March 28, 2011
9:00 p.m.
Portugal is the poorest country in Western Europe and is also the least educated. Since it is so badly educated they are also in a state of economic crisis. Portugal must generate enough long-term economic growth to pay off its large debts, but an unskilled work force makes that very difficult. Education prevents things like this to happen and broadens economic benefits. We can see this is true because Ireland was one of the poorest countries a generation ago, but it put money into technical education and remade itself as a destination for high-tech labor, which also attracts low corporate taxes. Even after a brutal banking crisis, Ireland is among the richest nations in Europe. Professor Hanushek, of Stanford, calculated that Portugal’s long-term rate of economic growth would be 1.5 percentage points higher if the country had the same test scores as super-educated Finland.
Although many college graduates have suffered during the Great Recession, the trend is still the same that people with education tend to do much better. Whether you look at countries, regions, states, cities, or individuals more education leads to a more stable future. The education system has a lot of issues, but people should never be discouraged to receive more education. Once the economy is out of the recession we will slowly see jobs opening up and wages increasing. It’s sad to say people without a college education these days aren’t even looked at when they send in their resumes or applications. Back in the day people either could not afford to go to school or had to start working right out of high school to support themselves or their family. Fact is that college just was not an option to a lot of people years ago, but now it seems that it’s making those people regret what they did twenty or so years ago. Countries who have little education one would think would have a poorer economy since people do not have the education or skills to have high paying and powerful jobs such as the ones on Wall Street. If Portugal can pull in some money to rebuild their education system they may just be able to turn their recession around for the better!
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/portugals-education-lesson/?scp=3&sq=education&st=cse
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