Education at School Level – Good News for Germany

Compared with the other European countries, the result of the PISA studies conducted by OECD to the mathematical and language skills of children was taken seriously by Germany. There were many newspaper reports on this issues. People were talking about  it very often. Politicians were quoting it. Probably they never even imagined that their school method could be  as inadequate as reflected by these reports. The government also was trying to take some action. But even before that, the teachers on their own, have been trying with an extra effort to remedy the situation. Now the latest news is that the IGLU study has concluded and the findings have been published in all German newspapers. I could find any shorter version or a summary . But he detailed report is here http://pirls.bc.edu/isc/publications.html (download the International Report). There are a lot of information (438 pages) with complete details of the research. For Germany , they have improved their ranking from 2003 PISA study (18th place) to 11th place.  The rumour also has it that the Germany has improved also in the upcoming PISA report scheduled for Dec 4th 2007. 

Educational Quality and Economic Growth – Econtalk Podcast

 Todd from  http://www.toddseal.com asked in a comment to a previous post of mine about some studies on growth and education. Well I found this podcast on Econtalk  http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/08/hanushek_on_edu_1.html.

When will European Varsities Wakeup?

For the last  4 years,  IIE (Institute of International Education) has been indicating the drop in international student enrollment. But this year their annual report is out it indicates an increase in the international students http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=113743. This means that the drop attributed due to the excessive anti terrorist scrutiny is more or less getting overcome and the confidence and the lure of better education is bringing them back to US. But this also means the efforts made in the last few years by European Universities in compete with the US is not bearing fruits.  A study carried out by Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) for the  European Commission to identify the “brand value ” of European Varsities identified that most students weighed  US universities high on innovation, dynamism while the opposite for European Varsities http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/mundus/acasummary.pdf . But nothing seems to have been done about this. Even the Bologna Process http://www.eua.be/index.php?id=65 which is targeting for 2010 has not do anything about independence of universities, bringing out innovation or dynamism.

Education-Comparisons

Private or Public schools seems to weigh on most people´s mind. Though my previous blogs was just about the quantity of private schools for different GINI indexes, a lot of discussion  has come up. I also found a lot of  discussion points on the Internet.  http://www.toddseal.com/rodin/2006/02/public-is-not-private-faulty-comparison-2/ Quite interesting. But the latest research study by the Friedman Foundation http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/friedman/research/ShowResearchItem.do?id=10082 comes out clearly that students in private education out performed the students in public education system.  

There was also another discussion on the same blog about USA education vs Europe http://www.toddseal.com/rodin/2006/02/faulty-comparison-american-public-schools-versus-the-world/. There are many such comparative studies on the internet.  But here general conclusion is always that Europe is definitely lagging US.  Some studies are even aimed at finding the cause for this. Example http://www.oenb.at/de/img/paper_krueger_tcm14-10448.pdf.

Reformation of Universities

One surprising fact I noticed in the Shanghai Ranking (refer to earlier blog) was that the poor performance of European universities. Mind you these were the universities which at the turn of the century contributed to growth of science and maths in all forms and definitely were the leaders.  But now US universities are dominating in all respects. 

Looking for clues and what is happening I got this link   http://www.bruegel.org/Public/Publication_detail.php?ID=1169&publicationID=4618.   I would recommend those interested to go through it as it is not highly theoretical and is in plain language. The summary is that European Universities are in need of nearly 1% of their education costs additional in higher educations. They also need badly better governance and reformation. Though the study on universities does not consider the independent research centres which are prime research centres in Germany and so skews the result, there is a need for funding and reformation in European universities.

Private and Public Education-Quality

David De La Croix is a very interesting economist. His homepage is http://homepages.econ.ucl.ac.be/d.delacroix/. As can be seen on this web-page , he has done some intuitive research into things which don´t seem so common sense. For example his model on number of children versus cost of health. As his summary says “If the cost of health decreases, parents will increase their investment in their children’s longevity. The number of children will first increase in the Malthusian regime as a consequence of higher lifetime income. As longevity rises, fertility starts falling as a result of the trade-off faced by parents between investing in their own human capital and spending time rearing children.”.

Now recently he and Matthias Doepke have come out with a paper on quality of public education and private education. The paper is highly theoretical .But a very readable summary is on this link http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/559. Basically they come out with the result that the number of private schools go up as inequality increases (like in USA,Brazil, India) and consequently the quality of education in public school drops.

Below par Indian Education System – More on the University Ranking

Some blogs were complaining about the rating system of the “THES-QS World University Rankings”. Well, India did not do better in other ranking also. For example the Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking also comes to the same conclusion http://www.arwu.org/rank/2007/ARWU2007TOP500list.htm . The topmost position goes to Indian Institute of Science at position 202 to 301 (all equally ranked universities get the same position) while IIT Kharagapur and Calcutta University were at 404-502 position. 

