Europe

[Alexis]

[monster_gardener]

[Colonel Sun]

Both Portuguese govt 5 year and 10 year bond yields now over 8%.



Is Spain next?

[Alexis]

[Captain Murphy]

[Colonel Sun]

[Endovelico]

When one is born in a family in which the parents have only four years schooling (as was common), there is little incentive to study. Then, compulsory schooling in Portugal is still only nine years, so far too many youngsters prefer to start looking for jobs soon after reaching that level. It's unfortunate and will take some time yet to correct. Increasing compulsory education to 12 years - as will be implemented in the near future - may help changing this sorry condition. Nothing really to be proud of. But I don't think that our present economic predicament has anything to do with this. After all, decision makers in Portugal are overwhelmingly college graduates...

[Endovelico]

[Captain Murphy]

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

[Endovelico]

[YMix]

Old dudes, please return to the topic at hand or take it to Hell, the way gentlemen do.

[Colonel Sun]

[CgDs]

[AzariLoveIran]

[Endovelico]

Thank you, Azari.

While I am all in favour of more education for all, nine years schooling - rather than twelve - does not hinder workers productivity much. I am more concerned with the lack of qualifications of many college graduates in respect of higher management functions. While it is very embarrassing to have only about one third of our younger people with a high-school diploma, that's not why we are underperforming. If I had to make a choice, I would rather spend more money in training people to make the right decisions at government level and at plant level (production managers and top management). If necessary, I would send them out to foreign firms, for a couple of years, to learn how to do it. Notice that Luxembourg, which has the highest productivity of the whole of Europe, has a work force made up 25% of Portuguese immigrants, who have as much schooling as their fellow countrymen in Portugal.

In 1972-74 I worked for the Lisbon shipyards, which were then the most efficient repair shipyards in Europe. All their workers and most of their engineers were Portuguese, and workers had no more than four years schooling. When the shipyard was being built (it had majority Portuguese capital, but also Swedish and Dutch shareholders), management sent the first batch of workers to Sweden and the Netherlands, to be trained on the job, as well as some engineers. That was all we needed to be highly efficient and successful. That's why I think that our problem is no longer mainly a problem of insufficient formal schooling. But I would strive to bring us more in line with our partners. Hopefully without falling into this trap:

[Mr. Perfect]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Alph]

[Rhapsody]

[Endovelico]

[I am ST]

I've compiled this from the Barro-Lee 2010 database on education attainment, that was gathering dust in my Hard Drive. It's broken down by age group.

So, yeah, Portugal's not doing too hot. I've added Romania and USA for reference purposes.

75% of 25+ adults have never graduated from highschool.
43% of 20-24 year old in 2010 have not finished highshool.

[Endovelico]

Thank you I am ST for the brake down of schooling figures. For the lower age brackets things are not so disastrous in Portugal, which shows an effort is now being made, but for people above 35 the picture is pretty grim. It can't be helped. We will have to wait a generation for figures to come closer to what is acceptable.

[Captain Murphy]