NecroCommie
7th February 2010, 23:42
Since there have been several threads about social democracy in the past, I though this little article might be informative for those interested. Let me make clear that this article is most definately not mine. I simply translated it. But in case you want to know, the original article is from a finnish anarchist internet publication "KAPIS" (from kapinatyöläinen meaning rebel worker). http://www.anarkismi.net/kapis/22ylikoulutus.htm
This should shead some light on what it's like to be a worker, or more particularly a working class student in a social democracy. Considering that both right and leftwingers in my school thanked me for bringing this up, I'd think this is pretty accurate potrayal.
Over education is a nasty thing
University appliers increase in numbers year by year. After all, one must apply somewhere when there's no job, especialy with low education. It is especially for work that people slouch eight years in universities studying important topics such as "according to Freud, Mona Lisa is "picture of a mythological, archtypal and androgynistic vulture". Who could possibly do anything productive without such information?
In modern wage system, one must study years even for jobs that in reality could be grasped in a matter of months. Otherwise everyone would only apply for the increasingly popular jobs, and no one would want to do the shitty jobs. This is why librarians are required to get university education, whereas one may get a job at walmart without any education. (Note from NecroCommie: The two jobs are identical. I have worked at a store and at a library. It was just more fun in the library)
Over education does not concern only the jobs in which a brief introduction would suffice. Even jobs that require actual education demand lot longer education periods than necessary. This is amusingly obvious at universities of applied sciences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammattikorkeakoulu), where vocational students (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational_education#Finland)start at the class with high school students. Polytechnic of electricity is shared by students with three years of experience in the trade, and by high school graduates who barely know what electricity is.
Years of over-education has often led tragicomically to a decrease in expertise. Who has higher qualifiations to understand what happens in a daycare: One who has worked three years as a daycare assistant, or one who has read years of theoretical humbug written by detached academics?
Without a doubt one of the most odd feature of the modern education society, are professions without any actual education, but to which is hard to get without a very high education. One such job would be work of a reporter. Traditional reporters who learned their craft by doing are swiftly diminishing lot. Studying societal sciences in university gives no qualifications for reporters work, but a degree in societal sciences is nowadays the most common background for reporters.
Educational society has always based itself on aforementioned principle. The most insane features of the 90's' system however, have grown to new heights. Primary schools have always been as much to store children as to educate them. Children have to be somewhere while the parents are at work. Mass unemployment has brought new demographs to the group of people who are in need of "storage": One must put somewhere the people who come into working age, but cannot find any job. Many schools quickly face the limit of their storage capabilities. This problem has been "solved" differently in different countries. Finland's solution has been entrance exams, of which's purpose is not to test the abilities of the students, but to simply block away 85-98% of the appliants. These failed students then spend years attempting to apply somewhere where they believe the gates will open. After the new system in which those under 25 and unemployed were forced to school, many of them simply applied to some vocational school. Majority however simply waits for a year or half for the next entrance exams. Time alone will show how many times they are ready to repeat those exams.
On the other hand there is the French education system which automatically accepts all of the applied, but majority of the students are kicked out during the first two years. If one fails in a crucial exam after two years of studying, all the hard work from those two years has been for nothing. It is without a doubt an interesting philosophical dilemma: which one of these systems is the worse?
The education frenzy of modern society does not exist because there is much work that cannot be done without education. Even less so does it exist because we have a lack of academic mumbo-jumbo. Work-wanting persons are without a job because in capitalist society only capital can employ. And in modern world it has become painstakingly clear, that the less people one employs, the better one's capital.
Over-education is by no means related to the employment situation. It is equally a feature of the system together with wage-slavery and byreucracy.
This should shead some light on what it's like to be a worker, or more particularly a working class student in a social democracy. Considering that both right and leftwingers in my school thanked me for bringing this up, I'd think this is pretty accurate potrayal.
Over education is a nasty thing
University appliers increase in numbers year by year. After all, one must apply somewhere when there's no job, especialy with low education. It is especially for work that people slouch eight years in universities studying important topics such as "according to Freud, Mona Lisa is "picture of a mythological, archtypal and androgynistic vulture". Who could possibly do anything productive without such information?
In modern wage system, one must study years even for jobs that in reality could be grasped in a matter of months. Otherwise everyone would only apply for the increasingly popular jobs, and no one would want to do the shitty jobs. This is why librarians are required to get university education, whereas one may get a job at walmart without any education. (Note from NecroCommie: The two jobs are identical. I have worked at a store and at a library. It was just more fun in the library)
Over education does not concern only the jobs in which a brief introduction would suffice. Even jobs that require actual education demand lot longer education periods than necessary. This is amusingly obvious at universities of applied sciences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammattikorkeakoulu), where vocational students (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational_education#Finland)start at the class with high school students. Polytechnic of electricity is shared by students with three years of experience in the trade, and by high school graduates who barely know what electricity is.
Years of over-education has often led tragicomically to a decrease in expertise. Who has higher qualifiations to understand what happens in a daycare: One who has worked three years as a daycare assistant, or one who has read years of theoretical humbug written by detached academics?
Without a doubt one of the most odd feature of the modern education society, are professions without any actual education, but to which is hard to get without a very high education. One such job would be work of a reporter. Traditional reporters who learned their craft by doing are swiftly diminishing lot. Studying societal sciences in university gives no qualifications for reporters work, but a degree in societal sciences is nowadays the most common background for reporters.
Educational society has always based itself on aforementioned principle. The most insane features of the 90's' system however, have grown to new heights. Primary schools have always been as much to store children as to educate them. Children have to be somewhere while the parents are at work. Mass unemployment has brought new demographs to the group of people who are in need of "storage": One must put somewhere the people who come into working age, but cannot find any job. Many schools quickly face the limit of their storage capabilities. This problem has been "solved" differently in different countries. Finland's solution has been entrance exams, of which's purpose is not to test the abilities of the students, but to simply block away 85-98% of the appliants. These failed students then spend years attempting to apply somewhere where they believe the gates will open. After the new system in which those under 25 and unemployed were forced to school, many of them simply applied to some vocational school. Majority however simply waits for a year or half for the next entrance exams. Time alone will show how many times they are ready to repeat those exams.
On the other hand there is the French education system which automatically accepts all of the applied, but majority of the students are kicked out during the first two years. If one fails in a crucial exam after two years of studying, all the hard work from those two years has been for nothing. It is without a doubt an interesting philosophical dilemma: which one of these systems is the worse?
The education frenzy of modern society does not exist because there is much work that cannot be done without education. Even less so does it exist because we have a lack of academic mumbo-jumbo. Work-wanting persons are without a job because in capitalist society only capital can employ. And in modern world it has become painstakingly clear, that the less people one employs, the better one's capital.
Over-education is by no means related to the employment situation. It is equally a feature of the system together with wage-slavery and byreucracy.