Trajan

I think we need a major redesign of the education ‘system.’ First we need to define levels and responsibility. It must be the responsibility of society at large, the state in the 21st century, to provide an elementary education. It must be the right and duty of the state to require that all – or nearly all – residents remain in school until they have completed that elementary education programme – or reached the age of majority. All other education should be the responsibility of independent agencies which work to established standards in a fairly free market. Let me deal, briefly, with the definition of ‘elementary’ – I, personally, don’t know, exactly, what that means and I am very certain that the experts in e.g. the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and all the educrats in provincial capitals are equally ignorant. But I’m quite certain that folks like Buzz Hargrove (Canadian Autoworkers) and Bob Brown (CAE Inc) could lead teams who could develop the right standards. The aim of an elementary education is to produce a good, law abiding, productive (by which I mean employable) citizen – not a drone, or a worker but a citizen. Now, consider higher education everything, that is, beyond the (say, 10 years) elementary level. We have ‘standards’ now for higher education. Young engineers must, eventually, pass exams set and administered by their provincial professional associations – universities teach to those standards, ditto bar exams for lawyers and certification exams for accountants. Universities which have poor success rates at professional standards quickly improve their programmes or go out of business – it is a wonderful example of the free market at work. The educrats in Toronto or Victoria or Edmonton are totally and completely out of the loop in this system and it works … probably because government and bureaucrats are left out in the cold, where they belong. There are similar ‘standards’ for other programmes – graduate schools and professional schools set the ‘standards’ for undergraduate programmes. There ought to be similar ‘standards’ for e.g. college and university entrance: standards which are set by the colleges and universities and which are measured by the colleges and universities without any interference from the educrats. The secondary education system – high schools, essentially, would then teach to those standards, or go out of business. Colleges and universities should be required to charge full fees: probably something like $50,000.00 per year for a science undergraduate in a mid-ranked university. Governments should provide a mix of scholarships and prizes based upon the previous year’s performance – including, therefore, the final year of high school. A+ students should get real scholarships worth 105% of the costs of tuition books, fees and reasonable living expenses for the next year, 100% for A and A- average students, 90% for B students and so on down to 40% for C- students and 0% for academic failures. Students who maintain A averages year after year ought to get additional cash prizes. Scholarships and prizes should be awarded based on academic performance only. Students should be able to top up their scholarships with loans which should have their interest rates adjusted downwards in accordance with how much a student’s academic performance improved during the year. Say, for example, the base rate for a student loan was 3% - a C+ student who improved to and A- average would only pay 1.5% for his loan and, probably, would not need one for the next year. Standards creep or mark inflation can be controlled by the ‘outcome’ testers and by independent boards of examiners. At the elementary school level we need to find creative ways to offset the effects of poverty. School meals – two per day, and school uniforms, both free for the poor and those from low income families, might help. The best way to help the children of the poor catch up with the children of the middle class and the rich is to build more public libraries and sports/recreation centres in poorer communities and to provide additional tutors in schools in poor areas. Money spent on, especially, elementary education is likely to be ‘saved’ over time by concomitant savings in the police/criminal justice system – most criminals are poor and stupid, and in the health care system – the poor and poorly educated are, I believe, greater burdens on the health are system than are their middle and upper class neighbours.

Actually, as someone who is FAR from being wealthy, I'd really like to see that kind of system. Sure, he gats treatment faster, but so do I, because since he went over to the pay clinic, he's out of the line I'm wating in, and now I have to wait less too. He's doing me a favor. Not to mention, his tax dollars are still in the public system, even though he is choosing to pay extra NOT to utilize them. That means the public system has more resources per person that they are treating. I don’t know how ‘typical’ I might be, but: I am a senior citizen with a modest – but possibly better than many – pension and a well paid part-time job; I have a comfortable ‘net worth’ but some of it is tied up in e.g. my home. Consequentially I have the ‘luxury’ of choices – I can spend several hundred, even several thousand dollars as I see fit. My friend, a well paid professional, and I can spend New Year’s Eve in London – paying several hundred dollars per night, for several nights, for our room, because I (we) choose to do so, etc; I am, generally, fit and healthy but I have a few problems – one of which might be quite serious if left unattended. I have, fairly routinely, for the past several years taken advantage of the existing two-tiered Medicare system. When my family physician gets a test result she doesn’t quite like I take myself to a nearby American city where waiting times for new, high-tech diagnostic tests and consultations with skilled specialists are measured in hours or days, not weeks or, more often, months. Each trip, including overnight in a hotel, meals, tests, specialist’s consultation fees, etc, etc cost me less than $(CA)2,500.00 – a price I am willing and able to pay for my own peace of mind. If my test results were bad I would jump the queue here in Canada, seeing a specialist surgeon in a day or so because, where I live, the bottleneck is in diagnostic testing not surgeons or operating rooms for those who are known to need immediate care. Just recently I went to another, neighbouring province for a test for a minor knee injury. I complained that the orthopaedic specialist should not need a fancy scan to diagnose a knee problem but I accept that times have changed and some (most?) hospitals will not permit ‘exploratory’ orthopaedic surgery – they insist that the patient has had a highly reliable, ‘non intrusive’ diagnosis before surgery. I paid $750.00 plus train fare and meals, all-in-all less than $1,000.00, and I jumped the queue – I and my AMEX Platinum card. I will still have to wait a few weeks for surgery because operating rooms in my city sit empty for ¾ of each day – 4/5 of each week because there is no money for nurses and other essential staff, because too much of the hospital’s personnel budget is wasted on low skill, low value, readily available support staff. I will continue to buy better healthcare than is available to most Canadians because I can and I choose to do so. I will not wait in line if I do not choose to do so. I understand that when I jump the queue I might, probably do push someone in greater medical ‘need’ farther back, father away from the care needed. That really is a shame. But, big BUT, I’m afraid, I do not shorten the queues for others. The physicians, radiologists, technicians etc who treat me, privately, do not work in the public system – they are unavailable to help reduce the queues because they have either left the country or they have left the ‘public system. At best, some of my actions (tests in another province) simply, and unfairly, shuffle the queue.