Arnold Kling Competition in Education - Essay Example

“ARNOLD KLING – COMPETITION IN EDUCATION” Arnold Kling is an economist and a lecturer. He was recently invited on Econ talk to exchange views on the recent technological improvements in education with host Russ Roberts. He and Russ defined the new advancements in education because of which students think on not taking the classes and dropping out of college itself. Most students have started to learn things on their own and find lectures a total waste of time as they have other options to look up the text from.

They have started self study as they think that lectures are not worth attending. They talked about Google as being the new instructor, which answers all the questions that students have to ask and so when learning programming many people refer to Google and browse through some of the videos and get a good grasp of the subject. They also argued that no matter which way students find to study and educate themselves, nothing can actually replicate the original class environment. Whether there be an online lecture or an online study program, the things that students learn from going to college cannot be learnt through these things.

They also talked about the demand and supply of college students, Arnold said that there is an increasing demand of post graduates but since many students don’t graduate and drop out of college, the supply is unable to meet this demand. This is the reason why now many people are hiring employees from other countries, giving them an unmatched opportunity. It was also discussed that many students who reach colleges are also not of the college level and need to work very hard to pass college, which is also one of the reasons for leaving college.

If students start passing out, the demand is able to meet a potential supply; US can achieve economic benefits on a macro level. When majority of the people will work and US will not have to outsource workers from outside, the total GDP will raise. Since this not the case right now, and if this continues to happen then soon US will have international workers at all good posts and its own youth will be working under them, this is expected within the next 20 to 30 years. Arnold Kling also suggested some good ways of teaching students which will not de-motivate the students from studying itself.

He suggested that students should not be lectured but instead should be taught in a way that they are able to understand the course well without thinking that it’s not necessary to study it. They should also be assessed properly through quizzes which should not be very easy that people think they are useless and not even very challenging that students get frustrated, they should be a little challenging and according to the level of students. Only then the students will develop an interest in the subject and will want to go to colleges and take lectures.

Arnold also said that the education system needs to be improved because the students going to college are usually not of the college level and so have difficulties in understanding the lectures and in return become college drop outs.