Saturday 27 February 2016

Overpopulation - Needless Excess



Contents:
1) Population Size
2) Disease Incidence
3) Finite Resources
4) Animal Extinctions
5) Climate Change
6) Conclusion



1) Population Size

The human population has sky-rocketed within the past 3 centuries, increasing approximately ten-fold to >7 billion and is projected to reach 11 billion by 2100 (01). As seen below, even 300 years ago, it had never been higher (02). Every new human on our planet further divides its finite resources and increases our waste output. Eminent geneticist, Professor Steve Jones, has described how “humans are 10,000 times more common than we should be, according to the rules of the animal kingdom” (03).



Professor Frank Fenner, who was instrumental in the eradication of smallpox (the only disease ever to be eradicated) and a member of the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Society, gave an interview voicing his concern for our species' future to The Australian, 16/06/2010: "Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years... Mitigation would slow things down a bit, but there are too many people here already... As the population keeps growing to seven, eight or nine billion, there will be a lot more wars over food...We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island.



2) Disease Incidence

A large population drastically increases the rate of disease transmission for all communicable diseases (04). This holds true even for many non-communicable diseases, such as lung cancer or ischaemic heart disease (05).

The agricultural requirements of feeding a growing population elevate the risk of zoonotic infections, as livestock populations must also increase. Dr. Lonnie King, a director at the CDC, cites population growth as a "major consideration" among the factors "that are creating the conditions for a perfect microbial storm" (06). Separately, population growth is noted by the CDC as a cause of the global decrease in water quality, another potential source of disease (07). Similarly, outdoor air pollution alone “leads to 3.3 million premature deaths per year worldwide”, a figure that is expected to double by 2050 (08).



3) Finite Resources

The most widely recognised non-renewable resources are the fossil fuels, which account for >85% of global energy consumption, with 15-30% of this energy “used to simply supply food for 7.2 billion people" (09). However, we are rapidly exhausting many other finite resources too. Current groundwater usage is “unsustainable” (10) and there has been “a ten-fold increase in total water extraction in the last century”, with “stresses on water mainly driven by four interrelated processes: population growth; economic growth; increased demand for food, feed and energy; and increased climate variability" (11). Not only this but "the number of people vulnerable to flood disasters worldwide is expected to mushroom to two billion by 2050 as a result of climate change, deforestation, rising sea levels and population growth” (11).

Phosphate, a key ingredient in fertiliser, is predicted to “run out in 50 years”, though our need for it will be even greater then as population growth "will require food production to at least double by 2050" (12). This is despite the fact that about 1 in 10 people on the planet already are undernourished (13).

Furthermore, "antimicrobial effectiveness is a precious, limited resource. Antibiotics become less effective the more they are used” and even now, there is an “ongoing explosion of antibiotic-resistant infections” (14). We are progressively eliminating the only significant defence we have against pathogenic bacteria. A 2016 report commissioned by the UK Department of Health found that "at least 700,000 people die every year already from drug-resistant infections... by 2050, 10 million lives a year and a cumulative 100 trillion USD of economic output are at risk due to the rise of drug resistant infections. Even if we manage to reduce the unnecessary use of anti-microbials over the next decade, with a growing world population… the world will need a functioning R&D pipeline of new antimicrobials" (15).



4) Animal Extinctions

Excessive population growth selfishly causes the death and extinction of the other species who share the planet. Humans are the last to feel the effects and animals/plants the first because in almost any given situation where their needs are in competition with those of humans, humans' will take precedence. Animal homes, rather than human homes are bulldozed to make way for more humans and pollutants are pumped and dumped into animal habitats, not human houses.

Zoologists warn that “the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would [normally] have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear”. The correlation between the human population explosion, starting c.1700 and the increasing rate of animal extinction is striking (16). For example, “rapidly expanding human populations” have caused gorillas and chimpanzees to be “pushed to the brink of extinction” (17).





