Today, we’re sharing a link to a text that appeared several weeks ago in Fírgoa but is worth revisiting. In it, Nico Hirtt breaks down some of the European Commission’s conceptions of education. In a communication to Parliament, entitled “Efficiency and equity in European education and training systems,” the Commission noted that “too often” education and training systems “reproduce and even accentuate existing inequalities.” However, it is necessary to stop and examine what the Commission means by ‘efficiency’ and ‘equality.’ The Commission document is actually a note summarizing a more extensive working document that in turn emanates from a study conducted by the EENEE (European Expert Network in Economics of Education). This report, which constitutes the main theoretical basis of the Commission, is signed by two researchers from the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich who base their analysis on the theory of “human capital,” which views education exclusively in terms of economic investment. We heard a similar approach from a speaker here during the 1st Symposium on Educational Inequalities organized by the Fundació Jaume Bofill… One of the most important “socioeconomic challenges” facing the European Union is, as the Commission points out, the rapid evolution of the nature of the labor market. Numerous education theorists (I’m thinking of Andy Hargreaves) point out how the changing nature of work in infocapitalism quickly makes the knowledge acquired during training cycles obsolete, making it necessary to have an education that enhances skills for lifelong learning, rather than the transmission of a closed set of knowledge. What Nico Hirtt very rightly points out is that, ultimately, these skills constitute the minimum qualification that ensures precisely access to “unskilled employment,” which, in short, constitutes a large part of the labor supply in an economy based mainly on services. Nico Hirtt denounces that the ‘equality’ to which the Commission refers is equality in the individual struggle for that job pool and equality in competition among workers.
But as the text talks about many more very interesting things, we refer you to it. On the other hand, for those who come out with the refrain that reflection on education is a matter for “academics far removed” from the “day-to-day of the classroom,” which we have heard many times, to say that Nico Hirtt is a secondary school teacher of Physics and Computer Science, which, on the other hand, in our opinion, neither adds nor subtracts any value from his reflections, as well as a trade unionist and one of the founders of the APED (Appel pour une Ecole Democratique).
