind in exams administered by Americans themselves. Witness continuously falling test scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which high school students wishing to enter college must take. While some apologists have claimed this was due to more young people taking SATs alike minorities who haven't done as well as white and Asian students, that scores have been falling while No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is being implemented suggests a link between poor K-12 and test performance.

Meanwhile, today I came across an interesting feature on how already-fattening sugar impairs cognitive performance. As with most studies of this sort, there are generalizability questions insofar as the subjects were lab rats. However, it does point out future directions for study given the massive amount of sugar Americans consume:

"Because insulin can penetrate the blood-brain barrier, the hormone may signal neurons to trigger reactions that disrupt learning and cause memory loss," [UCLA researcher] Gomez-Pinilla said. In other words, eating too much fructose could interfere with insulin's ability to regulate how cells use and store sugar, which is necessary for processing thoughts and emotions.

"Insulin is important in the body for controlling blood sugar, but it may play a different role in the brain, where insulin appears to disturb memory and learning," Gomez-Pinilla said. "Our study shows that a high-fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. This is something new." In the US, high-fructose corn syrup is commonly found in soft drink, condiments, applesauce, baby food and other processed snacks. The average American consumes more than 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

That American kids are among the portliest in the world is well-known.and utterly unsurprising. What is new here though may be that a source of their obesity and mediocre academic performance may be traced to the same source: excessive consumption of sugars, more specifically high-fructose corn syrup. It's an eminently researchable question that may help in answering why the US is in such a wretched state educationally, financially, and unhealthily. There's certainly a good chance these are all linked. In academic jargon, portliness and thick-headedness should covary.

Reminiscent of the tobacco lobby denying negative health effects from consuming too much of their products, we too have similar interests doing the same for sugar. According to lobby group The Sugar Association, sugar is not the cause of obesity, nor is it a primary factor to increased caloric intake.Their wording is careful in avoiding the more readily verifiable observation that sugars do contribute to both problems. However, such PR is aided by heavy-handed lobbying to preempt legislation that may attach more health warnings to sugar. Lest you doubt their capacity for political machinations, they reportedly even petitioned US lawmakers not to fund the UN after the World Health Organization accused this lobby of watering down a report on the harmful effects of consuming excessive sugar.

Again, I wouldn't be so keen on criticizing the United States if it didn't hold itself up time and again as a shining example for the rest of the world. American exceptionalism, they call it. Truth be told, there are far better systems to emulate instead of following certain hubris-filled folks. For findings jobs for young people, study the German example. For improving academic performance at all levels, study Singapore.

True, there is no magic bullet to solving American mediocrity. However, it does help pointing out to these folks that they are mediocre in so many things and are thus not worthy of emulation but condemnation. Making tidy profits for sugar lobbies is all well and good, but if it comes at the expense of national health and even intelligence, well, tough. American society is broken, and there's no one fixing it in this respect as in so many others. But hey, sugary treats are cheap, so what the heck! Twinkies for all (kids especially).

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Higher Ed in Existential Crisis: Jobless in US, UK

Is is not particularly surprising to me that Anglophone bloggers in academia don't cover the topic much, but make no mistake--higher education is in crisis. Despite a lot of them being especially fond of rational choice theory, I suppose it's slightly discomforting to find themselves being criticized as rent-seekers instead of them criticizing various government personnel as such. The crux of the matter is this: How can you justify relatively cushy academic wages when college graduates can't find remunerative employment? While it's especially true of British higher education where major universities are uniformly funded by the government, it's also true for the American system where a large proportion of distinguished colleges are likewise state institutions.

(1) Karl Marx would positively adore the hapless US economy at the present time as a prime example of the inherent contradictions of capitalism as it lurches from crisis to crisis. What's more, the pace is accelerating with the S&L crisis of the early nineties, dot-com bust of the early noughties, 9/11+Enronitis shortly thereafter and the never-ending subprime debacle. The pace of these occurrences and their associated losses--not only in GDP but also employment terms--are accelerating. To add insult to injury for jobless college graduates, the next shoe to drop may very well be snowballing student debt.

