The Role of the Educator in the Preparation of Tomorrow's Workforce in the Middle East

The Role of the Educator in the Preparation of Tomorrow’s Workforce in the Middle East.

William Arthur Ward once wrote;

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

It is not my intention to tell anybody here how they should teach, rather I would like to discuss the relationship between education, employment and the development of tomorrow’s workforce.

To understand why countries developed various ways of organising their education system we need to step back and look at history.

In ancient history, education (as we know it) had little relevance to the everyday life of the common person and was largely the preserve of advisers to rulers.

In the middle Ages, the education process developed as the thoughts and ideas of learned people and thinkers were no longer disseminated orally but were distribution through the written word. This was a laborious and expensive process. Consequently, only the nobility and the rich merchant classes could afford to receive an education. The general population still had little need for classical learning as they were still primarily engaged with the daily survival of life. Their overlord or master controlled their life and commerce was based on a barter system.

As the process of modern state formation began to develop i.e. the establishment of specialised institutions for the establishment of monopolies like police, army etc. over a given territory and the administration of a system of law and taxation leading to the development of an economy, a need to develop administrators grew; as unless governments could guarantee contracts by the power of the state there would be little point in making business arrangements. Likewise, if business arrangements are made that turn out to be prosperous, and the state takes away the profits of the business then there is no incentive for people to be involved in business.

Pre-industrial revolution Germany, or Prussia as it was at the time, developed an education system to ensure a supply of literate and disciplined recruits for the king’s army. Andy Green wrote in 1990;

“The promotion of education clearly fitted in with the objectives of the absolutist state, particularly in its later years when the importance of expert administration and technical knowledge in the arts of war and industry became important. Secondary schooling was increasingly important to provide the bureaucracy with trained and efficient staff, whilst technical and vocational schools could supply the military with capable recruits, and the state manufacturers and public works with expert engineers. Elementary schooling was likewise increasingly necessary to provide disciplined and loyal military and naval cadets and to promote patriotism among the people. The attempt to create universal, state controlled and bureaucratically administered national education systems can thus be seen as a typical product of state formation in the period of absolutism.”

While in the U.S.A., following the war of independence, with no common enemy, the development of an education system was used primarily as a means to unify the huge numbers of emigrants to a common identity.

In Britain, as industrialisation began in the 18th century, firms were organised on the basis of family relationships and sub-contracting. The demand for what we now refer to as highly skilled labour was small, confined to an elite group of owner/managers, professional workers and government officials. Workers requiring craft skills obtained these through an apprenticeship system or practical experience. In textiles and construction, unskilled labour could be used which did not need to be literate. This enabled Britain to industrialise with one of the lowest levels of literacy in Europe. This legacy has allowed Britain’s education system to develop with a high degree of autonomy in relation to the needs of industry.

In the U.S.A. new forms of mass-production was epitomised by the Ford Assembly line. Processes were broken down into simplified units that enabled employers to utilise the unskilled and semi-skilled labour of immigrants. The demand for craft skills was reduced and employers could control the process of skill formation within their enterprises. The education system only needed to provide the basic literacy skills to support the increasing bureaucratic forms of control. However, as industry grew, to co-ordinate thousands of semi-skilled workers new forms of managerial control and skills were required. The result was the emergence of the modern corporation. This in turn led to an increase in the demand for professional managers to control the labour force and co-ordinate the process