Value, effort and education.

Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends. Benjamin Disraeli

Value, effort…………

In modern business economics, there is a realization that is not so much the organization which creates value, but the organization makes an value offer and the realization of this is in the usage of the product or service by the customer.

In traditional approaches (as still in can be seen in the tax system: taxes on value added), when inputs are transformed during each sequential stage, the efforts of the firm are seen as adding value to the product. Taxes are levied on this effort, measured by the costs of the labour and capital used.

In the transformation of grain into bread, the labour of the farmer, the miller and the baker are seen to increase the value and so the price of the outputs. Yet, if the bread is not sold and thrown away at the end of the day, does all this labour add to the welfare of society? The realization of the potential value in the offering is the appreciation of the customer, in the case of bread this is shown by the price paid for the bread. This appreciation will be different in different situations. In countries with a shortage of foods, a simple bread will be sold, whereas in countries with a lot of possible substitutes, simple bread will not be valued highly. Doubling the inputs (efforts), without changing the quality or characteristics of the bread will not increase the value.

More difficult is it to determine the value of art. However,it should be clear that it is not the level of effort which determines the fact if something is valued as a work of art. Yet, the reverse is -of course- not true: most artistic work will require hard work. Thinking about the way the artistic level of something could be determined, I think it is not the price paid on the free market, or the opinion of experts but the effort of people to preserve it. At least, the efforts and costs invested in preserving art over the centuries is a better approximation of the value for society, than the money invested in making the object itself.

From The Picture of Dorian Gray

…………………….  And Education   We see different trends appearing at this time:

1. The success of Moocs, measured in participation,
2. The expectation that (commercial) distance education providers will have a destructive influence on the sector as described by Christensen and others, and
3. The financial problems of different governments, where the examples of California and Greece show that education is one of the first sectors which will suffer.

The success of the Moocs can be interpreted in different ways:

1. As a rise in demand for education which is not supported by a rise in income;
2. A demand for training increased in the last years due to the economic crisis.

Related to the success of the Moocs is the concept of disruptive innovations as used to forecast developments in American education by Christensen and others. The success is partly explained by the price (free for Moocs). The prices for education will decline because of the separation of research and teaching: concentration on key activities being a central theme in disruptive innovation. The idea of cheaper or even free education is, of course, attractive to governments which have budgetary problems. Especially when education is not a top priority for local and national governments with liquidity problems. To summarize, learners and financers of education substitute traditional education for cheaper and free alternatives, a tendency which only will become stronger according to Christensen and others. In terms of the new business economics as described above, the key stakeholders in education refuse to create the value, offered by the efforts of the educators. Rephrasing this, the value offer of the educational institutes may not be acceptable or affordable for the stakeholders. The value of education is determined by the usage by the learners of the learned competences and knowledge. In general, we can distinguish two extreme approaches to the effects of education.

1.  At one side of the spectrum, education is seen as an important factor increasing social cohesion, democratic participation and (economic) welfare. For example, the European Union writes in the evaluation of the Lisbon Agenda:

Underlying this was the realisation that, in order to enhance its standard of living and sustain its unique social model, the EU needed to increase its productivity and competitiveness in the face of ever fiercer global competition, technological change and an ageing population.[..] These ambitious targets could only be achieved through structural reforms to tackle a number of challenges within Europe’s labour markets; tackling labour market segmentation, addressing skill needs through more and better education and training, promoting a lifecycle approach to active ageing, and inclusive labour markets. […]Education and skills policy is at the heart of creating a knowledge-based economy, but it is apparent that the EU has some way to travel in this regard.

2.  The approach on the other side of the spectrum emphasis the economic effects, especially for the individual who becomes more competent. Education, in this view, primarily produces individuals which are more competent in their work, increasing employment by a better fit between demand and supply in the labour market. More productive workers will earn a higher income and firms will earn their firm an additional profit.

In the second view, employers, employees and learners are primarily responsible for financing education as the value will only partly crystallize in the form of additional income for the learner and the employers. The broader approach of education puts part of the responsibility with society: government has incentives to finance at least the general competences of the learners, through educational subsidies. Again, effort will determine quality but rise costs, but when demand shifts to other alternatives, much of the effort will be lost. Problem with disruptive tendencies in the sense of Christensen et al. is the “catch-22” between costs and demand, which results from the move towards quality which is the standard response of all organizations in these situations. Traditional education wants to take its social responsibility, teaching collective social competences next to functional content based on research efforts. However, if society doesn’t want or can pay for this kind of education, it will end up with purely functional education, paid for by employers and employees and aimed totally to an efficient fulfilment of jobs and the furthering of individual careers.