Rogers et al. 2013, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 74(2), 491–494:
"The continued expansion in global population exerts ever increasing pressures on scarcer ocean resources through overexploitation and on marine ecosystems through indirect impacts such as pollution. It is therefore important to recognise that growing impacts on the ocean are inseparable from the population growth and per-capita resource use, and tackling these issues... has to be part of a wider re-evaluation of the core values of human society and its relationship to the natural world and the resources on which we all rely.""It is clear that human activities have led to intense multiple stressors acting together in many marine ecosystems. Most notably these are arising from overexploitation of biotic resources, climate change effects forming the so-called “deadly trio” (ocean warming, acidification and hypoxia/anoxia) and pollution. The “deadly trio” are... partially or entirely associated with the majority of the major extinction events in Earth’s past".

Ceballos et al. 2015, Science Advances, 1(5), e1400253, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253
"A sixth mass extinction is already under way... This affects human well-being by interfering with crucial ecosystem services such as crop pollination and water purification and by destroying humanity’s beautiful, fascinating, and culturally important living companions".






5) Climate Change

A 2009 study in The Lancet notes that “climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century” (18). As with finite resource expenditure, climate change synergistically exacerbates disease transmission, particularly in the area of mosquito-borne pathogens. For example, by 2085, “about 5–6 billion people (50–60% of the projected global population) [will] be at risk of dengue transmission, compared with 3·5 billion people, or 35% of the population, if climate change did not happen" (19).

Anthropogenic climate change largely results from increased CO₂ emissions due to fossil fuel combustion (20). Procreation is a frequently overlooked contributor to CO₂ emissions; in the US for example, “each child adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions” (21). In fact, "slowing population growth could provide 16–29% of the emissions reductions suggested to be necessary by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change” and the benefits would be cumulative, such that by the end of the century, there could be reductions in “total emissions from fossil fuel use by 37–41%” (22). Carbon emissions over the next few decades will have irreversible consequences “for the next ten millennia and beyond” (23).



6) Conclusion

Animal populations oscillate between peaks and troughs over time, with the transition from peak to trough characterised by considerable suffering, in the form of famine, disease and predation. All indications are that the unchecked growth of the human population will elicit a concomitant level of suffering for humans. So far, our continuous population expansion has been enabled by sacrificing other species but we will eventually run out of them and have impoverished ourselves in the process.

Leading journals describe how “the inexorable demographic momentum of the global human population is rapidly eroding Earth’s life-support system” (24). Waste production and resource consumption would occur at roughly one thousandth of the current rate, were our population reduced a thousand fold. In contrast, there is almost no benefit to increasing our population.



References 

(01) Gerland et al., 2014, World population stabilization unlikely this century. Science. 346(6206), 234-237.

(02) E.M. Murphy, 1989, World Population: Toward the Next Century. Population Reference Bureau.

(03) Prof. Steve Jones, 7/10/2008, University College London - Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment. Human evolution is over, says UCL academic. UCL Lunch Hour Lecture.

(04) Arneberg et al., 1998, Host densities as determinants of abundance in parasite communities. Proceeds of the Royal Society B. 265(1403), 1283-1289.

(05) Chaix et al., 2006, Disentangling contextual effects on cause-specific mortality in a longitudinal 23-year follow-up study: impact of population density or socioeconomic environment? International Journal of Epidemiology. 35(3), 633-643.

(06) L. King, 2008, Collaboration in Public Health: A New Global Imperative. Public Health Reports. 123(3), 264–265.

(07) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012, Global Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WASH) Burden.

(08) J. Lelieveld et al., 2015, The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature. 525(7569), 367–371.

(09) Schramski et al., 2015, Human domination of the biosphere: Rapid discharge of the earth-space battery foretells the future of humankind. PNAS. 112(31), 9511–9517.

(10) Famiglietti et al., 2015, Uncertainty in global groundwater storage estimates in a Total Groundwater Stress framework. Water Resources Research. 51(7), 5198–5216.

(11) UNESCO: The UN World Water Development Report 4, Volume 1, 2012. Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk.

(12) Natasha Gilbert, 2009, Environment: The disappearing nutrient. Nature. 461, 716-718.

(13) Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 2015, The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Meeting the 2015 international hunger targets: taking stock of uneven progress.

(14) Spellberg et al., 2008, The Epidemic of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections: A Call to Action for the Medical Community from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 46(2), 155-164.

