That is thankfully not the name of a new Hollywood movie. Prince Charles it seems has taken exception to the Blair government’s praise of the Indian and Chinese education systems. Specifically, Gordon Brown who is Blair’s Finance Minister, said last week:
“Within a decade, five million US and European jobs could be outsourced. And all the time China and India are upgrading their [IT] and science skills. They are producing 125,000 computer science graduates a year, and the UK [is producing] only 5,000,” Brown said.
Just last week the government agency e-Skills UK criticised the IT training industry for being unequal to the task of filling the UK technology skills gap.
Brown added that to “fail to confront or complacently side-step” global competition would cause the UK to be left behind.
Britain’s philosopher-Prince Charles has hit out at the Blair government’s envious warning refrain on the sheer volume and calibre of India’s academic successes, by accusing educationists of seeking to turn students into “better robots”.
You know what? I can actually see the Prince’s point. Our current global economy does encourage everyone to be a cog in a giant machine. I suppose a job is better than no job is the counter argument. Charles continues:
In his letter, Charles said: “We hear much discussion these days amongst the ubiquitous ‘education experts’. “Too often, much of that discussion focuses exclusively in terms of costs and benefits to the economy, as if human beings really ought to become better robots.” He continued: “In my view and that of many others I talk to, we truly blossom as a society when we accept that there is no prize more valuable than the joy and self-esteem associated with, for example, the mastering of a skill, the defeat of a mental obstacle, or the sensation of having one’s eyes opened to the beauties of literature, mathematics and science. “I simply do not believe that passion for subject or skill, combined with inspiring teaching, can be replaced by computer-driven modules, which seem to occupy a disproportionate amount of current practice.”
What would that bloke know? Being the first to site through public examinations does not give his educational opinions any more creedence. I wish I was born with a silver spoon so that I could “rediscover the art of storytelling” instead of grinding out binary search trees.
But I rant enough. It’s not like engineering and the arts are exclusive…
125000:5000 = 25 which is the ratio expected given population and demographic difference. If the number has any significance then it would indicate similarity in the Indian and British system. What’s the fuzz all about?