Education Lottery

Now here is a very bad idea.

“Only students doing courses that benefit the economy should receive interest-free loans, according to a suggestion from a leading accountancy group.

“The idea in KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda 2011 was prompted by “long-term decline” of graduates entering agriculture.”

While I have sympathy for the agribusiness sector, because it is increasingly difficult to interest young people in the sector, I have nothing but horror for the idea of government attempting to pick winners in education. Exactly how will politicians and educationalists determine which degrees would be “useful”? The very fact that both I and the sub-editor at Stuff need to place the word “useful” in inverted commas tells the story. Trying to determine what part of tertiary education will have the most economic impact is an exercise in gross stupidity. Governments are notoriously bad at picking winners.

This is not a debate about whether there should be interest free student loans or not, but a debate about the fruitlessness of trying to predict the future. Youngest MacDaughter has just received her BA in Film and Media Studies. There is no doubt that this would be considered “inferior” in economic benefit to, say, viticulture. Yet I would challenge you to name a single viticulturist who has done more for the economy of the country than Peter Jackson (and, no, Jackson was never a film student, but that is not the point). Now, Youngest MacDaughter may never be the next Jackson (though the proud father in me says she has what it takes), but it would be impossible, at the beginning of a degree course, to determine the value (in economic terms) of her education.

Eldest MacDaughter (who takes her own sweet time about these things) has nearly completed her BA in Anthropology and Archaeology. I can bet you whatever you like that neither of these subjects will make it to an “economically  important” list. Yet who knows what contribution to society she may make and whether this learning will have any bearing on that. Eldest MacDaughter like to write. Her education has certainly improved her story-telling abilities. Her language is better, her plots more logical and her characters more believable. Will she be the next JK Rowling? No-one knows. But her education will have contributed to this, if she does.

Okay. Enough proud father stuff.

Government should be in the business of removing barriers to education, not erecting them. I have little problem with the current interest-free student loan scheme and believe that, in the long run, the large expense involved will prove to be worthwhile. Be that as it may, the state must avoid trying to pick educational winners because, frankly, it has no idea what it is doing. While there are certain professions that lend themselves to determining numbers, such as medicine, even this is a dubious practice, leading, as it does, to shortages of personnel, if the professional body underestimates its need (note that it is not in the interests of the said body to over-estimate the need, so oversupply is rarely a problem!).

Surely the best thing would be for the state to provide as level a playing field as possible to allow entrance to tertiary education and allow the industries themselves to pick which subjects they find most valuable to themselves? This is not the same as the current scholarship and bursary system which provides funding based on academic merit (in itself worthwhile), it is a system where a company or industry body offers to pay fully for education and provide work after graduation in return for some sort of bonding. If KPMG want more agribusiness graduates, then they should fund them themselves and provide them a place to work after graduation. This ensures that the industry not only gets its graduates, but retains them long enough for them to be useful to the economy and the industry. It allows the guesswork of what is “useful” to be taken away from clueless government and educationalists and place squarely with the people most likely to know – the leaders of the industries themselves. This would remove the “lottery” aspect of the choice of degrees and ensure that the “economically important” degree subjects are properly used.

I’m sure some of this is already going on. However, it should be extended to all industries, including health and education. Why don’t DHBs or even hospitals fund medical and nursing education, to ensure their supply of graduates? Why do we put up with the clinical training boards making bad guesses as to hospital requirements? Why is there always a shortage of teachers when the teaching colleges have plenty of extra capacity?

I suspect that if all industries pulled their weight in this respect and ceased whining about how the government and the universities don’t produce enough graduates that they like, the government would feel much less pressure to cancel the interest-free student loan scheme. The government could also provide some funding to encourage industries to provide this sort of graduate funding and placement. However, this should be at the level of an incentive, rather than a heavy subsidy as it is actually in the industries interests to do this and they should need little encouragement.

So how about being part of the solution, KPMG?

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