(15) Jim O'Neill, 2016, Tackling Drug-Resistant Infections Globally: The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance. A report commission by the UK Department of Health.

(16) Ceballos et al., 2015, Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances. 1(5), e1400253.

(17) Walsh et al., 2003, Catastrophic ape decline in western equatorial Africa. Nature. 422(6932), 611-614.

(18) Costello et al., 2009, Managing the health effects of climate change. The Lancet. 373(9676), 1693–1733.

(19) Hales et al., 2002, Potential effect of population and climate changes on global distribution of dengue fever: an empirical model. The Lancet. 360(9336), 830–834.

(20) Read et al., 1994, What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? 2. Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople. Risk Analysis. 14(6), 971–982.

(21) Murtaugh & Schlax, 2009, Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals. Global Environmental Change. 19, 14–20.

(22) O'Neill et al., 2010, Global demographic trends and future carbon emissions. PNAS. 107(41), 17521–17526.

(23) Clark et al., 2016, Consequences of twenty-first-century policy for multi-millennial climate and sea-level change. Nature Climate Change. 6(4), 360–369.

(24) Bradshaw & Brook, 2014, Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problems. PNAS. 111(46), 16610–16615.


Wednesday 24 February 2016

Paedophilia - Stigma Deaf to Reason

Introduction
Perhaps no topic is enveloped in as much stigma as that of paedophilia. The extreme sentiments that this subject elicits are not matched by a similar measure of reason however. While the stated aim of those who stigmatise paedophilia is to protect children, approaches that seek to do so without a reasoned and evidentiary basis are, at best, likely to be ineffective, and at worst, counter-productive. Readers of this essay should leave their emotions but not their conscience, nor their intellect, at the door.


Contents
01) Defining Paedophilia
02) Requirements of Justice
        Double Standards (DS)
03) DS - Predation
04) DS - Grooming
05) DS - Referencing Paedophilia
06) Prejudiced Assumptions
07) Case study: Frolander
        Age of Consent (AoC)
08) AoC versus under-age Sex
09) AoC - The lesser of two evils
10) AoC - Almost Arbitrary
11) Evolutionary Predisposition
12) Pre-teen sexual experiences
13) Adult-adolescent relationships
14) Maintaining Children's Innocence
15) Pregnancy and STIs
16) Recidivism
17) Invasion of Privacy
18) Position Statement
19) Quick Rebuttals
20) Conclusion
21) Recommended Further Reading/Viewing
22) References


01) Defining Paedophilia
A good place to start in any discussion is with the defining of terms. As described in one of the top-ranked medical journals, "pedophilia is a clinical diagnosis usually made by a psychiatrist or psychologist. It is not a criminal or legal term... a pedophile is an individual who fantasizes about, is sexually aroused by, or experiences sexual urges toward prepubescent children (generally <13 years) for a period of at least 6 months" (01).

Given that those most vocal critics of paedophilia frequently ascribe the term to those who have had some form of sexual contact with a teenager (>13), we can already see how regularly the term is misused. By far the most egregious misnomer however is the conflation of "paedophilia" with "child molestation". In reality, "child molestation is not a medical diagnosis and is not necessarily a term synonymous with pedophilia" (01).


02) Requirements of Justice
In order to implement any form of justice, consistently applied requirements must be met. Without this, condemnations or vindications are arbitrary. The first requirement of justice is that a person may only be found guilty of any given transgression if the evidence supports such a conclusion. It is from this that the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is derived and it places the burden of proof with the accusers.

The second requirement of justice is that the severity of the punishment fit that of the crime. The severity of the punishment would require consideration not only of the actions perpetrated but ideally of the intent motivating those actions, which is why we distinguish manslaughter from murder, for example. It is with these principles in mind that we must judge all alleged misdeeds, regardless of stigma. A failed implementation of justice is itself an injustice.


03) Double Standards - Predation
Many people classify paedophiles as "predatory" by default, irrespective of whether they've had any sexual contact with children, whether they plan to achieve this by coercion/manipulation, or whether they intend to do so at all. These same people are among the most vocal supporters of "hunting" paedophiles. TV programs such as "To Catch a Predator" or "Paedophile hunters" epitomise this ironic and hypocritical relationship. Though such programs may well feature some genuine child sex offenders, this is not necessarily the case for all who are entrapped. Similarly, programs exposing child sex rings no more encapsulate paedophilia than those on adult sex trafficking encapsulate heterosexual teleiophilia.

