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Education: Whats the point of it?

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Comments

  • #52
    RubyRoss
    Registered Users Posts: 302 ✭✭RubyRoss


    Pacifist Pigeon wrote: »
    If no education was publicly funded (absolutely none of it), I'd argue that while the quantity of graduates would diminish somewhat, the quality of graduates would improve greatly.

    On top of what Kinski has already written, your reasoning isn't very clear.

    The quantity of students would not just 'diminish somewhat' if all subsidy was removed but instead drop dramatically as few could actually afford 20 years of education.

    I can only assume you expect the quality to improve because the class-sizes will be miniscule. Apart from that there is no relation between being wealthy enough to afford education and actually being a good student.

    No too long ago only wealthy people could enter the professions and there was no examination of ability for entering just money. Dr Ivor Browne recalls doing Medicine because law was too difficult and he describes a class peopled with not very bright but rich students who didn't really want to be doctors in the first place.


  • #53
    Pacifist Pigeon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 504 ✭✭✭Pacifist Pigeon


    Kinski wrote: »
    Your argument is that education can't be regarded as a basic right because it "is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself," which is inaccurate, because children are not capable of engaging in such voluntary improvement. No one could ever improve themselves in such ways if they had not been educated as a child (when it was not their decision).

    My argument that it isn't a basic right because it isn't a natural right. It is something that can only be given to you by a state or an organised institution. These sort of rights are fallacious as they assume the infinite supply of resources to provide such education, when in fact there is only finite resources available.
    Kinski wrote: »
    So your actual position appears to be that children should not have a right to an education, rather their parents or some other guardian should decide on their behalf whether or not they receive one, correct?

    At that age, yes.
    Kinski wrote: »
    So far as I'm aware, Plato did not even charge fees to his students. In what sense was it a business?

    What are the characteristics of a not-for-profit business, isn't boards.ie an example?


  • #54
    deise go deo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,677 ✭✭✭deise go deo


    Pacifist Pigeon wrote: »
    Hypocritical as it may sound of me being a student who's benefiting from state subsidised education, I don't think education should ever be funded by the state.

    I think that our modern welfare state puts a greater emphasis on the quantity in education, rather than the quality of education. In the long run, this will and is leading to a decline in the quality of graduates and school-leavers.

    Education should not be a right, such a rights is unnatural. You're not born with the right to education, it is given to you at the behest of some state or organised body.

    Education is and always has been the voluntary improvement of oneself. It is a choice. To have an individual choice sustained shouldn't be held as natural rights, but rather the right to choose should.

    We have to realised that schools/colleges/universities are business and operate as such; always have always will - no matter how rosy an academic idealist might like to frame it.

    If no education was publicly funded (absolutely none of it), I'd argue that while the quantity of graduates would diminish somewhat, the quality of graduates would improve greatly. I'd also argue that the price of education would decrease relative to competition, in comparison to private schools/colleges/universities nowadays. This will make it affordable (and don't point out the US as an opposing example because the state gets involved in the funding of student loans, which has a backlash on competition).


    Why should the children of wealthy people be favored over the children of poor people?

    There is no difference in the potential ability of the offspring of the two groups, so why should one be allowed an advantage in succeeding over the other, surely it would be better to foster genius wherever it comes from rather than allowing those with money to unbalance the playing field.


  • #55
    southsiderosie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,565 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    MOD NOTE:

    This topic of this thread is "what is the point of education". It is not, "should education be publicly funded". If anyone would like to start a thread on that topic, then feel free. Otherwise, let's re-focus on the topic of this thread.


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