The New Beachhutman Blog

Another week, another story that the value of a UK university degree has plummeted and many kids would be better not going to University. I co-wrote a book in 2004 in which I seriously questioned the UK governments grip on reality over the introduction of fees, and the relentless expansion of degree courses. The evidence of diminishing returns had been there for some years.  I then worked for an organisation that was close to employers, in fact represented them in some matters of training, and more and more they were even then telling us, (like HSBC, quoted only this week), that they instead targeted smart 6^th formers, because the degrees were mostly useless to them, and because they didn’t want a lot of debt-obsessed new starters.

But as so often, the UK Labour government was driven by sheer dogma, not by sense, or evidence, or even common sense, and they lied, deceived, and so cheated a whole generation of kids by forcing their stupidities through parliament.The outcomes were immediately clear - within a year even ministers admitted that the "You will earn £400,000 more over your career!" line\was officially  down to £200, 000. Even then they couldn't bear to admit their basic error of supply and demand.

Now it's £120,000.Officially.

(I picked up this story because of the odd word effect. You never notice that odd word, until suddenly it is being used everywhere, and you can’t figure out why you are for the very first time assaulted by the word in every direction. It’s just that you have recently become aware of it and you notice it. So this last few days I’ve been writing about education in China for the new book,  and consequently was not deliberately, but unknowingly, watching for stories that had “education” in them.)

If there is one value which has remained unchanged over millennia in China it is the respect for scholarship and education. Despite the fact that throughout most of China's history probably no more than about 20% of the population could read and write (today it's 90%), any Chinese will tell you how literacy and culture are part of the great Chinese tradition. The old are respected more for their accumulated wisdom than for their longevity alone, although in the changing China the old must often wonder if their acquisition of that wisdom was worth it at all.

There have been times when someone forgot the Chinese love of learning. The First Emperor of China (who ruled 221‑210 BC) in a moment of absent‑mindedness buried the pick of the empire's scholars alive, and compounded his mistake by forgetting to dig them up again. Chairman Mao shut schools right, left and centre (well, Left anyway) but later in life was so keen to hear the views of the remaining scholars that he encouraged them to speak and debate under the banner 'Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend'.

After they had spoken, he couldn’t decide if he disliked scholarship or free speech the more, so just to be sure he sent them all away to be re-educated, a reaction to disagreement with the official line that endures today. This risk of re-education now seems to remain deep in the national character, with the most exceptionally competent Chinese colleague occasionally repentantly coming out with possibly prophylactic expressions like, “I have been foolish, I am not a very good manager!” when the westerner is more likely to say, “Well, it sure looks like I totally screwed that up!”

In modern China education, qualification, and knowledge are of inestimable value. Nine years of school education is technically compulsory for all Chinese, but this being China, the average education is really about seven years. Chinese families will still mortgage their futures to send a son, or if no son is available a daughter, into higher education. For secondary and especially higher education is seen as the only certain path to a better - and wealthier - future.  Wealthy Chinese will send their children abroad to foreign universities at what seems hideous expense, hoping they will return with one, two, or even three degrees and diplomas. The less affluent will enrol their entire extended family to support a child through a State university.

In 2006 the government announced the abolition of school fees for 150 million rural children. I blogged how on TV children whose families had been too poor to afford even the one dollar fifty a month to send them to school, were seen crying with gratitude at the news; they knew they now had a future. We can only hope it is not just a dream.

Oddly, the Chinese value scholarship so highly that they find it impossible to believe that anyone who is a true scholar could want something as mundane as a living wage. Teachers are appallingly paid if actually paid at all. Oddly forgetting their tradition of great respect for education, the Chinese say, "If you're not poor you don't teach."  Which in today’s China, amounts to pretty much the same thing as the Shavian,  “He who can does, he who cannot, teaches”

Where does it all lead? Well, there is already an over-supply of young graduates in the cities, creating intense pressure for jobs. Some graduates end up working in restaurants. The key to getting a good job, as in UK, is no longer the specialization or even the degree, but other things the employers need, team working, communication, responsibility, and not least English and I.T. Because the Chinese government realised (it is said) that this would be the case, almost any young graduate today will have studied English and IT.

As an entirely unexpected side effect (or was it?) , these graduates can therefore both use English and the internet, and there are millions of them, making it incredibly difficult for the government to pretend that people can’t get unapproved news and information from the outside world. But that would mean the Great Firewall is pointless, which it can’t be, because it is required by the Party, and obviously if the Party required it, it must be effective.

Logic may be taught in universities, but Chinese logic is very different from Western logic. But at least they don’t have to pretend that a degree has a huge value. As the value of a degree in UK plummets to derisory levels, it is still rising in China.