First of all, this was a great topic to discuss and the questions you posted were very well thought out.
I will add the following opinion (I won't be going too in-depth as it is late and I am sleepy, but hopefully some further discussion is sparked as a result):
Post-secondary education should be paid for by the government (essentially paid for by taxes). This may not result in everyone obtaining post-secondary education, however, it would allow a lot of people who may not be able to afford post-secondary education to receive it. The result would be an increase in the amount of intelligent, hard working, and moral people in the world. Post-secondary education results in people becoming more productive members in society. The recipients of post-secondary education will become employeed in more advanced fields than they likely would be if they had not received post-secondary education. The amount of money that would be spent by the government on post-secondary education should be viewed as an investment, both for the above reasons as well as the fact that the recipients of the education would end up paying more money in taxes than they would if they were employeed in a lesser paying position that did not require post-secondary training.
I believe Denmark has a system in which they pay their citizens to attend post-secondary institutions. I'll have to track down the article I was reading!
SP
NidoJosh said:
Discuss the contrast of education throughout the world.
I honestly feel that there is a large disparity between education systems of the world. I'm definitely no expert on the education systems in other countries, but there needs to be some sort of standardised system that is recognised and taught in all countries, so as to avoid confusion when converting score ranks to other curricular, as well as making moving countries much easier. This would also allow people to effectively go to any University in the world, because everyone would have had the same education, and so their score would reflect exactly how they performed. For instance I go to a school where the International Baccalaureate is the curriculum of choice. This is a very small curriculum in Australia, but is reasonably well known across the world, particularly Europe. Basically the system is probably a lot harder than the curricular offered in the different states of Australia, but it is only recognised in a few of the universities, and is probably unfairly converted, making our scores seem inferior, when in fact the curriculum is much more rigorous.
I am a Canadian and I am interested in attending Law school. I read an article about Canadians attending Law school in Australia and returning to practice Law in Canada (or staying in Australia to practice if they wished). The article was specifically about Bond University, located on the Gold Coast, a place I have visited. Bond University's program is actually directed at Canadian students and many Canadian Law professors teach there. The article also stated that Bond University's admission requirements were more lenient than any of the universities that have Law faculties in Canada. However, the article said that the program was
much more rigorous than any of the programs offered by Canadian universities. I have read that in a Canadian Law program, some students are able to slack for large portions of the semester, only to memorize notes before the final, and are able to achieve a B or higher without a great deal of effort (in relevant terms). In most Canadian Law courses, the grades are entirely based on the final exam. The article stated that it is very easy to fail the program at Bond University unless you are studying all the time and keeping up with your courses.
So I though to myself, "Wow, I could study Law in nice warm weather, right next to the beach on the Gold Coast, instead of in -30C temperature in Canada. Hooray!".
However, after doing further research, it seems that a Law degree from Bond University is looked down upon by professionals in Canada. Professionals seem to believe that Canadians only attend Bond University if they are unable to get into a Canadian University. On the flip side, there were Canadians who said that they received acceptance into a few Canadian universities but chose to go to Bond instead. t's almost impossible to get an articling position after returning from school in Australia.
Basically, the point of my response is to highlight a similar experience with the Australian education system (the Canadian education system and Law professionals were also involved) and agree that there should be a standardized way of grading the education received from any institution. An education received from an institution should not be looked down upon if the education that the instution provided was greater than the education provided from the institution(s) it is being compared to.
SP
Note: The majority of this post is based on an article and the subsequent research I did into the matter. I have not attended Law school in Canada or Australia, and don't mean to be spreading false rumors or anything of the sort. This is just based on what I have read
.
