At least do no harm.
What is the first thing people say after some sort of unpleasant experience? It seems to be: "There ought to be controls."
No matter the problem there is this assumption that the problem resulted from too few regulations. Some call this a "liberal bias" especially since the media is very prone to such instant conclusions. This is not liberal at all. And most people who use the term "liberal", in the US especially, are not liberals but socialists.
But it is not even a socialist bias although it is a bias socialists share. It is also a conservative bias. Each side has the issues where they yearn for more control over others. Socialists want to regulate man's material existence while conservatives want to control his private morality and values. But each immediately jumps to the conclusion that whatever problem we just experienced is the result of one thing: too much damned freedom. Each has the same solution: control. Each yearns for their ideological comrades to be the regulators.
Of course the petty bureaucrats and the politicians immediately agree with such analysis. After all they are unlikely to turn down proposals that give them more power and control and prestige. As the power grows so too does the remuneration. After all you can't expect to get "quality" regulators without paying them executive salaries.
Here are two recent examples in chronological order. In June Der Spiegel reported that: "Scientologists are taking advantage of Germany's education problems for their own ends." The issue is that there is a thriving market in private tutoring in Germany. It notes: " Every third German child is pairing up with a tutor or attends one of approximately 3,000 after-school centres. But who is assessing the quality of these centres? Werner Kinzinger, director of Stuttgart-based Action on Education Information, complains that because these centres do not come under the control of the school board, anyone can establish one. He has been demanding a kind of certificate for these centres for years -- but up until now with little success."
Now it would seem that the first question is why are so many students seeking private tutoring? Apparently they don't feel they are getting the education they need from government schools. If they were satisfied they wouldn't be seeking to supplement their education.
There are approximately 8 million students of school age in Germany. If one out of three are seeking tutoring that would be about 2.6 million. The Scientologists, who indeed are a wacky bunch, has an estimated 20 tutoring centres in all of Germany. So what percentage of the 2.6 million students are they reaching? Obviously even if these centres were tutoring a thousand students each the impact on the German educational system would be negligible. And student numbers are probably well below that.
Notice the difference between the thriving private market and the state schools. Private tutors are paid for their services voluntarily and students attend because they wish to do so. Not so for government schools where you pay via taxes and students are required to attend. If one third of students seek out a tutor that costs them money, when they have "free" state schooling down the street, it is an indication that the state education system is widely seen as a failure.
So the bureaucrats and the politicians have their own system of education. It has vast amounts of money, can coerce students to attend, and is widely, though falsely, seen as "free". And in spite of that every third student is seeking out tutoring for which they pay extra. I would say that is a real indictment of state education.
Private tutoring is diverse. It isn't the cookie-cutter variety promoted by state systems. And a very tiny number of the tutoring centres in Germany are run by people who are involved with a cult. And yet some are demanding state control. Isn't it odd that these centres only exist because the state is such a bad provider of education and then some people demand the same state control the private alternative? If government can't run their own schools adequately why get them involved in private alternatives, which for the most part, must be doing the job?
If they weren't doing the job parents wouldn't be paying extra for them.
Now lets look at another example also involving education. Most of us know of the "confession" by John Karr that he killed JonBenet Ramsey. It is appearing doubtful that he was involved in that at all. Karr was arrested in Bangkok where he was about to start working at a private school.
The BBC reported: "The recent arrest ... has caused the Thai authorities to question the vetting procedures used to recruit foreign teaching staff."
They went on to report: "In fact [Karr] seems to have spent the past 10 years as a globe-trotting teacher who, according to his resume, taught in South Korea, Europe and Latin America."
"This case shows that we may need to tighten the rules on screening teachers," said Jakrapob Penkair, a Thai government spokesman overseeing educational affairs."
Tighter government control is immediately proposed. You wouldn't want someone like Karr teaching and controls will prevent that. Controls like they have in the United States where Karr worked --- as a teacher in government schools.
And notice how they jumped the gun here. There is widespread speculation, with good reason, that Karr is delusional, perhaps crazy in a very literal sense of the word. He confessed to the murder yet his ex-wife, who says she loathes the man, claims he spent every Christmas of their married life with her. Since the victim was killed between Christmas night and Boxing Day morning about 1,000 miles from where Karr was living at the time, it seems unlikely, but not impossible, that he was involved.
He does have an infatuation with small girls, especially small dead girls perhaps somehow related to the death of his own twin girls at birth. But so far there is no evidence he killed anyone or molested anyone.
Either way why is it assumed that government controls will prevent this? Karr got his teaching credentials -- as if credentials make one a good teacher -- in the US where there are supposed to be strong controls in place.
Thailand, and much of Asia, has a strong demand for English language teachers. Tourism is such a major component of their economy and knowing English is valuable in the tourist trade. Now stricter standards on hiring teachers will reduce the number of teachers rather dramatically. And not necessarily because it will keep out nut cases like Karr but because it will make hiring a more difficult process. If every teacher applying were an absolute gemthe vetting process would still reduce the number of teachers hired. Every roadblock put in the path of someone seeking to teach reduces the number of teachers at any one time.
That means students don't learn the skills they need. That means there is a shortage of workers with the skills required. That makes Thailand poorer. And here is the kicker. Anti-prostitution workers say that a major reason individuals wanting to exploit children come to Thailand is the poverty. The poverty makes it easier to prostitute children. Exacerbate the poverty by reducing the skills of students and one result would be prolonging the very conditions that attract individuals like Karr to Thailand in the first place. And that's the "solution"!
Hippocrates offered advice to physicians, in his Epidemics, that ought to apply here: "As to diseases, make a habit of two things - to help, or at least to do no harm."
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
Previous (The lunatics are running the asylum or the unintended cosequences of US intervention in Iraq.) - Next (Inconvenient centenarians challenge Left ideology)
Nannies to Right of Us, Nannies to the Left of Us.
Welcome Home: the journeys of David Mamet and George McGovern.
Dominion Post in needless panic
Does Liberalism Have a Heart?
The moral problems of state power in regards to war.
Kiwi health: spend more, care less
Hurricanes and hot air: the sequel
Morality and Consistency: Why Left and Right both threaten freedom.
Ageing, population and the welfare state.
The bankruptcy of conservatism.
More journal entries...
|
Home - Books - Issues - Downloads - About Us - Journals - Thinkers - Links - Library - Subscriptions |
|
|
Institute for Liberal Values, Thursday September 9th 2010. |
|
|
|
