Jean Pisano-Ferry has a very interesting piece in the Financial Times entitled Europe’s Eroding Wealth of Knowledge (also can be found on MSNBC). In it, he looks at some of the assumptions behind the 2000 Lisbon summit goal of making the European Union a knowledge based economy. One of the prime underlying assumptions is that the EU has a relatively highly skilled work force, and that this provides a competitive advantage in a knowledge-based world. He shows, however, that the average adult in the EU is “significantly less educated than adults in other industrialized countries”. In terms of number of adults who have experienced some tertiary education, the US is in the lead with 25% of the global total, the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) follow with 20%, while the EU can claim less than 15%. This poor showing of the EU can be attributed to historic reasons, and the flow of EU students into tertiary education now has increased greatly. However, growth in tertiary education in many other parts of the world has grown even more rapidly. For example, the Bric countries now have one-third of the world’s students in higher education, while the EU has 16% (and the US has only 15%!).
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