Education, Globalization and Economic Development

Zusammenfassung

Since this paper was conceived the Modernising Blair government has come into power in the United Kingdom and Gerhard Schröder has been elected to lead an SPD coalition in Germany. Initially it appeared that both were singing from the same hymn sheet extolling the virtues of a Third Way, as implied by their recent joint publication. However, what the Third Way means in practice has always been difficult to define. Tony Blair extols the virtue of shareholder capitalism, Schröder appears to remain wedded to a politics of social partnership. In relation to education and training the distinction between the two remains crucial if we see the Dual System as integral to a political economy based on ‘stakeholder’ values and practices. The fact is that, although the Dual System is confronted with a set of important challenges, training levels are still far superior in Germany to those of the UK. Moreover, from our research in Germany, it seems that the multinational German corporations also appear committed to the Dual System. In our view if nations are to thrive in the twenty-first century it will be through the skills and understandings of the population, what we call ‘collective intelligence’ in a book to be published soon (Brown/Lauder 2000). But the Third Way as defined by New Labour in Britain precludes such a possibility. The tolerance of extremes of wealth and poverty, flexible labour markets which ensure that profits can be made out of cheap unskilled labour, and the reduction in elfare provision which has led to the democratisation of insecurity and fear throughout much of society, cannot be the way forward.