Even among those who do have sexual contact with pre-pubescents, let alone post-pubescent minors, this in and of itself is no guarantee of a predatory mindset whatsoever. Age alone is insufficient to gauge intent and as previously described, justice requires that convictions are supported by actual evidence, rather than prejudicial assumptions. Two minors caught fondling each other would not be presupposed to possess predatory dispositions. Ageism is not evidence. If merely pursuing somebody sexually denotes predatory intent then almost all humans are sexual predators.


04) Double Standards - Grooming
In recent decades, "grooming" has emerged into the parlance of criminology and legislation, suggesting that it must represent some unique form of wrongdoing, existing independently of any other offence. Colloquially, it refers to attempts to manipulate and/or coerce. This crime is defined in Illinois as being when an individual "knowingly uses a... device capable of electronic data storage or transmission to... attempt to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, a child... to commit any sex offense" (02). The UK's Crown Prosecution Service defines grooming legislation as making it "a crime to befriend a child on the Internet or by other means and meet or intend to meet the child with the intention of abusing them" (03). "Abusing them" here obviously refers to any sexual contact. The term "grooming" is, in actuality, therefore indistinguishable from any activity that is routinely engaged in as part of adult courtship. "Grooming" specifies no malintent or wrongdoing of any kind that is independent from expressing the desire for sexual/romantic interaction with a minor.


05) Double Standards - Referencing Paedophilia
Imagine daily newspaper headlines referring to "heterosexual predators", police having "apprehended a heterosexual" or a TV program "heterosexual hunters". The irrelevance of the heterosexuality of any man that sexually assaults a women is automatically recognised such that the aforementioned headlines would seem strange indeed. The paedophilia of any perpetrator of sexual assault against children is similarly irrelevant, yet ignorance of this fact is conditioned into any who read the news. This exemplifies one area where public discourse may be counter-productive to child-protection; what better way to erode an individual's empathy than to promote a culture in which they are condemned by default?

Note: A more accurate comparison than "heterosexuality" would entail references to "teleiophiles", though as the general public's incomprehension of chronophilias is not limited to paedophilia, such an example would not enhance clarity.


06) Prejudiced Assumptions
The average dogmatist will make the following assumptions concerning any case of child molestation:
1) The sexual contact was forced, likely against vocal objection, or, at the very least, the victim was "groomed".
2) The perpetrator was indifferent or sadistically predisposed towards the well-being of their victim.
3) The interaction consisted of vaginal, anal and/or oral penetration of the victim.
4) The perpetrator will seek to re-offend against any and all other minors if ever given the opportunity.
None of these four possibilities are essentially the case in virtue of the age of the victim alone. Each must be substantiated independently of that in order to justly convict anybody. If convictions are not based upon the first two of these factors then it is difficult to conceive of what ethical foundation they may possess.


07) Case Study: Raymond Frolander
Raymond Frolander, before and after being assaulted
His face a testament to the brutality of those who condemn paedophiles, Raymond Frolander made headlines when, at age 18, he was beaten unconscious by the father of his 11 year old victim. In this case, he did have sexual contact with the minor and the father of the victim was widely praised for his violent response, especially by those who make the previously described "prejudiced assumptions". The media generally referred to the crime as "rape" and claimed or implied that it occurred repeatedly over a 3 year period.

CNN however describes how "according to the charging affidavit, the 11-year-old victim told authorities that Frolander had performed oral sex on him and instructed the boy to fondle him" (04). Oral sex is a pleasure-giving activity and certainly isn't "rape" when the victim is the insertive partner. It may be sexual assault but does not suggest indifference to the victim. There appears to be no publicly-available evidence that Frolander used any form of coercion or force to achieve his victim's acquiescence. Frolander did inform his victim that "terrible things would happen" if he revealed their interaction (05). This was an accurate statement... terrible things evidently did happen, to Frolander, and such a statement would be true for any forbidden relationship. This is not to say that the relationship was mutual, consensual or legitimate but simply that the media's portrayal of the victim as being intimidated into silence is far from the only interpretation of the available evidence.

