NationStates Jolt Archive

I have a proposal out entitled World Educational Standards. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Description: This proposal would establish world wide education standards so that citizens of every country would be educated to the level neccesary to encourage world wide growth and productivity. This would force elitist governments to educate every citizen and not just those in their political party or with their same beliefs. This would allow the exchange of ideas to be globalized and facilitate the advancement of poorer less developed countries.

Each country would be required to provide a comprehensive education that includes instruction in the sciences, social studies, arts and foreign languages up to age 16 with a minimum of 5 hours of daily instruction.

In a generation, access to a proper education would be universalized which could only lead to equalities in welfare and well-being.


Good, but daily education?

I interpret "daily education" as "every day of the school week", not "every day of the calendar week".

Otherwise you'd get a lot off pissed of kids, and what of Saturday morning cartoons?!

So in other words, you want to institute a system that robs Peter to pay Paul?

Seeing how such an act is NEVER justified, the answer of any moral nation will be "NO!".

So in other words, you want to institute a system that robs Peter to pay Paul?

Seeing how such an act is NEVER justified, the answer of any moral nation will be "NO!".
How does the proposal as written "rob Peter to pay Paul"? The Enodian delegation has only just arrived here at the Assembly, so if it's glaringly obvious then put our stupidity down to jetlag.

"Each country would be required to provide a comprehensive education..."

"Each country would be required to provide a comprehensive education..."
And? Again, at the risk of seeming dense, what's wrong with this logic:

Government exists to provide for citizens.
Therefore, Government provides everything citizens need.
Citizens need education.
Therefore, Government exists to provide education for citizens.

Now before you get upset about Step 3 in that chain, do you believe that education should instead be mandated by private companies with an emphasis on profits rather than on the actual "nuts and bolts of education" (known in English as the "3 Rs", the Enodian is slightly more complex)? If a school is run privately, it needs to charge fees in order to turn a semblance of profit. If it needs to charge fees, then not everyone will be able to get into the school (or any school, if all are private). If people can't get into a school, they can't get a good education, thereby preventing them from a job earning enough money to send their kids to a school and so it goes on.

By all means, if people want to pay money to educate little Johanna or little Klaus in a private school in Enodia, they're welcome to do so. However, if they don't want to or flat-out can't, why can't they be content in the knowledge that their kids will get at least a comparable education through the Government-run system? Yes, a private institution might push a particular religious agenda the parents want to expose their children to or it might have a reputation for great music or sports tuition greatly in excess of a Government-run school, but why should the general curriculum not be the same across the board?

I agree with Enodia in theory, your logic is fairly sound so the government should provide the opportunity for education.

The idea of paying that extra bit to send your kids to a better school isn't wrong by any definition, it's been happening since the beginning of civilized society ("civilized" and "society" loose terms). However I have always been a big fan of competition between schools, and I don't mean sports. I beleive that schools should seperate out those "who want to", and "those who don't." Why make school manditory? Social theory dictates that everyone has there place and therefore we need someone to serve hamburgers. So why not have the kids "placed" in a program that best suits their needs and improve upon their talents instead of forcing those who can't to do what they don't want to. Now use whatever program you will, but don't you think making schools "compete" for the best students would increase the educational standard, and while this is flawed as with most systems, this should increase the amount of educated students. And as much as I'd like to see everyone get a good education, I am under the belief that education is linked to society, so unless you change society to beleive that education is more important than sports, this is the best I can concieve.

Emperor of Utopiatology

"it's 4am and I need caffeine, it made sense to me"

"Each country would be required to provide a comprehensive education..."
And? Again, at the risk of seeming dense, what's wrong with this logic:

Government exists to provide for citizens.
Therefore, Government provides everything citizens need.
Citizens need education.
Therefore, Government exists to provide education for citizens.


No, governments exist to protect their citizens and their rights, allowing the citizens to fulfill the needs on their own. Look at the US Declaration of Independence, it does NOT accuse the British of not providing for them, but it accuses them of violating their rights. Likewise, teh Bill of Rights guarentees your right to free speech, NOT that you will find a job.

