Jake Van Der Kamp on Universities in general and Hong Kong.

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  1. #1

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    Jake Van Der Kamp on Universities in genral and Hong Kong.

    Brilliant piece by Jake Van Der Kamp (the only reason I read the SCMP every day).

    There was once a time, and not long either, when 10 years in school were all you needed. You might do another two years if you wanted but opportunity aplenty awaited you in the real world with only those 10 years and a university degree was no necessity.
    I recall one boss I had in the securities business, who did the extra two, and was then invited to lunch with the partners of his father's firm. He held his fork the right way, made proper use of the salt cellar and was thereupon told a job was waiting for him.

    He replied that he would like to spend a few years at university first and was told this was fine but, on the way out, asked his father if it would really make any difference.

    "No," said his father. "Not really."

    "Oh well, then I think I'll try the army instead," said son and off he went to spend a few years in the jungles of Borneo, keeping Sabah and Sarawak part of Malaysia.

    Now I shall grant you that he had a start on a career anyway through family connections but, what with upheavals in the business in London, this was not what made his career.

    He shone because he was one of the most articulate and knowledgeable men I have ever met and commanded a matchless lucidity of thought, all without a single minute of schooling after his teens.

    He never relied on his authority as boss. He simply reasoned with you and that was enough.

    I did the full 12 years in Canada. Ten was no longer an option and if you had ambitions to earning a salary rather than a wage you were well advised to do another three to four years somewhere else afterwards.

    My children must now start with 14 years. A reception year was tacked on at the beginning and a Year 13 at the end. It will get them nothing. University is now a must and it had better be a proper one. The one I went to, UBC, is scorned and anything called a "college" they regard as a certain dead end.

    They are minded to arts programmes but what I can see from the stacks of glossy promotional literature they are mailed has little to do with the traditional arts discipline of read, write, critique and do it again and again. What they are offered is more in the line of creative sociamedianthropoliticology studies.

    Oh well, another two or three years after that and they may have something they can use. A niece of mine in Canada wants to be a teacher. This now requires another six years, most of it undoubtedly a lot of hot air on "ethical questions in modern pedagogy".

    This is madness. I mention it because of a flurry of letters I have received in response to a recent column in which I cited the very low entrance requirements of Lingnan University and suggested that a car park on the site of that campus might serve us better.

    The theme of most of these letters was that Lingnan is not alone. The entrance requirements are low for all Hong Kong universities.

    Well, well, well, it turns out to be true. We are in the business of educating the uneducable. It used to be that university was for the bright lights and scholarships were founded to give the bright and poor a chance. Somehow this was conceived as social injustice and now almost everyone can get in, courtesy of public subsidy and a lowering of the standards to accommodate them.

    I saw the results recently when Cathay Pacific Airways advertised for cabin crew and hundreds of people showed up, a large proportion of them with university degrees (I cannot remember quite what percentage), all vying for a chance to put 18 years or so of education to work in intoning the chant, "beef or chicken, sir, your reading light is in the armrest beside you".

    And yet our government seems to think we do not have enough education. It has earmarked HK$13.15 billion in this year's Budget for subventions through the University Grants Committee. More of Hong Kong's youth will now waste the prime of their lives in classrooms where they do not belong.

    And how many of them would do it if they were instead given the money directly and told to use it to make their own choices with their lives?

    I shall pose my question to Lingnan again and address it this time to the others as well. How long would you survive if our government did not prop open your doors? Two minutes? Three? How many students would you pull in if they themselves had to price what they get against what it costs?

    But they have no choice in the matter. It is this or directly to a job as second man on the delivery van.

    Government funding has now made the post-secondary ticket required for anything else although what it gives an increasing number of its holders with the standards now required of them, qualifies them for little else than the delivery van.

    UniversiDDDEEE, fellows. If the shoe fits, wear it.
    Taken from http://columns.scmp.com/colart/monitor/ZZZXRAOU3DD.html for the purpose of discussion.

  2. #2

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    Paul, I can assure you the CX gals in biz / first are not 20 somethings.

    CX cabin and flight deck (they don't like the word cockpit anymore) are highly unionised like most other airlines and the route to promotion - ISM / Purser is pretty grim.