The Father, who is himself an ex-convict
An interview with the victim's mother on HLN's Dr Drew brought the following points to light:
Dr Drew: "and so this business of the abuse possibly lasting across 3 years, that seems viable does it not?"
Mother of victim: "That actually is not true either. This wasn't something that had been continually going on... Raymond himself was also abused before, as a child" (06).
When Frolander was caught at age 18, it was revealed by the victim that a similar incident had occurred 3 years prior, when Frolander himself was a minor. The victim's perspective of Frolander remains unknown, though we know he intervened to stop his father stabbing the unconscious 18 year old. Multiple studies have confirmed that for victims of molestation, "having been a victim was a strong predictor of becoming a perpetrator" (16, 17). Frolander clearly falls into this category.

Granting that the AoC should be above 11, justice still requires that the magnitude of Frolander's punishment match that of the crime. Imagine receiving an ultimatum of either being beaten as badly as Frolander was or having somebody fellate you in private. Which would you choose? For many people, their answer would reveal that even just the beating Frolander received surpassed the severity of what he inflicted.

The fact that Frolander was an adult (18) and his victim under the age of 12 (11) meant that Frolander would receive the maximum sentence of life imprisonment. To prevent this, he took a plea deal and received a 25 year sentence. Frolander will almost undoubtedly be repeatedly forcefully anally and orally raped in prison, given his size, age and the nature of his crime. Anal rape and, to some extent oral rape, is physically excruciating. It is difficult to comprehend how terrified anybody would be to be caged with violent criminals, who would do that to them for decades. "Male victims may be marked as “punks” and forced to endure years of sexual slavery and torture" (34).

Despite there being no apparent evidence of Frolander displaying malicious intent, using violence, or of the extent to and ways in which Frolander's victim felt victimised, his life is utterly destroyed. To equate Frolander's crime with violent anal rape does a great disservice to all past and future victims of the latter. While we can't know for certain how much Frolander will suffer, to even place him at risk of this is wildly disproportionate to any crime he is purported to have committed.

This case study is used, in particular, to demonstrate the excessive punishments often meted out to alleged child sex offenders and the twisting of the truth, by the sensationalist media and the general public, in order to shoehorn nuanced situations into the simplistic and emotionally convenient caricatures of "sadistic rapist" and "rape victim". People are largely indifferent to the punishment suffered by those branded child sex offenders and are therefore indifferent to justice.


08) AoC versus under-age Sex
If under-age sex is a measure of predation or confirmation of grooming then vast swathes of the general populations of most nations are child sex predators. In the UK, for example, where the age of consent (AoC) is 16, over a third of 15 year olds (37.6%) have had sex (07). This and the statistics tabulated, right, refer to penetrative intercourse. Were any form of sexual contact included, the figure would be markedly higher. Contrary to the aforementioned prejudiced assumption, "typically, pedophiles engage in fondling and genital manipulation more than intercourse" (01). In the US, the AoC varies from 16-18, with 18 being the AoC in about 10 states. The US's CDC reports that "mean age at first intercourse for men aged 15-44 [is] 16.8 years" (08), meaning that approximately 50% of men first copulate prior to this age, assuming a normal (Gaussian) distribution. This adds yet another layer to the increasingly apparent hypocrisy of those who treat the AoC as an absolute moral boundary.


09) AoC - The lesser of two evils
AoC laws must be recognised as the lesser of two evils, rather than simply as intrinsically just. This is the case because they will inevitably criminalise some relationships that are no less mutual, genuine and legitimate than any other. AoC laws criminalise arbitrarily based upon age disparities, rather than any truly accurate measure of underhandedness. They do however add an extra degree of protection for young people and, if they are beneficial, deciding what age to set them at should reflect a balance of these two considerations. Concomitantly, the punishment for breaking an AoC law must be heavily tempered by the mutuality and benignity of the relationship, including to the point of absolution. For example, it is absurd that Lonny Rivera was placed on the sex offenders register for life for "abusing" the women that he has now been married to for over two decades, when he was 19 and she was 17 (12).


