GHT
I'll Lock Up
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The title of this thread is: "The Decaying Evolution of Education..." What is decaying, the evolution or the education? I would argue neither. It might seem that the pursuit of higher education for all has proven to be nothing more than a political dream, in the western world, but in Asia and other parts of the world, their thirst for knowledge has transformed their countries.But rare is the person with such gifts who does much of anything novel with it. These aren't the people who change the world. Not often, anyway.
We seem to have lost sight of the fact that the talent for academic achievement is much like the talent for anything else. The one's who achieve it are those with a talent for it. That doesn't mean to say that success, is exclusive to those with educational achievements, far from it as Chris Dawson will attest to:
Founder, owner and CEO of The Range.
Dawson (born 15 February 1952) is a British businessman; founder, owner and CEO of the British retail chain The Range. Dawson rarely attended school, left without any qualifications, and was barely able to read and write. He started as a market trader in Plymouth, and opened his first, The Range store in 1989. The retail chain has over 100 stores, of which all are under direct ownership of Dawson..
In April 2015, the Sunday Times Rich List reported that his net worth was £1.65 billion.
Dawson is not alone, far from it, we even had a Prime Minister in recent times, John Major, who never attended university. Conversely you can look up many a graduate from the top universities who never exploited their academic achievement. But is Dawson a success and others a failure? Depends on how you define success. At just short of seventy, if I can make it without chemical help, I reckon that's a success, they didn't teach me that at university.
Far from decaying I would argue that it is actually thriving, both our modern world and the thoughtful, provocative and intelligent posts to this thread are a testament to that. And as for success? When countries can resolve their differences round a table and we can dispense with all weapons, that would be a true success of how civilised we have become. I'm no pacifist but one thing that did move me was an article that I once read that proved: If bullets and arms were bread, hunger would be eradicated.