Economics 'Dying Out' in Schools

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

This may well be related to the ever-increasing apathy towards politics and current affairs in general, often the result of general disillusionment towards what politics and politicians achieve on behalf of the population (-as opposed to self-promotion and the pursuit of ideological agendas).

I find Professor Smithers' explanations unconvincing. E.g.



The same could be said for a whole host of other disciplines, yet it does not put people off.

More likely today's young people are more stimulated by soap operas (media studies) and relationships (psychology). How very convenient for the sheep-herders of this world...

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)



NB - Check out the link at top right of the article: "Media Studies Overtakes Physics". Oh boy...

[edit on 25/7/08 by pause4thought]

This is so sad, and I know it's happened at least at my alma matter.

I heard from a recent graduate that the Economics (loosely used...I learned more about economics from a Consumer Math course that was considered for idiots, but I digress) course was not required, and neither was the Government course in order to graduate! I mean come on! I'll admit I was a bit of an overachiever back then and took the college level duel-credit courses (not offered either anymore!) but at least I knew that they were important classes and treated them as such.

In my opinion, this is the biggest proof that our government is trying to make sheep of us, when they do nothing to stop the teaching of subjects meant to enlighten us to the problems of the country and world, and give us the ability to form an opinion about them. A lot of time (as I have seen) if people know nothing about something, they either are apathetic or go with what the person they feel is learned about the subject (insert favorite dimwitted TV "News" Bobblehead here) and take their opinion, defenses, and facts for themselves.

Sad Sad day for our world when education of the people quickens its slip

I think there may be a difference between undergraduate programs and graduate programs on this. I'm not an economist at all but took several economics courses and had to TA for a public policy economics course, and I noticed that while undergraduates generally couldn't care less the graduate students ran each other over to get into the economics focused classes.

Not because its any fun, by the way, but its just simple reality that those with a better understanding of economics and quantitative methods are much more attractive job candidates and get paid better. Maybe it's something you just learn after trying to look for a job after college.

I'd also think there is some relation to the general dumb down of college as it becomes more of an entitlement than an accomplishment. At least in the US, the quality and rigor expected of college students has decreased as people view a college degree as a right. Concurrently people are led to believe a college degree will magically get them all sorts of jobs regardless of area. When you put the two influences together, people have no incentive to take "hard courses" because they have been propagandized to believe that no matter what, the degree is going to get them big bucks. As such, people run from the quantitative courses as undergraduates - find out a college degree is worth almost nothing upon graduation - and then return trying to correct their mistakes as graduate students.

[edit on 29-7-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

reply to post by ALightinDarkness

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You make some excellent points. That last paragraph could be the basis for a whole new discussion in the 'General Conspiracies' forum. I say go for it - it has a lot of mileage.

As to the specific issue of the popularity of serious academic subjects such as economics it could be argued that they have fallen victim to an ongoing double-whammy: apathy on the part of government combined with the promotion of banal subjects by the mass media, with the consequent dreaming up of hip-sounding courses by academic institutions eager to keep their income growing. (But hey, who could argue with that - they are, after all, making money.) The latter links into the whole 'dumbing down of education' debate, so on closer examination it appears the issues are inextricably linked.

The actual article is speaking about a shortage of school teachers to provide high school level exam teaching. This is not explicitly a problem with undergraduate teaching which, in the UK at least, has no current difficulty with recruiting for any subject as far as I am aware.

There has been a problem for some time with teacher numbers. Although there are lots of people who are going on teacher training courses there is a high drop out rate for all subject areas. This problem though is heightened for certain subject areas, of which economics is obviously one.

The problem areas tend to be numerate subjects like maths, physics and other science based subjects. These subjects are often viewed as difficult to pass when compared to other subjects such as psychology or media studies. Thus fewer students tend to take them. This in turn leads to fewer students taking these subjects at undergraduate level which in turn reduces the number of people who could teach it.

Of course this is an overly simplistic view as there are many other factors involved. One of the largest that needs to be considered is the percieved reduction in quality of students taking degree level numerate subjects. This is fed by a decreased difficulty in exams in these subjects so as to "improve" the quality of education, as shown by the statistics. Thus the average level of ability in these areas has reduced and the best in the field will be taken up by those who can pay for them. Those that are left do not have the best skills in the subject areas and it is from this group that most, obviuosly not all, teacher candidates come from. By not having top quality in the field teachers means that it is unlikely that they will inspire others to achieve in the area either.