10) AoC - Almost Arbitrary
The AoC varies across the world and is a relatively modern phenomenon. It is 14 in many countries, for example, such as Germany, Italy, China, Japan and Austria, 15 in a number of others, such as Sweden, France and Denmark and can vary anywhere from no AoC, to 18, or to the time of marriage. Historically, people have been marrying and copulating at far younger ages than are now considered acceptable, such as in England, where "the age of consent was 12 years for 600 years" (25). In late medieval English society, for example, aristocratic women "married while young, between thirteen and eighteen" (19). Throughout almost all of human history, it has been accepted that adults are attracted to adolescents and vice versa, pretending otherwise is a disingenuous modern idiosyncrasy.


11) Evolutionary Predisposition
Relationships involving minors, though not prepubescents, are likely to be evolutionarily optimal and ephebophilia is therefore a trait specifically selected for. A study of marriages in 17th-19th century Finland "found that men maximized their fitness by marrying women approximately 15 years younger and vice versa" (20). This has no definitive bearing upon the morality of such relationships but does indicate that ephebophilia should be a common and spontaneously arising trait, rather than something nefariously concocted in the minds of "deviants", "perverts" or "predators".


12) Pre-teen sexual experiences
While this essay does not advocate a pre-pubescent AoC, it should be noted that a great many pre-teens do engage in consensual sexual interactions. A study of >1000 graduates retrospectively enquiring about their childhood sexual encounters found that "approximately 42% of the subjects reported a childhood [pre-teen] sexual encounter with another child" (09). In a study of 300 female undergraduates, 85% "described a childhood sexual game experience" and among these, "eighty-four percent were viewed as not involving any persuasion or coercion at all" (10). In a further study of pre-teen sexual experiences, "82.9% of the students reported solitary sexual experiences and 82.5% had mutual experiences together with another child", while only "thirteen percent reported coercive experiences". The study concluded that "the years before puberty seem to be years of frequent mutual sexual exploration" (11). A further study even describes how "most boys do not consider their prepubertal experiences with older women abusive" (24).


13) Adult-adolescent relationships
Among males, their adolescent sexual relationships with adults are typically not a source of regret or disquiet. Multiple reviews have found that "self-reported reactions to and effects from [child sexual abuse] indicated that negative effects were neither pervasive nor typically intense", with 66% of males reflecting positively or neutrally on their sexual relationships with adults when they were minors (21-22). A similar trend is evident for age-discrepant sexual relations (ADSRs) between gay or bisexual male adolescents and adult men, where reactions "were predominantly positive, and most ADSRs were willingly engaged in. Younger adolescents were just as willing and reacted at least as positively as older adolescents" (23).


14) Maintaining Children's Innocence
Society has some blame to bare for molestations as it maintains children in a state of ignorance under the guise of protecting their "innocence". Having "received inadequate sex education" was associated with higher rates of sexual abuse in a nationally representative US study (13). Only ignorance is protected by denying children facts. Children are taught to look both ways when crossing the road because there is a potential danger there. Fortunately, prudish embarrassment doesn't inhibit the protection of children from that particular danger, nor does unbridled hatred of crossing the road (paedophiles) interfere with addressing the actual problem of being run over (child molestation). The combination of ignorance and stigma that deliberate censorship engenders leaves children far more vulnerable to abuse in that it diminishes their capacity to decline unwanted sexual advances and to psychologically process and report molestation. Current societal attitudes therefore likely exacerbate both the sequelae and the prevalence of molestations.


15) Pregnancy and STIs
Thorough sex education and contraceptive availability appear to be far more seminal influences on teen pregnancy and STI rates than AoC. For example, "the most important determinant of declining fertility in developing countries is contraceptive use, which explains 92% of the variation in fertility among 50 countries" (29). As charted below, AoC laws (green line) additionally exhibit no clear correlation with teen pregnancy/birth rates (blue bars) (30).


The US would be in the top-5 for births by 15-17 year olds (31) and has the highest pregnancy rates for 15-19 year olds among all developed nations, despite its relatively high AoC laws (32). Likewise, Malta, with its AoC of 18, is above the EU28 average (black bar), while Italy, Germany and Austria (AoC 14) are all below it.