Contrast this with headline of one of the top stories of businessworld magazine http://www.businessworld.in/content/section/5/27 which says “India’s intellectual wealth lures the world thousands of years after an Indian invented zero.”  If India needs to go beyond being a “cyber-coolie” , it needs to probe into the education system. It already has the dubious ranking of having the highest number of illiterates. This means that the shortage or lack  at both the minimum education level and the higher education level.  As like in many other areas here again mediocrity rules while excellence is found wanting.

IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) -Shining Jewels of India .Or.. Just mediocre?

Well the annual  “THES-QS World University Rankings”  for the year 2007 is out . Anybody interested can have a look at the list here. http://www.topuniversities.com . But you need register before that. Well, not surprisingly US and UK universities are on the top with the first 8 positions held between them. Also in the 200 places , they have 89 of their universities in the list. UK itself has 32. Can you guess what about the growing super powers China and India. China has 5 and India has none. Next looking at only Engineering and IT schools again US and Uk take the cake in the top 100. China has  5 universities. The reputed famous tech institutes of India debut with IIT Mumbai at 33rd rank followed by IIT Delhi at 37th , Kharagpur at 81 and Kanpur at 92. The top institutes which were to filter out of the best of 1 million Indians with their famous JEE entrance exam could only manage a mediocre position. Indian  unis are ranked worse in other disciplines. On Delhi University got a 99th place in Natural science(IIT Mumbai managing a 62nd place in the same) and 92nd place in social science. Looks like India needs to put more attention into its education system from top to the bottom.

Will ad revenue help BBC ?

Today I just noticed that something was different from BBC News website. It did not strike me immediately. Just something different. After a few minutes I realised that now the new  website had some advertisements. I was told that it has been already there for quite somedays. How could I have missed it because I read BBC News atleast 3 to 4 times a day? The explanation I could find was that all the adevretisements were similar as in other new sites which I read like Washington Post, New Your Times, USA Today, FT etc.  But then I made me think. If I don´t realise the presence of an advertisement, the whole purpose of the adevrtisement has gone waste. How will I notice a new adevrtisement. Going deeper into it , I realise  that never remembered any advertisement in any of the websites that I visted today.What I also realised I remembered many of the  advertisements  in the magazines which I subscribe and also the TV. Now if I who spends most of the my “eyes open” time on the internet could not be held by an advertisment, how is it that companies are shifting their major marketing budgets into internet. Is it clear that these adevrtisement expenditure are paying back to the firms which are spending? If not , I guess we have “web2.0 bust” probably more severe than the “dotcom bust”.  

Now coming back to BBC, I presume that these advertisements are a means for BBC to recover their fund shortfall which was in the news recently. If that is the case, I guess it is not going to be a long term solutions. BBC has been my favourite TV channel providing my family complete dose of news, entertainment, movies, serials, drama, documentary and everything. All for free. And then for reading the BBC site primarily the news site has been my major source of unbiased reports (notwithstanding the Hutton report and Andrew Gilligan issues…I still consider that Andrew was right and became a victim of the “spin doctors”  and “crisis handling ” of Tony Blair). I do hope that BBC can make up this funding somehow. Even if this means switching from freeview to payed channel i would take it.

Prince Harry- Sex Lives of Queens/Kings

Normally the British appetite for scandals are so depressing that I always feel sick when I hear them. It is my strong opinion is that the Paparazzi were indirectly responsible for this tragic death of Princess Diana. This is something which will not happen to a celebrity of any other country. Somehow the country which gave endless great writers from the likes of Shakespeare to likes of Bill Bryson  pays to read the about real life of celebrities. Suddenly I find myself also enjoying reading about the private life of celebrities. I just finished reading Eleanor Herman´s Sex with the Queen http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Queen-Virile-Passionate-Politics/dp/0061171360/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194908098&sr=8-1. I would recommend this book to all who read Hello, Sun and that like of magazines and otherstoo. This book seems to be well researched and put in a very delightful form. At first glance I thought some sort of a soft porn. For some reason I had glance at the back and saw that it was something more. Intrigued by the words “900 years of Virile Kings…” I decided to read this book. I was totally surprised by an entertaining book on whole the social scene was through the years in the European court. Though Ms.Hermann repeats most of the stories of the Queens and the other principal characters of history  on whom she  has researched, it is does not really hurt. in fact sometimes she just gives a very tiny description in the beginning and I find it is so intriguing that I go looking around in the Internet and in the wikipedia only to find out that she explains in more detail later. After reading this,I felt good when she more or less indicated that she could find much to scandalise Queen Victoria, but felt let down when she wrote a whole lot  about Catherine the Great of Russia. All that is mentioned is only the scandal part and nothing on the greatness of Catherine.

In any case a thoroughly enjoyable book. (I even took keen interest in looking up at the allegations of Chelsy Davy about Prince Harry being a playboy and so separating). I have already started looking for Eleanor Herman´s earlier book “Sex with the King” http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Kings-Adultery-Rivalry-Revenge/dp/0060585447/ref=pd_sim_b?ie=UTF8&qid=1194908098&sr=8-1 . Hope it has the same amount of sensationalism and realism combined in the same proportions.