Anyways, have you read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? It's a great book. Too bad nasty conservatives like Bush have taken it as a warning against Stem Cell Research. I take it as a warning against thinking of government as a way for providing for all of your needs as opposed to protecting your rights. The "World State" in Brave New World provides for all of the needs of its citizens. Even anti-depressant drugs to make everyone happy! But it's still a scary world. It's the ultimate slave society. People are happy, but unfulfilled and unfree. One of my favorite lines in it is, "Happiness is a harsh master, particularly other people's happiness." Not scary in the sense of 1984, but a more subtle scariness...

I personally like the idea of universal education [like a low tax rate and a military, this is one of the few instances where the policy good far outweighs the moral harm], but not in the way this resolution is written.

For the record, there are 27 specific complaints against the British King in the Declaration of Independence. All of them are Libertarian and many of them our current government does as well:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Note that there is NO mention of not providing for the people. This is because providing for the people is their own job, not the government's. The government is a night-watchman. It exists to PROTECT people from force and fraud. It is NOT a mother who tries to provide for everyone. The state as a family is a totalitarian statement used to justify the Holocaust and all sorts of other collectivist atrocities.

"Each country would be required to provide a comprehensive education..."
And? Again, at the risk of seeming dense, what's wrong with this logic:

We'll look at your syllogism and find out.

Government exists to provide for citizens.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

Government exists (supposedly) to secure the rights of the citizens. And education IS NOT A RIGHT.

Therefore, Government provides everything citizens need.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

History shows that this is false.

Citizens need education.

I need a tendon-graft to repair my right rotator cuff so that I might throw a ball at greater than 28 miles per hour. Does that mean I am entitled to the surgery and that you must pay for it? NO!

Therefore, Government exists to provide education for citizens.

At whose expense?

Now before you get upset about Step 3 in that chain, do you believe that education should instead be mandated by private companies with an emphasis on profits rather than on the actual "nuts and bolts of education" (known in English as the "3 Rs", the Enodian is slightly more complex)?

That begs the question that education should be mandated at all.

If a school is run privately, it needs to charge fees in order to turn a semblance of profit. If it needs to charge fees, then not everyone will be able to get into the school (or any school, if all are private). If people can't get into a school, they can't get a good education, thereby preventing them from a job earning enough money to send their kids to a school and so it goes on.

Utter horse crap. Ever heard of scholarships?

By all means, if people want to pay money to educate little Johanna or little Klaus in a private school in Enodia, they're welcome to do so. However, if they don't want to or flat-out can't, why can't they be content in the knowledge that their kids will get at least a comparable education through the Government-run system?

Because you are forcing those people without children to pay for it, and forcing those people with children who do not want to have their children in "public" school to pay for it. That is an iniation of force, which is a violation of rights.

Yes, a private institution might push a particular religious agenda the parents want to expose their children to or it might have a reputation for great music or sports tuition greatly in excess of a Government-run school, but why should the general curriculum not be the same across the board?

Why should it be?

Oh and for the record, 75-80% of students at Ivy League universities recieve Private (or University) need-based Scholarships.

Who determines the Standards of Education in each field? What might be the Standard for forth grade in my nation might not be met in others until the eighth grade? :)

I think Education SHOULD be a right. We should at least have the right to access information... and anyone whose nation is a democracy should be in favour of its citizens being educated so they can make informed decisions.

I think it's entirely possible that education shouldn't be mandatory, but I wouldn't know what it's like not to want to be educated. I know what it's like to dislike school and its way of going about trying to educate, but I don't know what it's like to not wish to be educated.

I also think Education should be a right. Its next to the pursuit of happiness, in that you need to have at least a basic education to allow for leisure time in order to pursue happiness.

That said i also believe that it should be mandatory up to 16 in order to provide exposure for the maximum amount of time before a child reached adulthood. I understand that 16 is a western notion of adulthood so that could be adjusted to 14 but i think any younger than that the brain is still wired to absorb information and it would only be beneficial to give as much information in that time as possible.

I think that providing this would also be in a governments self interest because it will minimize the knowledge gap between the haves (who will probably still send their kids to private school for an even better education) and the have nots (who at least now will be guaranteed an education that exposes them to many different issues and critical thinking skills). A government would be better able to maintain the peace in a country with a smaller education gap between the two groups and even if trouble does arive, an educated populace will be less likely to engage in the brutal civil wars that are common in lesser developed countries today.

A country could provide a better education than the compulsory one (i.e. students have to read by 1st grade instead of 4th grade) but a country must at least provide up to the standard set.