Economics 'Dying Out' in Schools, page 1
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Topic started on 25-7-2008 @ 07:46 AM by pause4thought

Economics 'Dying Out' in Schools


news.bbc.co.uk
Only three economics teachers were trained on teacher training courses in the whole of England last year, shows a study of students entering teaching.

The report's author, Professor Alan Smithers, warns that economics risks "dying out" as a school subject.

There are now more pupils taking A-levels in media studies, expressive arts and PE than economics.
(visit the link for the full news article)


reply posted on 29-7-2008 @ 06:56 AM by ALightinDarkness
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 posted on 29-7-2008 @ 07:24 AM by pause4thought
reply to post by ALightinDarkness



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.


reply posted on 31-7-2008 @ 07:09 AM by Iggus
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.


reply posted on 19-8-2008 @ 03:47 PM by pause4thought
reply to post by KilgoreTrout




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

The second and more fundemental reason being is there are no government funding incentives for them to do so.


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




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?'
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