The wrong education

[Skybird]

http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.p..._of_education/

That is because today’s graduates are brought up and educated to believe that their imagined intellectual brilliance and personal exceptionality will make up for everything else they are lacking. It’s the result of an education system that confers degrees and qualifications on young people without teaching them anything that would actually make them employable: knowledge, work ethics and some basic business skills.

To be clear, this is not a New Zealand problem. When I recruited for policy researchers in my previous jobs at think tanks in the UK and Australia, I encountered the same issues. Colleagues in Germany tell me they are experiencing the same problems.
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What is even more disturbing about these candidates is that their marks are usually very good. I have even interviewed economics PhDs who couldn’t name a single famous economist and who were blissfully unaware of any economic policy discussions.

lt is equally troubling that candidates’ lack of knowledge inversely correlates with their self-confidence. Cover letters, sometimes stretching over several pages, boast about the candidates’ “very unique [sic]” attributes, and their ability “to think outside the box.” To be blunt, I sometimes wish they could at least think within the box before trying to venture anywhere else. Apart from that, proper grammar and orthography would be a plus but seem to be optional.
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Having to constantly endure these theoretically intelligent and well qualified, but unknowledgeable and underwhelming interviewees, it makes me wonder what has happened in education – primary, secondary, and tertiary – to produce this calibre of candidates.

It seems to have become fashionable to cotton-wool students at school and university. Teaching is no longer primarily about conveying knowledge but encouraging students to develop it themselves. The role of the teacher is no longer as an instructor but rather as a moderator or facilitator.
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At the same time that basic standards in core competencies such as reading, writing and maths decline, grades have bizarrely improved. Again, this is a phenomenon in many developed countries. As a result, one German university now only accepts students for medicine with the best possible school leaving qualification. More and more students achieve what was previously regarded as outstanding and exceptional marks.

Despite this grade inflation across the developed world, Western students are now outclassed by a large margin in the OECD’s PISA assessment by students from China, Singapore and Hong Kong. In maths, sciences, and reading these students leave their Western contemporaries far behind. Perhaps this is because of a greater emphasis in their cultures on hard work, precision and preparation that the West has lost?