Educational trends in Europe
Photo: Sara Haj-Hassan.
Individuals confronted with higher educational options are often faced with a myriad of choices and this can make it difficult to differentiate between "good" and "less than ideal" choices. An incorrect choice is costly to reverse and invariably takes much time and effort to remedy. This is compounded by the fact that the complexity of educational choices today is greater than it has ever been. This article identifies some educational trends and issues which will affect the educational concerns and decisions of the European Jamat over the next decade. The analysis deals first with aspects of educational aspirations and then with issues of access to quality education.
Engendering educational aspirations
Photo: Gözde Otman.
The current concerns with the accelerating cost of education and the rate of return in monetary terms tend to view education in pure cost-benefit analysis terms. Today, economic variables such as tuition costs supersede the dimensions of good education such as preparedness for change, flexibility and depth of insight. This is an unfortunate shift from the previously-held and still very valid belief that education is a valuable long-term investment in personal growth rather than simply economic return. Surveys reveal a positive relationship between lifetime earnings and educational attainment even in cases where individuals seek education for reasons other than to enhance earning potential. A recent major study, Education at a Glance 2007, by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicated that for the 33 countries surveyed, individuals with upper secondary and tertiary education attain higher levels of employment than those with lesser qualifications. Moreover, earnings increase with each level of education.
Individuals making higher-education choices today are part of the first generation of individuals who are less likely to achieve the standard of living enjoyed by their parents. Baby boomers grew up in the belief that their life opportunities and earning power would almost inevitably exceed that of their parents.
Such beliefs were well founded and, in the main, realised. The new reality for today's youth is that childhood expectations about adult life must now be revised. The high cost of education, the longer training periods and increased competition for positions may influence some to reassess the economic payoffs accruing from educational investments.
As social ideals change from one generation to the next, different personal choices are being made in order to accommodate career plans: postponing marriage, deferring investment in property, and delay in starting a family. Today's fast-changing economic and social events may thus paint educational pursuits in a less favourable light for some individuals. Yet, good education remains the bedrock of one's ability to find satisfaction from life opportunities that promote self-growth.
Choosing the right programmes
In a global context of rapidly shifting work specialties and altering patterns of industrial employment, classical education that is analytical and insight-intensive rather than functionally narrow and yet rich in information, can be highly valuable. For instance, a course in website design may be stronger on information content than one in history or chemistry but weaker on developing one's analytical potential.
Information-intense degree programmes catering to passing trends are often regarded as more appealing than ones focused on the development of analytical thinking, powers of abstraction and the conceptualisation of ideas. However, it is not clear that such courses will retain marketability in the long run. Once a glut of individuals with such qualifications graduate, they then face the difficulty of having well defined but non-transferable and rapidly perishable knowledge.
Newer academic institutions tend to be market leaders in effecting swift educational change. Such institutions use savvy marketing tactics and package their offerings to attract university entrants into educational programmes that often cannot be regarded as optimal choices. When the students in these programmes realise that they need more solid educational credentials they tend to find that there are no quick remedies for poor educational pursuits.
Over the next decade, as the funding of education provision across European nations becomes tighter and education policy is used as political leverage, cash-constrained educational institutions will resort to commercialised methods of promoting their product offerings with increasing intensity. This means that individuals will be faced with a myriad of educational choices and thus the likelihood of making sub-optimal choices will grow in parallel.
In some instances in Western Europe, there has been a lowering of entrance requirements of educational performance. Prestigious universities are as a result moving toward requiring alternative examinations and increasingly seek more politically neutral entry qualifications, such as the International Baccalaureate diploma. The trend toward grade inflation continues and will demand very cautious high school and university choice-making at an early stage.
European education in a global market
Over the past 30 years, European countries have slipped in educational performance rankings relative to other countries. A consequence of educational performance and wage differentials between countries and the advent of information and communication technologies is that outstanding graduates from countries such as India and China absorb jobs that traditionally would have gone to graduates in the West. Alongside this, Eastern European economies also offer a large workforce of highly educated individuals who appear willing to accept a fraction of Western European salaries. Outsourcing from Western to Eastern Europe is seeing accelerated growth. This trend will intensify competition for quality educational possibilities in countries like the UK, Portugal, France and Germany whilst post-educational opportunities will suffer set backs.
Photo: Steve Woods
Within Western economies, mitigating the impact of unemployment, sickness, national disasters, etc. is regarded as the responsibility of the State. This is generally not the case in developing and emerging economies. As good education comes to be regarded as a significant social safety net, it will be sought with more vigour. Europeans thus confront a growingly complex and competitive higher education landscape. In the UK, from 2005/6 to 2006/7, EU undergraduate students saw an increase of 5% and non-EU students of 12%. Yet, the UK resident enrolments fell by 2% (BBC NEWS 24, 10/1/2008). Such "crowding out" as a result of intensified competition for places is likely to continue in the future.
Looking ahead
Individuals making educational choices today cannot afford to ignore the trends discussed above. Decisions about higher education today are influenced by several key factors: a) the commercialised nature of educational offerings affecting universities; b) the politicisation of educational priorities; c) the employability potential of the citizens of emerging economies; and d) the global march toward fast-paced knowledge-based economies.
In light of this rapidly-changing social and economic environment, young people today need to pay increased attention to selecting appropriate higher educational programmes.
