Tag: Europe

Today Americans face a tough and increasingly complicated economy while business changes at a more rapid pace than ever before. Unemployment continues to rise, while the job market gets more and more competitive. Individuals are expected to possess a wide variety of skills and add to their knowledge base on a minute by minute basis. Corporate leaders and working professionals are expected to be jack of all trades and masters of many disciplines within their respective area. Needless to say, it is not easy to do business in the 21st century.

With that said, most of the information needed to succeed in this competitive environment is easily available anywhere, anytime thanks to the internet. The proliferation of the internet and mobile technologies has revolutionized the modern world of business, science, education and related fields as we know it, and internet and technology-based education is becoming a de facto standard in both public and private education systems.

Unfortunately, with a hyperactive economy and business structure comes the skyrocketing costs associated with obtaining an education in America. On average, the cost of obtaining a higher education degree has almost doubled during the last 10-15 years. Student debts have surpassed credit card debts, and are currently estimated to amount to approximately $830 billion.

Analysts predict that in the next 15 years the world will educate over 250,000,000 students. America and Europe are expected to grow 65-75% on average where as China and India are expected to grow approximately 450-550%. This need for education in the coming years shows the need for rapid growth in quality and affordable education, that will be in high demand worldwide even more so than it already is today.

Understanding the current market conditions and predicting the future of education, the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC), a Washington-based education accrediting agency, took initiatives to create and publish a public service announcement called Think About It” during their fall workshop. Meant to guide the student community, the video PSA was well received during the conference and quickly spread across the internet. Highly successful in explaining the need for affordable higher education, and ways of achieving that goal in the coming years, this video was published and featured in esteemed online media outlets ranging from Forbes to Yahoo, CNBC and more. So far over 10,000 individuals have come in contact with this information, thus proving the impact and need for a plan and direction to provide affordable education worldwide.

Spreading information about the possibilities of education attainment, the DETC continues to pioneer affordable online education. DETC institutions have enrolled and helped an estimated 140 million students worldwide since the founding of the first DETC school in 1890, and today DETC schools teach over 2.5 million students annually. Their mission is to continue to fulfill the American dream by providing opportunities for aspiring students everywhere. Setting a global standard for online education it is the hopes of myself, and many other educators and members of the industry, that Think About It” is just the first of many successful attempts at making higher education a possibility for all.

Educational qualifications can be, and often are used to maintain the status quo – the existing social order. When I lived in the Netherlands, you had to have qualifications to be able to open a shop. Sounds fair enough, you might say, but the exams were only available in Dutch, which is not one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world.

If Mohamed Al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods, wanted to open a shop in the Netherlands, he would have to learn Dutch or circumvent the regulations by hiring local managers.

While I can see the need for people (shop keepers in this case) to provide evidence of an understanding of the law of the land, some countries take it too far. They make education a weapon of class warfare.

After all, it allows the ruling class to say that they are only trying to raise standards, while not providing the means for the poor to reach those standards. By not providing a universal education, they are in fact ensuring that the best jobs stay with the richest families.

There is a subtle way of modifying this scheme so as to make the gentry look innocent – they can put schools in every village and then stock them with low-grade teachers by making the wages and conditions awful, and simultaneously open the universities to all who have reached the requisite level of education.

This method also keeps the riff-raff out but allows the rich to maintain the illusion that a university education is open to all. This is the most common tactic in the Developing World.

In richer countries like Europe and America, the glass ceiling is put in place by making higher education expensive and offering ‘cheap loans’ to students who wish to continue their education.

In the UK, at the moment, the cap on university fees is about $14,000 per annum, so after a typical three tear course, a student comes away with a degree, which is no longer a guarantee of a job, and a $40,000 overdraft.

That is enough to deter the riff-raff too.

So what is the solution to this subtle form of the poverty, or at least, the social status trap?

Means-tested grants used to work just fine.

A student has to be able to embark on an educational course without having the distraction of worrying about money. Rich kids don’t have to worry about their finances at or after university, so why should poor kids? Let’s make it fair.

Britain as a whole had this enviable system for decades, but Scotland is the only country within the UK to maintain it. Welsh students have to pay something, I think, but not as much as English kids.

This will probably result in more Scottish and Welsh graduates per head of population than English ones in the near future. The Celts will love that, but it doesn’t seem fair on the English working class.

