Changing faces of education

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Learning Curve: Perspective
New Sunday Times - 20-10-2013

LESSONS FROM EUROPE: Local education has to take cognizance

The plan is to pioneer "career colleges" which offer "vocational training in a range of subjects, including digital technology, construction, catering and healthcare" to the age cohort.

"The radical new breed of colleges -- the brainchild of Lord Baker -- will build on a network of highly successful university technical colleges (UTC) which specialize in the so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects", read the front page report of The Independent of the UK on Oct 15.

It quoted Lord Baker as saying: "By starting at 14, youngsters have a head start in preparing for the world of work as they do in Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, where youth unemployment is much lower."

He added: "We have one million young people unemployed and we are issuing visas to people from overseas that have the skills that are needed -- it is about time that we filled the skills gap with our own young people."

The first of such college is scheduled to open in greater Manchester next year and will focus on equipping students with the skills to work in the digital economy.

UTCs will partner with nearby established tertiary institutions.

The idea is reminiscent of the establishment of Malaysian university colleges in the early nineties before they became full-fledged universities.

They were intended to be "hands-on" institutions linked closely with the industrial sector to focus on industry-related issues. The model is based on the German experience as an industrial powerhouse with low unemployment rate.

Malaysia may want to revisit this template in light of Baker's initiative, especially in our attempt to close the gap yet again in the context of Technical and Vocational Education as the Education Blueprint envisaged.

On another front, Edinburgh University research on "occupational outcomes" of nearly 10,000 people attending secondary school between 1969 and 1976 "showed that the curriculum choices a child made at 16 were much more important than the type of school they attended in determining the social status attained several decades later".

It claimed that those "from more advantaged social backgrounds were more likely to study a larger number of courses in subjects such as language, English, Math and Science -- and to attend selective schools".

These steps were found to enhance the chances of entering professional and managerial occupations and "were able to put children onto the right path leading to the top occupational destinations".

The findings further showed that subject choices explained the effect of attending grammar and independent schools that could not be explained by social composition and ability of students.

The Daily Mail (Oct 14) reported that middle-class children are more likely to grow up "worse off than their parents" in more than a century.

The UK Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, established by the government, implied that insufficient focus was given to the "squeezed middle".

It also warned about possible factors threatening middle-class children as they emerge from full-time education.

Fresh graduates have "debts" to settle, made worse by the prospect of long-term unemployment which is at its highest since 1994.

The same edition also highlighted the notion that "white boys and girls are doing worse academically than any other ethnic group".

The so-called "white underperformance" of those from low-income families is causing even more concern as they are most likely to fail exams.

While these events and findings may not be directly related to the Malaysian scenario, there is no doubt that lessons can be drawn from them merely by the fact that our middle-class group is also fast growing and its graduates too have their share of debts to shoulder as jobs are getting more difficult to find.

Eventually the impact can translate into reduced social mobility that may threaten the future prosperity of the community and the country.