Critique and Analysis of John Quiggin's Blog Article

Report on blog post by John Quiggin

<http://johnquiggin.com/2014/04/28/stratification-in-tertiary-education/>.

This essay reports on John Quiggin’s blog (http://johnquiggin.com/) where, on 28 April 2014, he posted ‘stratification in tertiary education’. In this post, Quiggin (2014) argues that those calling for Australia’s adoption of the US’ highly stratified tertiary educational system are advocating for increased stratification in Australia’s tertiary educational system. He notes that the Ivy League universities (like Harvard and Princeton) in the US provide undergraduate education to only a tiny proportion of young Americans (about one per cent). Hence, should Australia adopt similar system, each ‘Australian Ivy League’ would only absorb about a thousand students annually, and this could deny thousands of students the opportunity to obtain university education from institutions of their choice. Quiggin points out that tertiary education systems reflect and reconstruct the society to which they belong; as a result, the highly stratified systems in the US and UK, signify and strengthen ‘a class-bound society in which the best thing one can do is to choose the right parents’.  Although Quiggin acknowledges Australia’s less stratified education system, he opposes increased stratification, which could widen the gap between the group of eight and the rest of the universities in the country. He therefore recommends that the country should reduce stratification in the education system, and calls on policymakers to consider tertiary education like other public services provided to all.

Indeed, university education should be treated like other social services that a state must provide to its citizens without discrimination.  According to Jeffrey Haynes (2008), ‘the people are the real wealth of a nation’, hence the achievement of the basic objective of their development requires the creation of an enabling environment for them to live longer, healthier and creative lives (p. 12). Equal access to quality education creates that enabling environment and breeds a more productive society. Support for quality education like other social services is therefore an investment in the human capital of a country (Gans et al. 2013). This increases productivity of the labour force and its income, thereby leading to economic growth and prosperity. Consequently, countries should not stratify educational systems, because this hinders citizens’ access to equitable education. The ability of a citizen to get quality university education should depend on his or her ability to enrol and complete a university.

Stratified tertiary education is not unique to the US, UK and other developed countries. It also exists in developing countries.  In Liberia, for example, the free American slaves who founded the nation set up the then singular state owned Liberia College in 1862, which later became University of Liberia (UL) in 1951, to train state elites and their children.  Indigenous Liberians (95 percent of the population) were not allowed to enrol at the University of Liberia up to the 1960s, unless they were servants of the elites, and changed their indigenous names to western ones (Wreh 1976). Graduates from the UL were given preferential employment in the public and private sectors. This stratified educational system perpetuated illiteracy amongst the majority indigenous tribes. Lack of tertiary education meant lack of employment opportunities for the majority. This also meant that 95 per cent of the country’s population remained illiterate and could only engage in subsistence farming to feed themselves, but could not promote economically beneficial ventures.  This system entrenched a minority elitist aristocracy in Liberia for 133 unbroken years, undermined productivity and stalled economic growth amidst enormous natural resources, thereby increasing poverty (Sawyer 1991). Suppression of the indigenous majority led to the over throw of the Liberian oligarchy on 12 April 1980 by 17 illiterate non-commissioned army officers from the indigenous tribes; thus the beginning of the two decades civil unrest in Liberia (Youboty 2004).

Tertiary education is linked with one of the ten lessons from economics, ‘a country’s standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services’ (Gans et al. 2013, p. 13).  The variation in the standard of living across countries is a function of divergent levels of productivity. Educational standards and productivity are fundamentally linked. The better educated a country’s population, the more productive its citizens, and the better living standard they enjoy. Therefore, making tertiary education equitable means affording all citizens equal access and opportunity to quality education. Quality education will improve living standard, hence policymakers need to raise productivity by ensuring that workers are well educated and equipped with the requisite tools and technology required to produce goods and services.

References

Gans, J, King, S, Stonecash, R & Mankiw, G 2013, Principles of Economics, China Translation and Printing Services, Beijing, China.

Haynes, J 2008, Development studies: short introductions, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Sawyer, A 1992, The emergence of autocracy in Liberia: tragedy and challenge, ICS, San Francisco, California. 

Wreh, T 1976, The love of liberty … the rule of President William V.S. Tubman in Liberia 1944-1971, C Hurst and Company, London, UK.

Youboty, J 2004, A nation in terror: the true story of the Liberian Civil War, USA.

<http://johnquiggin.com/2014/04/28/stratification-in-tertiary-education/>.