23 July 2008 - 19:19Future education

If you read literature on economic development you are probably familiar with the declining American high school graduation rate and its effects on inequality due to the differences in income between the educated and non-educated members of society. A person which has not graduated from high-school will have quite a lot of problems securing an income in an economy where the low-skilled, labor-intensive jobs have been moved to China.

One reason that I see for this problem is the current misalignment between early education providers (such as high schools) and labor market. High school’s main goal is creating “better” human beings, its mandate is more social than economic. However with the tilting of the labor market towards jobs which require education it appears that education providers should also find a way to respond to economic concerns about the students entering an educational establishment.

I would say that we need shift the way we think about education towards economic concerns and insert some incentives into the educational process that reflect these economic concerns.

I don’t have time to finish this post, I will probably re-visit it later.