What Should We Do About Education?

After a century of government education we still have large swathes of the population that just don’t get education.  Writes Niall Ferguson

In Britain today, fully 40 per cent of adults who left school at the earliest opportunity are now unemployed.

Then he goes on to talk about an “an uneducated and unemployable underclass” that is our biggest problem.

Here we are spending about five percent of GDP on primary and secondary education every year.  Yet millions of children grow up without acquiring basic literacy and numeracy.  What is going on?

But let us step back a bit.  Notice anything about those unemployed and unemployable adults?  They aren’t starving to death.  Let’s put it another way.  Although you and I wouldn’t be caught dead without our 20 years of education and our college degrees, the fact is that education is not a matter of life and death.  People who studiously avoid education are doing fine.

In fact our society actually gives money to people without education and without skills.  On the other hand, it takes money from people with an education.

As economist Ludwig von Mises said half a century ago.  People who are unemployed today are people who can afford not to be working today.

Maybe we need to change the whole structure of incentive in our society.  Here are a few mean-spirited ideas.

• We abolish the public school system but the government (or government contractors) runs free literacy/numeracy clinics for all ages 6 through 60.  Graduates get a certificate of literacy and numeracy.
• Kids under 14 cannot work unless they have a certificate of literacy and numeracy.
• Teenagers who want to quit school and work must pay a 20 percent literacy tax unless they carry a certificate of literacy and numeracy.
• Single parents that show up for government benefits must enroll in a literacy program and demonstrate basic literacy skills before they can get government housing or rent subsidies.  Children are farmed out to foster homes until certificate of literacy and numeracy is obtained by the parent.
• People that apply for unemployment benefits must show a certificate of literacy and numeracy before they get full benefits unless they are enrolled in a literacy/numeracy clinic.
• People can’t get a driver’s license unless they hold a certificate of literacy and numeracy.

And so on.  Nothing special going on here.  It is just that if we believe that literacy and numeracy are essential in the modern age then let us demonstrate how serious we are.

And the way to show our seriousness is to get serious about illiteracy.

Liberals should like this program.  They are all in favor of compulsion.