The New York Times ran a fairly lengthy sob story over the weekend replete with jobless American youth and their towering student loans. [To which I say, go East, young Yank.] While it's indeed a sad story, it's not exactly new except maybe in academia where many prefer to ignore such problems. However, the NYT article further notes that the anticipated milestone of US student loans passing the trillion dollar mark has come and gone. As Buzz Lightyear said it best, to infinity and beyond. Although Americans' debt-loving lifestyles are known the world over, what is perhaps galling here is that these youth are handicapped so early in life by the stigma of hopelessness and joblessness. Or, in short, mommy and daddy may be as broke as their nation is, but they at least got to enjoy McMansions and monster SUVs for a while. The key number? 53.6% of all American college graduates are unemployed or underemployed.

The game will soon be up, rent-seekers at American universities. Take steps to fix your broken system, pronto, or you will justly bear the brunt of unhappy, unemployed graduates laden with student debt and their parents complaining about this fraud about college being the ticket to lifelong happiness or whatever Kool-Aid you keep regurgitating.

(2) As for the UK with similarly galling statistics--degree holders are essentially no more likely to find employment than those who went to the job market straight after secondary education--I must sheepishly admit that certain British educators may still be ignoring the problem here. It comes down to that chestnut concerning university being preparation for life instead of merely preparation for the world of work. Which is fine insofar as many students may share similar sentiments. However, where I part company is in denying that a major reason for going to college is economic: It is a perfectly reasonable expectation that an investment that you sink considerable time, effort and money into should help provide you with an acceptable standard of living instead of, say, saddling you with unpayable student debt so early in life.

Recently, the LSE held its Teaching Day 2012. While I usually follow it so I may improve my teaching skills and so forth, this year's event was notable in tacking the joblessness question head-on. The LSE being a rather uppity and left-leaning institution, however, I was dismayed to find few concessions to the idea that tertiary education should at least help find young people work. The keynote address of the Management department's Professor Amos Witztum sums up this approach:

The purpose of this talk is to argue that the answer to the role of education is embedded in the conception of society and the principles of its economic organisation. I will argue that the underlying justification for the current functional approach as if the role of society is limited to preparing people for working life is a-liberal and myopic. We will examine the organisational relevance of the decentralised promise of the economic system in the light of various long terms trends in the world of work and leisure as well as the little-talked of phenomenon of the rising levels of over-qualified workers. We will ask whether in such a context preparing someone for a job is enough to absolve society of its duties.

We will therefore go back to the drawing board to ask the question: what indeed is the purpose of education if, in general, we accept that it is to prepare people for life? The answer will be that it is to prepare people for life outside work. Here, however, a serious problem arises. While preparing people for the labour market seems morally neutral (as technology is, ostensibly, such), preparing them for life entails a judgement about the culture for which individuals should be prepared. This means that liberal views of capabilities and the like can no longer hide from the fact that the ‘good’ life is a social concept.

To me, it's all well and good to tout the fringe benefits of higher education--as long as you first deliver on the primary task of finding young people gainful employment to avoid both the social stigma of unemployment and the wherewithal to pursue the finer things in life such as intellectual pursuits. Find your students work that is rewarding and remunerative first, then consider the rest.

Otherwise, the college rip-off taunt resonates now more now than as fees rise and career opportunities dwindle. And while Anglophone audiences often forget it, there are other systems of higher education that have provided better results which the rest of the world should probably study more closely if they are practically-minded.

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Hopeless, Jobless America? Go East, Young Yank

There are two interesting features in TIME on dealing with the generally jobless state of modern America. The first is a Job-like (biblical) lament about how unpaid internships are common Stateside when they should not be. As you'd expect, the article is accompanied by sob stories about young Americans enduring a string of unpaid internships. Fed up, a generation that is growing up during the Occupy movement is supposedly petitioning the US Department of Labor to stop these abusive practices. Among other things, laws forbidding unpaid internships are being proposed. However, you have to wonder whether excessively strict regulation of what many companies have regarded as drudge work may discourage the practice altogether. The unfortunate end result may be discontinuing a traditional route into paid employment that, unsavory as it may be at times, is par for the course in a country on a clear downward trend in the global league tables.

