INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION
By PERCY DUNSHEATH*
MUCH has been said and written during recent months on the importance of ensuring the post-war prosperity of this country by taking steps to redress the present serious lack of balance between imports and exports. In order to secure that larger part of our foodstuffs which we are unable to produce at home, as well as certain essential raw materials, we must pay out in either goods or service to other countries. This critical problem, the creation of fresh assets to balance our foreign account, can be solved in various ways ; but no method offers a greater return on expenditure, a quicker result or a more durable reform than the improvement through education of that vital raw material, human personnel.
Whatever the form of asset we decide to strengthen in order to meet our national requirements, we are faced with one unassailable fact: the price we pay, no matter what the currency, consists largely of human endeavour. This is clearly the case with the manufactured article, and, though not so evident perhaps in the export of a mineral product, it is a fact that only when human hands and human brain have contributed are we able to claim payment in exchange. The greatest potential asset of any country is its youth, and this asset may be squandered by neglect or raised to the highest value by correct treatment. The juvenile population of Great Britain constitutes the most valuable raw material the country possesses. Our future prosperity, possibly even our future existence, depends on the way we use it, and with a declining birth-rate even this asset is waning. Within the next twenty years the number of young persons between the ages of twenty and twenty-five will be reduced by something like 25 per cent., a phenomenon which may have an enormous effect on the future of British industry. Now is the time, therefore, even under war conditions, to consider possible remedies.
There is, unfortunately, too slow a realisation of the way in which the very fundamentals of industry are changing. The price receivable for the finished product is more and more determined by the brain component embodied in its production. Estimated costs are still based on labour, but the value of the commodity is represented to an ever-increasing extent by the work of chemists, physicists and technicians, although their salaries are still classed as " overheads." In the coming competition with other nations we shall require the highest intellectual and technical attainments in the greatest number of people, and anything which can be done to raise the standard of the brains-component of a manufactured article will advance the prosperity of a firm, of a whole industry and of the nation. Our industrial personnel from the lowest to the highest must be equipped, mentally and manually, to compete with its counterpart in any country no matter how progressive.
It is now common knowledge that young people who have shown a complete lack of enthusiasm in the elementary school frequently come back to educational facilities willingly and profitably after contact with the world. Either through late development or through a feeling of personal responsibility engendered by leaving school and
*Dr. Dunsheath is a Director and Chief Engineer of W. T. Henley's Telegraph Works Co., and a Vice-President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. receiving payment for services rendered, a boy who at school rejected knowledge will often seek it later with avidity. The pre system for the encouragement of post-school education is from national point of view hopelessly inadequate. An educational auk rity, having extracted a few pounds from a reluctant ratepayer, ads rises its wares in the form of evening classes on the street hoardin and Underground Railways, and in return obtains the interest about to per cent. of the possible candidates. A system whi leaves untouched 90 per cent. of the available raw material clearly inefficient, and demands fundamental changes in its consti tion and methods.
The solution of this great national problem lies not in the pres system of evening classes, but in facilities for part-time day-stu granted by industry. Industry has the raw material under cl control, and can provide at once what the educationists waiting for. Industry, by one stroke, can completely alter t problem of post-school education in this country. The majo of young people, on leaving school, submit themselves willingly the discipline of an industrial organisation. At fourteen to eighte or twenty, most boys and many girls need the counsel of w parents, and, at times, a little mild coercion. Industry, acting loco parentis, can provide both. Let industry make the ma definition of policy which the educationists are waiting for, a decide forthwith to educate its young people.
Two well-worn issues arise immediately on any consideration this question—the school leaving-age and the relative position vocational and humanistic education. If, however, we get our c ceptions of these questions clear in the light of industrial organ tion and national interest, all antagonisms disappear. In the fi place, so long as adequate post-school education is assured, argument for raising the school-leaving age beyond fifteen is v much weakened, if not entirely disposed of. If every boy and in the country can be offered ample facilities between fifteen a twenty to secure the widest and best education which he is capa of profiting by, then what possible objection can there be to contributing at the same time, through industry to his own maint ante and to the prosperity of the country?
Much more can be said on the division of time between vocatio or technical training and the wider training for life. Techni training, both manual and mental, is clearly essential in view of highly specialised knowledge now employed daily in all branches industry ; but it would be a fatal mistake to conclude that only su knowledge is necessary. Besides vocational ability, judgement a common sense are universally in demand, and it is the cul subjects which, above all, bestow these prizes both on the individ and on the community. Let industry, then, train its young peo for specific employment, and at the same time aim at giving w the Headmaster of Rugby has recently called " the abiding happin which can be found in the company of great writers."
Further, in everything we do through industry to keep youth contact with educational opportunities, let us not aim at setting hi hurdles which only the few can jump. Let us provide openings give a reasonable chance of satisfaction in life to all ; outi for every grade of intelligence, and rewards for effort where placed.
If every boy and every girl employed in industry could be gi one day or more a week to attend an educational establishment industry's expense and under the wise guidance of industry operating with the educational authorities ; if, further, a reasona number could be selected at a later stage and directed to a r dential course, the effect on our industrial progress, on the relati between employers and employed and on the national prospe would be startling. In industry it is no unusual thing for individ firms to submit themselves to financial penalties and to consider loss of liberty in order to secure some common interest. greater common interest could there be than in the raising of level of intelligence of its own personnel? British industry has a greater opportunity of serving itself and the country in this ma than is commonly thought. If it will set the pace in post-sc education Britain will not only thrive but will be great M wor influence. The country's future is locked up in human effort through its young people, industry largely holds the key.
Previous page
