Afshan Kiran Imtiaz-The main goal of schooling

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz Beyond what education contributes to their knowledge and skills, it also provides information attesting to this experience, signaling to potential employers that a candidate might have certain qualities he is looking for. Unlike most of us, author Bryan Caplan considers the latter to be the main role in education.

Apparently, Caplan also believes that a large number of people, many of whom are economists, are unaware of this role of school certification. Afshan Kiran Imtiaz in his view, these visually impaired individuals consider that the only purpose of education is to increase human skills (which Caplan tends to narrowly define as specific job-related skills).

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz what he calls "human capital purists", who see schools as resolutely dedicated to skills development, and who believe that labor markets will easily identify the level of performance expected from any job applicant. From this point of view, checking the courses that make up a program leading to a university degree would be useful for you as well as obtaining the diploma.

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz I know quite a few economists, I have never, to my knowledge, met one that I would consider a "purist of human capital". If I ever do, I will now know which book to buy her for Christmas.

Caplan, professor of economics at George Mason University, aims to show that at least 30% of the education function is this signaling and sorting, although he personally thinks that it represents at least 80 %.

I, and most of the economists Afshan Kiran Imtiaz I know, would probably estimate this number at around 20 to 25 percent (while also wondering exactly what this measure captures), most of the purpose of education being strengthening human capital. Is this long and often biased book simply intended to increase the weight of readers on signage by a few percentage points? No. Later in the book, the author departs from the 30% claim, saying, "Since education is primarily a signal ,. . . "This is a much stronger and less credible claim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HndV87XpkWg

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz said much of the book is devoted to showing the many ways, obvious or subtle, that educational signage is important. Caplan highlights how difficult it is to get reliable information about what future workers know and are ready and able to do, and reminds us that students have reason to exaggerate their talents.

The arguments here are often intelligent and instructive; it is unfortunate that much of the presentation is organized around discussions with the purist of nonexistent human capital.

The main political conclusion of Caplan is that most of the education beyond literacy and basic arithmetic is a waste of time and money and that governments should therefore strongly reduce education grants and actively discourage its pursuit.

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz said based this conclusion on two assertions: first, most of the education is pure sorting and produces little useful learning.

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz judgment which he clearly believes but is unwilling to formally defend. His second claim is that even investing in education for its sorting and signaling value is a waste, because it goes too far. According to him, all the useful sorting could be done, let's say, at the end of high school; all that is beyond is an expensive race for a relative advantage.

Afshan Kiran Imtiaz is a confusing statement because it is unclear why employers would pay more for college workers when they could hire high school graduates cheaply, by rating them on their school records.

Whatever the merit of these two statements, they have a verifiable implication: namely, that investing more in general education, at least beyond the three Rs, does not make workers more productive and therefore does not favor Economic Growth.