Shop Talk: Tuesday, March 1

Having taught several years alongside Dr. Fayez at The American University of Afghanistan, I cannot agree with this article more.  Several points I would like to remark on include the fact that the “for profit” institutions are out of control in Afghanistan.  These for profit institutions are nothing more than diploma mills.  Some of them even operated by entities that have been run out on a rail in the U.S.  One has to wonder how they even were certified to operate and knowing how corruption abounds in Afghanistan all one has to do is make logical inferrences.  Nonethesss, they are out of control and all they do is rob the very people they take tuition from and the country from getting the best they can get for future leaders. 

Secondly, the financial situation in education in Afghanistan is abysmal at best.  Now, I am 14.5 year veteran of the U.S. military and even I found it atrocious that greater than 90 percent of the aid dollars meant for Afghanistan are in the hands of the U.S. military to dole out as they see fit to win the hearts and minds.  This includes much of that intended to better education.  True they build schools but without educated teachers to teach what good are they.  In fact, many of them sit empty waiting for the so called teachers that are turned out by the institutions of higher education. 

Finally, I would beg to differ with Dr. Fayez on the quality of the state run higher education system in Afghanistan.  Having employed a few of Kabul Universities graduates and interviewed even more of them, including a certified “English” teacher who had to have an interpreter present for the interview, to say the state system needs to work is a gross understatement.  It is true, however, that even educated proffessionals who hold PhD’s and MD’s do make more working out of their fields than in and a moonlighting proffessor is very much less effective in a classroom.  Yes, at AUAF we had one driver and another facilities worker that held MD’s and yet another that was enrolled as an undergraduate student because his MD did not prepare him to international standards and he was getting a Bachelors in hopes of attending a western med school. 

The problem with much of this not only lies in the universities  but the very instution of Higher Education itself. The very ministry who controls higher ed is itself is the major problem.  This is not a bottom up problem but a top down one and not Dr. Fayez left the Ministry has MOHE been headed by a person even remotely qualified to do so.   The problem is that the head of MOHE, like all ministies, are appointed and therefore part of the heavily corrupt political chessgame in Afghanistan.  That system of corrupt appointments then filters down into the very fabric of the ministry with folks getting appointed to Director positions who are grossly underqualified.  Therefore there is no qualified oversight anywhere.  Instead of standard of quality in education, since they cannot speak to such, they find themselves trying to make splashes in such things as morality on campuses and enforcing dress codes.    

The answer?  It is not that simple but to start, scrap the ministry and the corrupt appointment process in Afghanistan. 

What is the purpose of college education? Is it a stepping stone for getting a job or for knowledge?

The original colleges were for the acquiring of knowledge. Very few people went to college, as opposed to today where it seems everyone wants to go to college.

Today you have liberal arts schools where students are encouraged to learn. My daughter goes to William College which uses the 4-1-4 system. There is winter intersession where students are encouraged to take courses that they might not have considered taking.

For job training then it is important to go to those institutions where students can be trained.

My wife is from China. She has relative who has degree in Computer Technology but having a hard time getting job that is relevant. He was offerred job as telephone answerer answering general questions. How important was it getting college degree in Computer Technology if the job he has isn’t even related to the degree?

My wife has friends whose children have similar experiences. There is one child who has degree in biology but the only job available was a salesperson for real estate. What a waste!!!!!

The problem in China isn’t the degree but the job prospects. There are too many college graduates but too few jobs. The number of jobs that are being created is low in comparison to the number of college graduates evey year. It has been estimated that there will be around 6.6 million newly minted college graduates in China in 2011.

http://www.econmatters.com/2011/07/college-graduates-too-many-in-china-not.html

Look at the following

Indeed, China is the largest developing country in the world far from being fully industrialized, and lacks the necessary infrastructure to properly place these highly educated young people. The nation owes much of its GDP (and therefore new jobs) to the manufacturing, industrial, and exporting sector, which mostly have more openings for blue collar workers instead of white collar jobs. There are simply more of them than jobs that they are qualified for, and the lack of affordable housing also has contributed to the “Ant Tribes” formation. Furthermore, due to the imbalance of social and economic development between urban and rural areas, ‘’Ant Tribes’ are clustered around major coastal regions like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, whereas rural areas, especially in the western regions, where work environment can be difficult, have a much higher demand for college graduates.

It therefore seems that China simply doesn’t have the number of jobs available.

In regard to the idea that “The original colleges were for the acquiring of knowledge,” this is an a-historical fantasy based on 19th century quarrels over educational policy in Great Britain.  Higher education, whether in Roman times or with the foundation of European universities in the middle ages, was vocational — the latter trained theologians, church and secular lawyers and administrators, and doctors.  Early American colleges were for the training of ministers and lawyers — later doctors.  They required large amounts of “liberal arts” because professionals needed to master the Latin (and later Greek) language and culture in which knowledge was expressed and professional life was carried out at the time.  At the same time, knowledge of classical languages and literature became a very strong social class marker. 

With the rise of modern languages and science, utilitarians in the 19th century tried to reform higher education to better meet the needs of the modern world, and conservatives defended a focus on classical languages and literature as better meeting the needs of the British Empire as a “modern Rome,”  based on 19th century fantasies of a Graeco-Roman inspired government by letters-loving aristocrats rather than ambitious technocrats from the lower orders.  Hence the ideal of education for education’s sake — aimed at those who would never actually need to work for a living, but might condescend to lead and administer the country for the good of all.In the Chinese case, one of the complicating factors is that the number of each major at each university each year is still centrally determined, so this sort of input-output analysis goes on informally all the time.  I have been involved with Chinese higher education ever since I was a Chinese language major studying in Taiwan in 1970, and both the sociology and politics of education in China is very different from the US.

Dear dear Ben:   Your last sentence is a giveaway:  ”I don’t see why anyone should have a major problem with that.”  Perhaps only every [American] family that kicks in to assist their kid[s] get through college on the assumption that it will lead them to a job that will later enable them to lead a better life than they did..Wasn’t that always the rationale for going to college?  If families discuss the stats with their kid at the kitchen table during the senior year at high school this year, maybe we’ll see a more realistic view of what the future holds for the Class of 2015:  OK,  we’ll help you pay for college but only if you major in x, y or z;  if not, ooops –then what?  I know: for those families of a certain means, this discussion never takes place. For everyone else, it’s about the trade-offs of working for work’s sake, perhaps not in a field you care much about, or entering the job market in a low-paying/low skill job without much hope of climbing up and into the middle class lifestyle your family wishes for you.  The lofty prose in this post belies the reality that most families face when discussing whether or not they can or should send their child to a college or university.
 

Flipped classes, class as “surgery,” or old-fashioned seminar only work if the students come prepared.

Question.  Do we mainly want to improve production efficiencies for high-tech surgical wards, national security compilation, insurance company accounting, Industrial Ag generic expansion, laser-guided war drone increases, consumer marketing finesse, Big Pharma med blanketing, high finance student loan debt derivative bundling, and all the other arms of Corporate America?

Or do we want some of the human also yet involved in teaching and learning?