I am unconvinced that this is a conspiracy to dumb down the population. I think that in this case it is more linked to successive governments trying to show how good they are for education. They improve the stats in the results column by giving easier exams in percieved harder subjects and provide a raft of so called soft subjects.

The above is utter twaddle. As someone with a very limited grasp and understanding of Mathematics (and two failed Maths GCSEs to prove it) I had absolutely no problem with Economics at A-level, it wasn't even a requirement. I did fail that too, but that was purely due to a relentless attempt by my economics teacher to get into my knickers (of which more need not be said).

Having worked in Admissions of a large, respected and popular teacher training university, I would hazard that the reason for the fall in people training as economics teachers is that that very, very, very few institutions offer it at either BEd level or PGCE. The second and more fundemental reason being is there are no government funding incentives for them to do so. The irony being that education is all about economics.



[edit on 31-7-2008 by KilgoreTrout]

People don't want to know where their tax money goes, are told that money is boring and that theyre too stupid to really understand the fineries of finance. Therefore its easier to get an easy job, '(going out on a limb here so dont bother moaning) a job like 'glamour model', footballer, TV host, something that doesn't require a lot of intelliegence but can bring in easy money.
Therefore its easier to pull the wool over peoples eyes if they don't want to find out anything.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

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Sorry, I missed this, and several of the other thoughtful posts.



This still begs the question 'Why not?' Why would the government not see economics as a key discipline in a 21st century market economy?



reply to post by Iggus

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You don't see evidence of a conspiracy, but you clearly see that standards are being allowed to slip, even at university level. This too begs the question 'Why?'

I can only speak for the U.S., but here many universities have Schools of Business which require economics. A bachelor's degree in business, but even more an MBA (master of business administration), are pretty much requisite for a lucrative career; these courses are very popular. I have also seen economics courses thrive in the community colleges.

As a professor I have also seen my share of students who are only there for the piece of paper they get at the end of their course of study and have no interest in actually learning anything. There are probably as many of those as there are students who are motivated. Now, as more and more students feel a college degree is necessary they are going on to higher education when they are not really equipped for it. Thus the popularity of the less challenging subjects, though no doubt they are also more fun.

I've seen this first hand, I'm an economics major...and you would be so surprised to know how little people know. Even in some of my advanced classes (yes I'm still in college...I'm pretty young) the students are brain dead. I mean, I guess not everyone watches CNBC and Bloomberg 24/5...but, it's still pathetic. I actually got in an argument the other day telling someone they need to take an economics class or eventually they are going to be taken advantage of.

Its pretty bad...

It seems most people don't even know the most basic things about Economics.


Simple supply and demand curves are too complicated for some people to understand...



I had AP eco in high school, both Macro and Micro... It was simple to me, but i am realy good at math...

Assuming that many people don't understand Economics, it makes sense why they can't understand why the price of oil is where its at...


Sometimes we forget that upwards of 50% of the people on here are Grade A morons... and don't even know it...

A normal moron isn't that bad... Their Dumb and they know it... THey on't pertend to be anything else...
But the Closet Moron is dangerous... They think they are always right... Are unable to reason... their opinion is higher then the truth for them...


Now, its good to see that thier is some evidence for this... The lack of teachers...

There are people on this very forum that don't understand economics, I've argued with many of them

With Zimbabwe's inflation at astronomical records, one might be lead to think that the lack of economics would numb people to specific news reports.

Or maybe I've just been on ATS too long :-)

P4T I don't see a conspiracy because I see the government doing what comes naturally to them. They want to be voted in again and one area where they can appear to be doing well is in education. By driving up results, which again have got better this year, they can show how good they are for the country and thereby hopefully, for them, get more votes. I don't need to look beyond their own short term interests to find a conspiracy.

Also people want things to be easy, because we are inherently lazy. If there are easy subjects then we will take them. Thus if we want people to take so called hard subjects we will have to make them easier.

So two reasons for the decline in standards, and neither require any conspiracy or anything more than normal human behaviour to explain this decline.

[edit on 20-8-2008 by Iggus]