Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

Teaching is the process but production of the certificates is the required outcome.

Schools that fail to produce such documents don't last long here. I suspect the same is true in Denmark.

I think we need to return to the motivation for why we undertake the endeavor, by force of law, that every child be educated (or at least led to the oasis of learning, drinking is optional).

We do this to ensure that every new adult we add to the society has a basic set of skills. It would be nice to know that every person who receives a high school diploma has this similar basic set of skills, but this is not the case. A high number of students get passed along, graduate, remain illiterate, and woefully ignorant. This becomes much worse when you look at things which are needed in our society, but not required in our schools, such as math and science fundamentals. I think we are far too tolerant of failure. A college that I work with has an overall graduation rate of 62%, which is actually higher than the national average. I'm helping them to focus on the 38% who don't make it. Also, they have a fundamental problem getting enough males due to their higher requirements for GPA/SAT/ACT test scores. There is a high drop out rate for males around 8th grade that results in a gap of males who are qualified and prepared for college.

And, to what Pete alluded to with college diploma's... The curriculum gets watered down, and the grades all float higher, thus a previously prestigious attainment becomes run of the mill, and the dumbing down of education is to blame. I suspect, that criteria for education are higher in Denmark, Germany, and some other highly industrial European nations. The skill of their workforce is their economic power, as they cannot indefinitely mine or farm GDP from their tiny nations to produce wealth.