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Bill: Educational Reform
Details
Submitted by[?]: Imperial Conservative Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: March 2073
Description[?]:
| Time to open up education and stop imposing the will of the state on our citizen's children. Also our students need better higher education, which requires competition but with close regulation to ensure quality. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Education for children under adult age.
Old value:: Education is compulsory and has to happen at school.
Current: Education is compulsory, but home schooling is permitted.
Proposed: Education is compulsory, but home schooling is permitted.
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change The regulation of higher education.
Old value:: The government does not allow private higher education institutions.
Current: The government allows private higher education but regulates it to meet nationally set standards.
Proposed: The government allows private higher education but regulates it to meet nationally set standards.
Article 3
Proposal[?] to change The education system.
Old value:: Education is entirely public and free; private schools are banned.
Current: Education is entirely public and free; private schools are banned.
Proposed: There is a free public education system alongside private schools.
Article 4
Proposal[?] to change The governments stance on religious schools.
Old value:: Religious schools are not allowed.
Current: Religious schools are allowed, but are strictly regulated. Only recognised religions may set up religious schools.
Proposed: Any religion may set up a school, but they are strictly regulated.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 04:07:48, June 27, 2005 CET | From |  Democratic Socialists of Endralon | To | Debating the Educational Reform |
| Message | We believe the entire education system of Endralon must remain under the democratic management of the people and not run merely in the interests of private profit in a dictatorial way by any greedy corporation. We are also strongly opposed to allowing any religious fanatics to set up their own schools in order to indoctrinate children into thinking in the same insane way as themselves. |
| Date | 12:18:17, June 27, 2005 CET | From | Communist Party of Endralon | To | Debating the Educational Reform |
| Message | Furthermore, a "market" in education does not and cannot work, for purely economic reasons: 1. Unequal knowledge. In order for a market to function, both buyer and seller must have equal (or nearly equal) knowledge about the product being bought and sold. If someone tries to sell you a black box that you know next to nothing about, you will not be able to make rational decisions and choose between different black boxes sold by different people. Education is such a black box. The buyer (a potential student) finds it difficult to evaluate the quality of the product being sold. This is why some private schools are able to get away with offering a sub-standard education and still make good money. 2. The enourmous "lag" of any education market. From the time you buy the product (= the time you enroll in school) to the time you reap the benefits of the product (= the time you graduate and use your education to find a job), YEARS may pass. This means that any market in education would be extremely sluggish and would react very, very slowly to changes in supply and demand. |
| Date | 12:26:02, June 27, 2005 CET | From | Communist Party of Endralon | To | Debating the Educational Reform |
| Message | Those are the market-oriented economic objections to private education. But there are others as well - particularly the fact that an education is usually not something you buy for yourself, but something OTHERS (your parents) buy for you. This, of course, raises an important question: Why should one person (the child) be rewarded or punished (by receiving a better or worse education) according to the WEALTH of OTHERS? It doesn't even make sense from a conservative capitalist point of view. Even assuming the rich get rich through their own merit, it's clearly not your merit if you happen to be born in a rich family. So why should you be rewarded with a better education for it? Conversely, if you happen to be born in a poor family, why should you be punished with a worse education for it? Allowing the rich to buy their kids a better education - and thus giving rich kids a "head start", an unfair advantage over poor kids - leads to social stratification and a caste system, in which the children of the rich stay rich and the children of the poor stay poor. |
| Date | 13:06:54, June 27, 2005 CET | From | Imperial Conservative Party | To | Debating the Educational Reform |
| Message | The way private education works in Scotland is that schools must be run as not-for-profit charities. This removes all incentive for corporate control. Next up is close regulation, this ensures indoctrination is a no-no, and instead religious schools have to provide a balanced curriculum with Darwin, Sex-Ed and whatever else they don't like put in there fairly, else they lose their school. And of course the way to prevent stratification by wealth is by obliging all private institutions to offer a large number of free scholarships to those most gifted in the population academically regardless of ability to pay. Same of course goes for universities and colleges. The aim isn't to make people profit, to promote religions or ensure wealth stays in families. But that competition always raises standards. This party isn't interested in pretending all pupils are equal and therefore rejects the dumbing down of education. Competition is the best way to achieve this. And if someone has anything against academic meritocracy - which incidentally the man who came up with the word did - then try to prove that the below average skilled have any better a time in the current system. |
| Date | 13:10:37, June 27, 2005 CET | From | Imperial Conservative Party | To | Debating the Educational Reform |
| Message | As for the "black box" argument: Nationwide school league tables - where all schools are listed both public and private, ranked by their success in all standard subjects. Graduate job entry league tables could also serve the interest of those who care more about what their work their education can get them than anything else. Systems like these are in place in Britain, and for mainstream subjects work well enough so that there is a state-wide meritocratic education system. The quality issues people now moan about come up in "Media Studies" courses! |
| Date | 13:16:11, June 27, 2005 CET | From | Patriotic Libertarian Party | To | Debating the Educational Reform |
| Message | it could be easier if we discussed those matters seperately. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||||
| yes | Total Seats: 143 | ||||||
| no |
Total Seats: 352 | ||||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 164 |
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