One of the reasons why Lek in ‘Behind The Smile’ did not stay at school was because the family thought the the cost seemed to be too high for the benefits that they could see it delivering. This is not the state’s direct fault, but it does result from a lack of ambition in people who have never known anyone in their family go to university.

Behind The Smile : ISBN: 978-1-475-21688-2 : Published by CreateSpace 19-4-2012 : Paperback and eBook.

Seeking cheap higher education in Europe or other countries in general can be intimidating if you have never left your own country’s border. If you have, then you know how easy it is to do so again and again. Making education a priority when you get out of the country can add untold advantages to your quality of life. There are five reasons why you should pursue this course of action if you are not yet done with your schooling, and you want something more than the same information that is spoon fed to all of your classmates.

Form social bonds and relationships that transcend cultures. It is very common for people who take part in out of country educational programs to make friends they never would have in another life. Once people from two different cultures are around one another, they find out they are not so different, and the differences they do have only serve to educate rather than separate.

Become a more well-rounded individual through a new set of experiences. When you experience a new culture, you get a clearer picture of what it is that makes the world work as it does, and has, for millions of years. That sort of understanding makes you more appreciative of other people’s culture as well as your own.

Make yourself more marketable in your profession. When you get out of your comfort zone, and you see how the world operates from another perspective, you pick up life experiences that can translate into dollars and sense. Learning new languages and new skill sets that are important to one culture helps you stand out in your own, and that kind of marketability helps employers to cut through the various applicants and get to the one that matters-yours!

Eliminate prejudices. When raised in a society that is shut off from the rest of the world, it is common for prejudices to develop between you and other cultures. Isolation is not a good thing as you get older. The more of it that you experience, the more likely you are to have unfair conclusions arise in your brain about the way people in other parts of the world live. When you are around them and you get to know the human side that you so often don’t see, it’s easier to let go of the misconceptions and embrace others for their humanity.

Pass it on. The more knowledge of or experience with other cultures that you have the more you are able to pass it along in your daily life. That kind of leadership capability not only enriches your own life, but also the lives of all those in the world around you.

Educational qualifications can be, and often are used to maintain the status quo – the existing social order. When I lived in the Netherlands, you had to have qualifications to be able to open a shop. Sounds fair enough, you might say, but the exams were only available in Dutch, which is not one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world.

If Mohamed Al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods, wanted to open a shop in the Netherlands, he would have to learn Dutch or circumvent the regulations by hiring local managers.

While I can see the need for people (shop keepers in this case) to provide evidence of an understanding of the law of the land, some countries take it too far. They make education a weapon of class warfare.

After all, it allows the ruling class to say that they are only trying to raise standards, while not providing the means for the poor to reach those standards. By not providing a universal education, they are in fact ensuring that the best jobs stay with the richest families.

There is a subtle way of modifying this scheme so as to make the gentry look innocent – they can put schools in every village and then stock them with low-grade teachers by making the wages and conditions awful, and simultaneously open the universities to all who have reached the requisite level of education.

This method also keeps the riff-raff out but allows the rich to maintain the illusion that a university education is open to all. This is the most common tactic in the Developing World.

In richer countries like Europe and America, the glass ceiling is put in place by making higher education expensive and offering ‘cheap loans’ to students who wish to continue their education.

In the UK, at the moment, the cap on university fees is about $14,000 per annum, so after a typical three tear course, a student comes away with a degree, which is no longer a guarantee of a job, and a $40,000 overdraft.

That is enough to deter the riff-raff too.

So what is the solution to this subtle form of the poverty, or at least, the social status trap?

Means-tested grants used to work just fine.

A student has to be able to embark on an educational course without having the distraction of worrying about money. Rich kids don’t have to worry about their finances at or after university, so why should poor kids? Let’s make it fair.

Britain as a whole had this enviable system for decades, but Scotland is the only country within the UK to maintain it. Welsh students have to pay something, I think, but not as much as English kids.

This will probably result in more Scottish and Welsh graduates per head of population than English ones in the near future. The Celts will love that, but it doesn’t seem fair on the English working class.

One of the reasons why Lek in ‘Behind The Smile’ did not stay at school was because the family thought the the cost seemed to be too high for the benefits that they could see it delivering. This is not the state’s direct fault, but it does result from a lack of ambition in people who have never known anyone in their family go to university.

Behind The Smile : ISBN: 978-1-475-21688-2 : Published by CreateSpace 19-4-2012 : Paperback and eBook.