The Education System Puzzle - Part 2


One of the chapters of the book, The Elephant in the Brain, has (part of the) answer to the why-is-education-so-obviously-messed-up-and-why-do-employers-still-give-it-value-at-hiring question.

The purpose of the education system, say the authors, is for students to signal their “work potential” to the world. Future work productivity is what employers look for:
“The best employees have a whole bundle of attributes – including intelligence, of course, but also conscientiousness, attention to detail, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to conform to expectations.”
A technical test can only find “intelligence”, but not the other aspects. So employers use “school performance as a proxy” for the other points. Here’s what an employer can infer about a straight A’s student from a top college:
1)      “She might have retained that knowledge, but statistically speaking, she’s probably forgotten a lot of it…”;
2)     “(Far more important) She has the ability to master a large body of new concepts, quickly and thoroughly enough to meet the standards of an expert in the field (or at least studied harder than her peers)”;
3)     “She’s the kind of person who can consistently stay on top of her workload… Every test fell on a specific date, and she studied and crammed enough to perform well on those tests”;

Or put very bluntly:
“Educated workers are generally better workers, but not necessarily because school made them better. Instead, a lot of the value of education lies in giving students a chance to advertise the attractive qualities they already have.”
Education doesn’t improve, rather it certifies via tests and measurements over a long period of time. Consistency over a long time is key: it suggests an inherent quality of the individual.

Obviously, this is not the complete answer, but most sociologists of education believe it is a huge component of the answer. Ironically, this explanation aligns with some ridiculous practices at school that never change:
-          Waiting for permission to go to the toilet (yes, how horrifying that sounds to every adult) signals the capability to follow-the-rules;
-          (Teaching and) Learning obviously irrelevant, obsolete and nonsensical topics signals the ability to deal with the same later at the workplace!

Hey, I just said I found an answer, not that it was the answer or that the answer would appeal to everyone.

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