Ideally, we may agree, education at least helps citizens find a decent job fitting for their skills and aptitudes. Given our advanced technology and welfare, how are we not appearing any closer to the utopia, if not even more remote?
In the first place, computers are rendering much education obsolete. In the past, just being literate gave you an advantage. Those who knew how to use the typewriter could be typists, and those who spoke another language would qualify as translators. So simple. No wonder the older generation thought a university degree was a guarantee for a secure job. They cannot be so sure now. Today typing your manuscript is a must, and not everybody translates better than Google Translate. Even stenographers and interpreters are threatened by speech recognition software. That's just a tip of the iceberg. How often do we need to calculate big numbers by hand like we were trained in high school? Do we even write with a pen any longer?
Moreover, when the jobs are considerably less than the working age population, fierce competition occurs, which is scarcely regulated. When 100 people are competing for 50 positions, lamentably, no matter how good they are, there will always be 50 people who leave unemployed; they remain in the labor market, spending more effort on exams and interviews, resulting in an invisible loss in production, in addition to their stress and affliction. When a student invests another year in preparing exams for medical doctors, another possible human resource stands idle for another year. Everyone settling for an underpaying job is also potentially wasting the opportunity cost.
The younger generation is facing a suffocating absurdity. Not only is a degree borderline irrelevant except in ruling out job applicants, but an outstanding performance as a student still does not guarantee jobs. Rather, the digital generation needs qualities other than calculation or memorization, such as curiosity, aspiration, individuality, or cordiality—which are unlikely to be tested nor taught in a pen and paper.
A framed diploma can be reassuring, but the depressing fact is that the education system fails in preparing and ensuring jobs. How do we do that then? Should we instead rely on computer programs to hire people? Or should we draw lots, which at least save some time and energy? I have no idea. It is hard for me to imagine anything other than a deep disillusionment in education and a resulting instability of the social hierarchy. Maybe only then can we reshape our dysfunctional labor market.
❧ November 4, 2021