On a more optimistic note, I am keener on another piece describing what I've recommended before: Why stick around in the jobless West when you can move to where the action is in the much faster-growing Pacific Rim? While Americans are unfortunate to be Americans in these sweepstakes since they are taxed by the IRS worldwide, being employed in an "exotic" location should be a better prospect than being stuck unemployed. Who sends and receives migrants? The tables are turning for economic reasons:

Raised in the relative affluence of the 1990s, the so-called millennial generation graduated in one of the worst recessions since World War II. As these young people from some of the world’s richest countries struggle to find jobs, Asian nations are filling some of the gap. “The shifting balance of global growth is making emerging economies more attractive,” explains Madeleine Sumption, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “It is turning them into receiving countries, when traditionally they’ve been sending countries.”

Fueling the eastward migration is a generation-defining shortage of jobs. The 2008–09 financial crisis, coupled with the euro debt crisis, has hit people in Europe and North America hard. Recent college graduates and young people entering the workforce for the first time are particularly at risk. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are 75 million people between the ages of 15 and 24 struggling to find work, particularly in developed economies and Europe. The European Union youth unemployment rates span from 22% in the U.K. to more than half of 15-to-24-year-olds in Spain and Greece. Last year, more than half of Americans under 25 who hold a bachelor’s degree were jobless or underemployed — the highest in more than a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. data by the Associated Press. And while governments struggle to curb the jobs crisis amid budget deficits and austerity measures, East Asia is booming.

Though some East Asian nations still struggle with youth unemployment, the region is doing relatively well. According to the ILO, East Asia’s jobless-youth rate hovered at about 8.3% in 2010 and is projected to hold steady over the next few years. This has led to an influx of young people [from the West]. In Hong Kong...the government reported an average increase of 26% in issuing temporary work visas to residents of the U.S., U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy and France from 2007 to ’11. 

Harping on a theme I've highlighted before, it is truly unconscionable that 53.6% of college graduates in the US are unemployed or underemployed (flipping burgers at Mickey D's, selling Blu-Ray players at Best Buy, etc.) I don't know about you, but I would feel so ashamed about blithely carrying on offering "college is the key to prosperity" snake oil while graduates take on mountains of debt with little hope of finding remunerative employment. Despite certain academic rent-seekers denying that the US university system is in dire need of repair to address employability issues--why attend increasingly costly college to earn increasingly less (if you can find work at all)--more practical sorts who aren't stuck in ivory towers should know better.

Meanwhile, as we wait for the global tertiary system of education to become more alike the German apprenticeship system instead of the Anglo-Saxon uni-jobless system, there are stopgap measures. Flee America, the land of no opportunity, and head east young Yank, head east.

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German Apprenticeship vs US/UK Uni-Jobless System

It is no big secret that there is a lack of good employment prospects for young people in Anglo-Saxon economies at the present time.* As I have illustrated, wages for US college graduates have been on a steady downward trend. At the same time, tuition fees are rising at a rate far outstripping the rate of inflation. This phenomenon is said to be driven by various (virtually broke) US states now charging the bejesus out of the students in their university systems--including those who previously could avail of significantly lower in-state tuition rates. Combine these two and you see that US higher education is a really lousy marketing prospect: pay far more, earn less. What a deal. Like the American dream, college education as a key to success is something of a sick joke. And of course that assumes you can find work at the current time which is far from guaranteed with youth unemployment (ages 16-24) being 18.4% in the US in 2010. Good luck with those increasingly onerous student debt loads, Joe College, as IOUs eclipse the $1 trillion mark in 2012.

The picture is no better in that other Anglo-Saxon economy the United Kingdom.The headline numbers are shocking: 21-year-old university graduates are nearly as likely (25%) to be unemployed as 16-year-old school leavers (26%) who have just taken their GCSEs. UK youth unemployment meanwhile has recently shot past the 1 million mark. If anything else, fees have risen at an even faster rate in the UK with tuition trebling to £9,000 at quality institutions and student protests breaking out all over Blighty. In the final analysis, however, it's the same banana for British students: pay far more, earn less (if uni grads can find work).

Being a practical sort, I think of myself as an educator first and a researcher second. IMHO, an "educator" doesn't deserve the title if s/he does not have an abiding interest in ensuring that one's students find work. Of course, the system does not often work this way in Anglo-Saxon institutions where professors are more concerned with publishing their work than ensuring that their students find work. It's a messed up priority system that brings you the results above.

