Educating Rita

Educating Rita was the 1983 version of Pygmalion where education of the underclass was shown to uncover a surprising intelligence hitherto unknown in the unwashed masses. This revelation was again put to the test recently by Chris (I can’t for the life of me believe he’s EDUCATION minister) Pyne. 

“UA was almost the sole public proponent of the university changes.”

Chris Pyne was recently pushing for reforms for deregulating Australian universities. This it seems to me is the act of a shameful (or is that shameless?) lobbyist move to support rich friends in high places. It’s a pity that our government is so immature along with the UA board who, as Ben Eltham says in his article, purport "to speak in the public interest.”

Pyne supported them all the way despite vociferous public outcry. But here I think, is why.

 Top universities want to attract high paying students. Understandable. This allows them to ‘refurbish’, employ the crème de la crème of academics to fill their hallowed halls, offer the newest in technologies, attract the highest scoring candidates to give them the highest degree passes… all in order to attract the highest paying students; those of the rich who wish to ensure their progeny are getting the ‘best’ education which will stand them in good stead for the family business; more money making.

It’s a bit of a vicious circle… But let it be said, I do understand the merit of all this wheeling and dealing. Unbeknownst to the plebs in the world, there is a whole ‘nother dimension to our little universe and it is known as the world of the rich and discreet (WORAD).

They are not the ones we see splashed in the media with outrageously ‘public’ and decadent lives. These are the more ‘prudent’ of the species who merely get on with their fabulously wealthy lives, making more money and holidaying quietly in Antibes. (I don’t even know where that is). Their lifestyles, incomes, cars… even thought processes are beyond the ken of us mere mortals.

In this dimension of WORAD, there is a network. This network ensures jobs for the children of WORADs, shares valuable information concerning money making schemes such as shares, investments, the latest/newest patent to wrench from the cold, destitute fingers of some brilliant but naïve scientist… or native population such as, oh say, their DNA.

There is no place into which their tentacles cannot slither, explore, investigate and thoroughly divest others of their money simply because they have the wherewithal to withstand the financial test of time. For example, if you were to try and sue a WORAD, they have enough financial backing to ensure the best legal team that would guarantee you were broke within two months of the case merely with the inundation of paperwork they can create with a team of several hundred paralegals at their disposal.

These are simple facts, but I digress. The good thing about high paying university students is that it helps to sustain this WORAD world and this dimension can actually stretch across time and space and interact with our world at certain junctures (it’s called String Theory- very complicated but it works, trust me) and provide jobs for the plebs who are required to sustain the WORAD dimension in small but necessary ways; someone has to empty the chamberpots so to speak.

And that’s where WORADs work for us. Having what the Americans call “Ivy League Colleges” attracts the moneyed WORADs who bring their fabulously rich lifestyles to our shores (even if it’s only for a couple of months a year before jetting off to… I can’t even imagine…

While they’re in absentia, there is an entire block of apartments that needs upkeeping while the parents are away and the baby WORAD for whom the apartment block was purchased needs cosseting and attending to with needs ranging from cleaning, cooking, driving, shopping, purchasing of koala plushes… It has also inadvertently provided living space for those known as ‘other people who live in the building, but aren’t important enough to know.’

WORADs also, through their international networking, bring in businesses and investors from other parts of the world you and I will never see but exist in this ‘nother dimension. This most importantly, brings money to the local shores from other shores that have never heard of Australia let alone that it might be another market which other nation WORADs can come to and rape and pillage, occasionally leaving some nice tips.

So I believe I have uncovered the quite sensible idea behind Chris Pyne’s eminently sensible idea to charge the bejesus out of university students.

 However, as Eltham says UA clearly do not represent public opinion:

“We know this largely because of the extraordinary intervention of one man: Stephen Parker, the vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra. In an incendiary and widely-reported speech this week, Parker mocked Group of 8 bosses as former CEOs and neoliberal economists (hello, Fred Hilmer). He compared Universities Australia itself to a flesh-eating bacteria.”

 Fairly firm words from the head of a university. Granted it is an Australian university and as our ‘larrikin’ politicians bear out, our heads-of-various-institutions are given to public displays of hyperbole and personal insults that are picturesque in their evocative imagery and make for blushing reading for English spinsters in their knitting circles where quite a few knitting needles have been flung to the four winds in shock and done some serious damage to the cucumber sandwiches.

 Anyway the hue and cry has been disseminated by now by wiser heads. Because as an educator myself, I am passionate about the equality of education for all. You see the wealthy most certainly do not have a monopoly on intelligence. It may be argued that as they are wealthy, they are business savvy and that is often true although much wealth is inherited.  But this does not in and of itself indicate any kind of intelligence at all given much of the family business might well be managed by hirelings.

 What is certain, is that proponents such as Gardner and his bevy of various intelligences ranging from musical, intrapersonal, mathematical, linguistic and musical to kinaesthetic, can attest that a thriving society cannot live on business alone, despite Capitalist aspirations. Innovation is key to a growing and evolving society. Innovation comes from not only all walks of life, but also from all sorts of intelligences too.

 We seem to forget all too easily that such as Einstein did not do well at school so the education system itself is not an indicator or nurturer of all intelligences. George Foreman, Vidal Sassoon, Richard Branson, Quentin Tarantino- all now millionaires and beyond (not that this is a sole indicator of success or intelligence), dropped out of school.

 So while school is not for everyone, the point I make is that we must also cater for the poor who cannot afford to enter into an astronomical debt by going to university. The raising of fees is quite simply a discriminating measure. It is aimed, short sightedly, at raising funds but has no vision of the future and the innovation that necessarily comes from a wide pool of students and minds that come from a diversity of backgrounds, socio-economic groups and cultures.

We do our country a grave disservice if we limit access to education. We need people who ‘think outside the box’ and not clones of what has gone before- WORAD babies, with WORAD backgrounds, values, agendas… This only leads to stagnation and while it may support the WORAD lifestyle for the foreseeable future, it cannot be sustained. Growth and change are essential. To excel one must be open to the new and unexpected from wherever it surprisingly emerges.