reading this. its a frustrating bookpic.twitter.com/9pU85vAHml
You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
the rest of the chapter makes the same basic claims about the importance of education for transitioning to a high income economy starting to think this book would have been better as a blog post
chapter 3 is better. he sketches out his notion of a failure mode for the Chinese economy and eventually nation
here he uses mexico as his illustrative model many of you may be too young to remember that mexico used to be a major US exporter in the 90s. recall that this is not the current state of Mexico. rather its basically a failed state
he highlights a process wherein mexicos population was insufficiently educated to make it to stable high income status, and then china ate their lunch in manufactures exporting, and then everyone joined gangs. gg mexico
he notes further the alleged gender imbalance of china as an exacerbating factor although I understand that may be overstated for data quality reasons he also hasnt cited everyone becoming old as a potential stabilizing factor
apart from humanitarian issues his major concern is that CCP legitimacy (so he claims, I have no idea) rests on twin pillars of nationalism and economic growth, and if the latter sputters out maybe they lean very heavily on the former to disastrous effect maybe. ig.
the next chapter is a closer look at china's urban/rural divide in education attaching some graf's and such basically there is a segregated education system and rural-classified students (supermajority) are and have historically been hosedpic.twitter.com/RXMJzRNnqV
chapter wraps up with two additional claims which he will elaborate on later 1. "academic" high schools are probably fine but most students go to "vocational" diploma mills 2. in aggregate rural kids are probably stunted on account of malnutrition
as an aside im surprised that these numbers (eg education rates) are available abroad I would have expected CCP to either goose them or suppress them because they look pretty bad not sure what to make of this
wondered about this like maybe china has a different view of what looks bad than the outside worldhttps://twitter.com/samlevine/status/1415487307973492736?s=19 …
chapter five seems to be a discussion of the vocational high school system, which is mostly free (unlike academic high schools) and modeled after germanys system so far they sound like normal high schools in that theyre not useful for getting jobspic.twitter.com/PGCWWvGQpC
apparently the vocational high school thing was a 2002 initiative that actually made it into provincial policy goaling very excited to see how Campbell's Law played outpic.twitter.com/YntuTKxoVv
honestly though he's ticking through problems with the high schools (no one is learning anything, students are smoking in class, whatever) and comparing this to public high schools in a typical American city and im mostly thinking "looks like china has finally made it"
it is disappointing to me that the authors are allegedly economists and discussing the topic of education and have not mentioned Spence even once
more anecdotes. apparently vocational majors are determined by policymakers rather than potential employers. this has led to things like students majoring in abacus use and repairing telephone booths and VCRs
overall im coming away suspecting that chinas vocational schools are indeed completely worthless as educational institutions but nb it probably wouldnt have taken much for me to believe this
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.