In two issues in a row, two separate interviews with two successful businessmen have been published at the Info Express’s Entrepreneur Pages. What the two entrepreneurs have in common is that they are very ambitious and hardworking and have an eye for knowing what the market needs, i.e. qualities commonly described as those of an entrepreneur. So far, so good.
What made me worried and made me start writing this, however, was that they also have another thing in common; none of them has finished Upper Secondary School. This makes you wonder. I, myself, have attended upper secondary school as well as university and I am not even close to make the kind of money these two gentlemen make. Is it just a strange coincidence? Has Info Express managed to find the only two successful entrepreneurs not finishing upper secondary school? Or is it more common than I had thought?
Statistics clearly show that there is an over-representation of people without a higher education among the unemployed. This clearly points to upper secondary school being important and the salvation for a lot of people.
On the other hand it might point to something completely else, i.e. that the employers look for people who have finished upper secondary because they think they will cope better. Theoretically upper secondary school leaving certificate might win against actual competence.
However, my experience and my upbringing tell me all knowledge is good, and I have always seen that as a proof for the importance of upper secondary education. But if an unmotivated student serves three years of upper secondary education, he or she possibly does not learn as much as if working with something interesting. Admittedly Olof Andersson claims he had to pay dearly for missing knowledge he would have had if he had attended school, and therefore he urge all young people to finish upper secondary school. And that might be true. On the other hand it is reasonable that during the three years he ran his own business instead of going to school, he learned a lot of other things that probably stopped him from doing other mistakes. And when you read the articles and check with the writer, it becomes obvious that these two gentlemen have achieved more knowledge – branch specific as well as general – and better lingual skills than many people I’ve met who finished both upper secondary and university.
On the other hand most people are not equipped with the same high ambition and then the alternative to attending upper secondary school is to sit at home doing nothing. And it must be better to do nothing in school. After all some education must stick. But if the student would have been searching actively online, played educational games and had rewarding and enlarging chat conversations, had he or she been at home, then it might be the opposite, with the exception that he or she would not have a piece of paper showing he or she went to upper secondary school.
What I think I want to say with this is that we are all different and thus one format for everyone is not really working. I am aware that there is a large amount of different programs, satisfying a lot of different interests and levels of ambition. I just don’t think it is enough. And how would the two interviewed men have acted had they been offered a special program allowing them to invest in their businesses respectively at the same time as assimilating knowledge they needed as long as they also learned something else.
This last part is probably the key: Something else. Our canon. What every Swede is supposed to know. Some history, some civics, a little bit of cultural knowledge, to be able to express oneself in speech and writing and some general knowledge of mathematics. We simply have to force it on them, as they otherwise will regret it when older.
However, I don’t think we have to worry; most young people think that what we think is important – with some exceptions – is important. But although upper secondary school is a good place for attaining this knowledge for most people, it is probably not so for everyone.
In addition, the most important knowledge and skills are not acquired in school at all; notwithstanding how well you participate. What is most often asked for, in job ads as well as in political speeches, is, as you know, social competence, computer skills and entrepreneur skills, i.e. things you mostly acquire outside school.
Perhaps, firstly, there are considerably better selection instruments than the comprehensive school grades – today the lowest entrance scores rarely mirror the theoretical (or practical) level of difficulty, which leads to theoretically skilled students filling the places of more suited practical students, who instead have to sit through three years of theoretical courses – and, secondly, a new system of selection, including interviews and tests, also would show what alternative would suit the individual best. And then there must be more alternatives. If this would lead to higher costs, I am convinced that it would lead to less exclusion and more entrepreneurs, leading to decreased costs and increased income in the future.
Torsten André
