From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:27:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: sunic.1992Apr10.174854.18555
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <1992Apr9.065822.5004@eua.ericsson.se>, euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes...
>>Fredrik.Ostman writes...
> 
>>>You can easily get an education that doesn't pay
>>>off. You can easily get an education that you don't even use. Maybe you
>>>can't get that special type of education that would pay off greatly, because
>>>the beaureucrats didn't realise the need for it. It's very difficult for
>>>you to control the quality of the education -- when the government pays,
>>>only quantity, measured by statistics, counts.

I see many occurences of the word "education" in what you said. I don't see
"university" a single time. Just to remind you of what I was commenting on -
education as a whole, and not just the last 5 years.

>This is so silly, always comparing with America. Why not compare with some
>other part of the world?

I believe the original debate was about the american vs swedish education
system. Fine, let's compare with another country where students have to bear
the full cost of their studies. Like, hmm... Hmm... Sorry Fredrik, I'm sure
there *are* such countries but I just can't think of a name right now. The more
names I think about, the more examples of swedish-like systems I have. Maybe
Canada or Australia (no offense meant to either country)? I just don't know.
Does that answer your question? Can we get back to the point now?

>By the way, I learnt/didn't learn to spell in school, not at the university.
>I think the same goes for America, and these schools are free of charge even 
>there? On the other hand some of the best universities in the world are 
>American.

So you have shown that it is the american schools, and not the american
universities, which are of poor quality - something which most people agree
with, and which stems precisely from the fact that schools are free and haven't
got the kind of financial comfort that universities enjoy. We can stop here and
conclude that the swedish system is superior for people who haven't got piles
of money to invest in private schools, because whatever you learn or don't
learn when you are a kid is going to have a hell of a lot of influence on what
you do later: if you can't read, can't spell and can't count, making your way
through to the university is going to be pretty tough, even if you have the
money. Or we could continue your argument even further and point out, as you
said:

>>>It's very difficult for
>>>you to control the quality of the education -- when the government pays,
>>>only quantity, measured by statistics, counts.

and conclude that the problem is that schools are free, and suggest that they
should become like universities. From there one can either hope that the tax
money saved by this change will allow everyone to pay a school of higher or
equal quality than presently for their kids, or be a bit more realistic and
conclude that, since this will probably have zilch effect on the income of the
lower class, the end result would be that kids from the lower class simply
won't have the opportunity to go to school at all, and won't even learn how to
read - in effect locking them even deeper into the lower class.

Either way I remain unconvinced of the superiority of the american system. It
is clearly better for the rich, but what about normal people?

  Eric