News on China's scientific and technological development.

Strangelove said:

Exactly what's happening in South Korea where uni graduates are mass produced like Samsung phones, except that the chaebols can't absorbed any more local grads, and the big multinationals like Samsung focus on hiring overseas. These SKor bachelor degree holders end up in coffee and fried chicken joints, which there are at least 3 on every Seoul city block.

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ficker22 said:

Why not recruit suitable ones to PRC.

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Overbom said:

No sane blue collar parent is going to send its child to become a blue collar worker, even if it makes financial sense

I think people really underestimate the physical toll that this kind of work takes on your body. Young people may not feel it but wait till they get older and that's when it hits you like a truck.

You go out and ask 100 blue collar workers if they would like their kid to have the same job in they future and I bet that something like >90 of them would say no

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PiSigma said:

I don't need my barista to have a university degree in English literature to serve me coffee. Or women studies or gender studies or any other useless "degree".

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PeoplesPoster said:

Language and cultural barriers, also it’s a pain in the ass to get work visas and transfer money out of China at this point, so any money you earn basically stays in China.

China is intentionally not setup for easy immigration at this point.

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ficker22 said:

Why not recruit suitable ones to PRC.

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Maikeru said:

Expansion of tertiary education was a way for European nations to reduce and privatise youth unemployment in the 1990s, with conscription no longer being politically viable. For leftist parties it also increased and subsidised a largely left-voting constituency. This was combined with massive grade inflation (more people get 1st class degrees in the UK now than actually went to university when I did). This all seemed like a good idea at the time but we ended up with a load of young people with useless degrees, huge debts, and large amounts of resentment. China should really avoid this approach if at all possible. University should be publicly funded for the brightest 10-15% with the remainder going to (also publicly funded) technical schools. If someone really wants to spend 3-4 years studying lesbian dance theory with underwater basket weaving then they should be allowed to do that, but on their own coin, not the state's.

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Overbom said:

No sane blue collar parent is going to send its child to become a blue collar worker, even if it makes financial sense

I think people really underestimate the physical toll that this kind of work takes on your body. Young people may not feel it but wait till they get older and that's when it hits you like a truck.

You go out and ask 100 blue collar workers if they would like their kid to have the same job in they future and I bet that something like >90 of them would say no

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paiemon said:

Its not even useless degrees from certain fields, its the mismatch of skills and capabilities between what is being taught and what is sought. For example, even for the prized "STEM" fields, there are tons of duds whose education doesn't align with what is sought in the real world. Like for example, CS curriculums include highly exercises on theoretical concepts like inverting binary trees and emphasizing concepts that would only be practiced by people researching new CS principles, which is a very narrow population. Meanwhile, companies are screening candidates to see how they would factor code from poorly maintained or messy brownfield code cases, they don't match up. We need better alignment between what our higher educational goals are, is it to teach skills for the job market, or is it to satisfy intellectual curiosity? Personally, I would like everyone to have higher education and be well rounded individuals (I know plenty of CS grads who could benefit from touching grass) but if our goal is to create employable, skilled workers then it would be a tough sell to use taxpayer money to fund what amounts to an aspiration. I look towards Germany's higher education system, which closely links employers with hands on education and skills development for students while still retaining tertiary education that can fulfill intellectual curiosities and aspirations. Bottom line is public funding should be tied to outcomes and goals as determined by society. Right now, I think the most pressing goal is to develop the skills and learning that will allow people to become gainfully employed and independent.

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paiemon said:

Its not even useless degrees from certain fields, its the mismatch of skills and capabilities between what is being taught and what is sought. For example, even for the prized "STEM" fields, there are tons of duds whose education doesn't align with what is sought in the real world. Like for example, CS curriculums include highly exercises on theoretical concepts like inverting binary trees and emphasizing concepts that would only be practiced by people researching new CS principles, which is a very narrow population. Meanwhile, companies are screening candidates to see how they would factor code from poorly maintained or messy brownfield code cases, they don't match up. We need better alignment between what our higher educational goals are, is it to teach skills for the job market, or is it to satisfy intellectual curiosity? Personally, I would like everyone to have higher education and be well rounded individuals (I know plenty of CS grads who could benefit from touching grass) but if our goal is to create employable, skilled workers then it would be a tough sell to use taxpayer money to fund what amounts to an aspiration. I look towards Germany's higher education system, which closely links employers with hands on education and skills development for students while still retaining tertiary education that can fulfill intellectual curiosities and aspirations. Bottom line is public funding should be tied to outcomes and goals as determined by society. Right now, I think the most pressing goal is to develop the skills and learning that will allow people to become gainfully employed and independent.

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BlackWindMnt said:

You know what's a big issue right here in the Netherlands. Getting highly skilled blue collar workers because everybody that was decently talented went to get a bachelor degree in something but can't find a job in it. And the old guard that would have trained new generation of blue collar workers went into pension during the 2008 crisis.

From what I heard the same is happening in multiple sectors over multiple educational degree, the savings the Dutch governments pushed through 8~12 years ago are now starting to bite the economy. Because talented people didn't pool into those sectors. So a lot of institutional knowledge will be lost knowledge people build up from experience.

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