Comment by gvr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gvr | Hacker News Reader

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Regarding schools: the "Free Schools" are quite unusual, almost all universities and certainly the top ones are run by the state and free, and people are accepted based on academic merit. I went to arguably the best engineering physics program in Sweden; it was free, and they paid me a $250 stipend per month, the rest of money needed to live was borrowed at a low rate.

It is true that Sweden has cut services a lot in the last few years and the "right wing" coalition had unprecedented voter support in the last election. There's a massive backlash against them, and I'll be shocked if the ruling coalition or party doesn't swing massively left next year - as will most Swedes.

Regarding vets: yes I'm sure that if you send somebody to the hell that is war, and doesn't take care of him when he comes back, that this will increase his chances of ending up in the streets vs the average civilian. I'm not sure what your point is. Maybe we should reallocate some of the wealth to taking better care of these people, and enter into fewer wars?

"Regarding schools: the "Free Schools" are quite unusual..."

In the UK, the right-wing Education Minister, Michael Gove, is a particularly enthusiastic proponent of "free schoools" and has been strongly influenced by the Swedish free school model. In fact, the 2010 Conservative election manifesto even included a page praising the Swedish free school policy.

1) Nothing is free. We pay the most taxes in the world. 2) We don't accept based on academic merit. We accept based on government unemployment programs.

Edit: Spello

> We don't accept based on academic merit. We accept based on government unemployment programs

That's overly pessimistic.

Compared to most of the world, the fact that the size of your wallet doesn't directly determine which schools we can go to is remarkable.

But now you are saying that has do with the size of your wallet (or rather lack of), which is true, but that does not mean we are basing it on academic merit. That is jumping to conclusions and assumptions.

What is the academic merits to become a teacher today? Zero?

Edit: Added extra paragraph.

> That is jumping to conclusions and assumptions.

Sure. I didn't arrive at this through reasoning, it's a contingency. I hope I didn't leave anything non-obvious out:

* In most places, you have to afford the school and you need the grades/SAT scores (academic merit).

* In Sweden, you don't need to afford the school: you only need the grades/SAT scores (academic merit).

But I'm saying that is not based on academic merit when anyone can attend.

Not anyone can - only those who can get the grades. And while grades are an imperfect measure of academic merit they're the best one we have.

For a long time we have had a public policy that anyone can go to higher education if they want to and in combination with different labor programs that pushes unemployed and under skilled to universities, that leads to undermining academic merits to a point where its not left.

And that we granted every small education institution with the status of university.

So to sum up: the goal of "free" education is to make higher education available for more people. This will lead to lowering of standards of already existing programs because more will attend (normal distribution of skill) and in the universities self interest a majority will pass because universities is paid per graduated student.

And with a gradual lowering of standards this opens up for unqualified students to attend, especially in combination with government programs.

Ergo academic merits does not matter.

In Swedish Almost anyone can be a teacher http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/nastan-vem-som-helst-kan-bl...

This is now norm on many programs at the Swedish universities.

I gather you're unhappy about the falling demand for a degree in teaching, but the whole argument you're describing is politicised and unsupported. The article suggests there's low demand for a degree in teaching; extending that to "academic merits does not matter" is a crazy stretch.

This link shows statistics for people accepted into higher education for this fall semester: http://statistik.vhs.se

Both in the design of the system and in its actual results, it's clear that academic merit matters more than any other factor.

That link just shows academic merits relative to other students, not absolute academic merits.

Politicized is the one that accepts the reality of politics, I don't because I look at result not intent.

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