Contrast these tales of Anglo-Saxon woe with the famed German apprenticeship system:

In Germany, seen by many as a model in this regard, a quarter of employers provide formal apprenticeship schemes and nearly two-thirds of schoolchildren undertake apprenticeships. Students in vocational schools spend around three days a week as part-time salaried apprentices of companies for two to four years. The cost is shared by the company and the government, and it is common for apprenticeships to turn into jobs at the end of the training. The youth-unemployment rate in Germany, at 9.5%, is one of the lowest in the EU. Apprentice-style approaches practised in the Netherlands and Austria have had similar results.

Contrary to what the same article quoted from above claims, the popular impression that the German model is driven largely by Germany's manufacturing exports is something of a stereotype which falsely excuses other from emulating Deutschland. David Soskice of "Varieties of Capitalism" fame highlights that the most popular apprenticeships are not necessarily export-oriented trades for males: auto mechanic, electrician, joiner, clerical worker and bank clerk. For women, they are: hairdresser, clerical worker, and medical assistant. The honest truth from manning agencies which should know what they're talking about is that the bulk of jobs in demand are not of the Thomas Friedman-ish "knowledge worker" variety but those of a more blue-collar sort. Yet they are quite remunerative once you get past biases against technical / vocational training.

It is high time we questioned why the Anglo-Saxon university system of higher education has gained more traction worldwide than the German apprenticeship system when the latter is more attractive in avoiding job-skill mismatches. There has been too much glamourization of university when the results obtained fall so far short of the mark. Perhaps it's a reflection of the Brits and Americans colonizing far more parts of the world to engage in the white man's burden. In any case, it's certainly an open question as to why so many other nations still pattern their educational systems on clearly broken societies than that of one which works. It is no coincidence that aside from having an excellent university system, Singapore also boasts the region's finest technical and vocational training.**

Make no mistake: American and British educational systems are dysfunctional not only in basic education but also higher education.*** It belies theories such as Douglass North's new institutional economics (NIE) that imply more efficient institutions thrive, especially if finding remunerative work is a goal. If so, the German model would have beaten the stuffing out of the Anglo-Saxon uni-jobless system a long time ago. Just as a rational consumer would on the balance prefer a German car to an American clunker or...well, they don't really make "British" cars anymore do they...so should any number of countries adopt a system that works rather than one that doesn't. Like all hat, no cattle Obama once implied, change is needed away from the inefficient university system towards apprenticeships that are not only more likely to provide skills employers actually need but leave out the guesswork in choosing qualifications. Let Germany show us the way.
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* There may even be an uptick in that American pastime of university shootings where they enjoy killing each other for the heck of it because of bleak prospects in this century, but that's another interesting hypothesis for another time. To get your Freakonomics on, try regressing university shooting deaths against the US unemployment rate.

** While the bulk of German school leavers go into apprenticeships, a little over a quarter do go into university education.

*** Moreover, I don't get why Americans keep complaining about a lack of job opportunities anyway when they are so b--chy about working with job satisfaction levels at all-time lows. That's modern America for you.

3/29 UPDATE: In crisis-hit Europe, Germany has just recorded a record low post-reunification unemployment rate. I guess some people know what they're doing. 

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Capturing LSE Involvement in the London Riots

I don't mean to turn this site into the "stuff I picked up from the weekly LSE employee newsletter" blog but the quality of the material is simply astounding sometimes. It is, by far, the most literate and even highbrow I've come across with coverage of IMF labour conditionalities among other things to ponder as you contemplate Britannia several decades past its hegemonic prime.

The above photo from one of the 2011 riots--including several LSE students, no doubt--helps continue to puncture my image of current LSE students as little more than a money-grubbing, investment banking lot...like me, perhaps! Especially after the tuition fee rises, my view of them as generally apathetic has gone through the wringer. Given the school's Fabian (read: socialist) roots, it's a return to form. They're supposed to thrash stuff up. The picture captures the atmosphere of the scence, and I am struck by how the appearance of the protesters (students?) gives little clue as to whether this photo was taken a few months back instead of during the sixties. Interesting stuff.

Here's the caption:

This picture was taken by Musfira Shaffi, an undergraduate student in the Department of Sociology. It was taken on Oxford Street during the pension cut protests in 2011. An exciting, simmering picture of rebellion, discontent, and destruction.

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