Similarly, concerning STIs, countries in East Asia and the Pacific have an STI incidence several times lower than the rest of the world, despite China, which accounts for over two thirds of the population of these countries, having an AoC of just 14 (33). Japan, another populous nation also falling within this group, has an AoC of 13. If criminalisation of sexual contact with minors is motivated by concern for STIs or pregnancies, why do we not similarly punish any individuals that are antagonistic to the dissemination of contraceptives or sex education with decades of imprisonment?


16) Recidivism
Many vocally proclaim that paedophiles/sex offenders should simply be summarily executed on the basis that they will undoubtedly molest/reoffend, their certainty of this fact dwarfed only by the bloodlust with which they assert it. Thank goodness we have these enlightened paragons of virtue to guide us on complex ethical issues. A large-scale review found that "on average, the sexual offense recidivism rate was low (13.4%; n = 23,393)" (14), while another study found that paedophilia is "treatable in terms of developing strategies for preventing behavioral expression" (15). As previously described, "some pedophiles have not had any known sexual contact with children, and perhaps half of sex offenders against children would not meet diagnostic criteria for pedophilia" (18).


17) Invasion of Privacy
Teachers in some jurisdictions are now entitled to disregard the privacy of teens by searching their phones for explicit selfies (26). These invasions are perpetrated under the guise of nobility, while practically salivating over the salaciousness of what they secretly hope to find. Adolescents are not morally wrong to sext, though it may be inadvisable. They are occasionally betrayed by immoral people who go on to share sexually explicit images that were sent exclusively for their viewing.

In the case of a 17 year old who had sent a sexually explicit video to his 15 year old girlfriend in response to photos of the same nature sent by her, police took photos of the teens unerect penis against his will in order to secure a conviction for making/distributing child pornography... of himself. Police next obtained a court order to give the teen a medically induced erection so that they could take photos to be compared to the video (27). This is just one example of collateral damage in the puritanical witch-hunt for anybody involved with adolescent sexuality.


18) Position Statement
Assuming comprehensive sex education is provided, age 14 seems a reasonable AoC as this is post-pubertal and allows a couple of years for adolescents to acclimate to their desires. Many people have had sexual experiences around this age that were neither abusive nor regretted. There may be a case for having an AoC staggered by type of interaction (E.G. sexual contact at 14, penetrative sex at 16). "Consensual" post-pubescent teacher-student relationships should, at worst, result in the teacher being fired, which alone may devastate their lives. Decades of incarceration for such crimes is disproportionate and therefore unjust. Victims of (non-consensual) sexual abuse must always be protected, whether adult or child, and perpetrators should be punished as per the requirements of justice. Paedophiles should be pitied and helped, rather than persecuted and hated.


19) Quick Rebuttals
• In defence of AoC laws: The law is the law. An adult should know better than encouraging a child to break the law.
If a law is independent of what is just, why is adhering to it important? If it is just then it should be defended on that basis, rather than appealing to legalities alone.

He knew it was a crime, and did it anyway, and as such needs to be punished.
How does knowledge of a law enhance the extent to which that law is just?

The victim felt ashamed after it went public.
Such shame arises from stigma as it translates to a subconscious recognition that we may have diminished our social prestige and consequently our future mating prospects. It is via this mechanism that guilt has served a potentially useful evolutionary role within more primitive societies. Some people feel guilty after they masturbate due to the stigmatisation of this clandestine act. Stigma surrounding relationships involving minors is not innate to them but rather, a product of societal opprobrium.

There is a power imbalance in adult-minor relationships.
It is a statistical certainty that such an imbalance exists in any relationship, as no two people will be entirely equal in this respect. A "power imbalance" does not necessitate its exploitation and even when sexual/romantic manipulation occurs among adults, this is not criminalised, ergo, there is a double standard if criminalisation is justified by this criterion alone. Frequently the imbalance cited is an intellectual one, yet IQ tests are not required to legitimise relationships.

Relationships may ruin adolescents education.
Relationships and schooling are no more mutually exclusive than relationships and careers. Furthermore, the unfulfilled desire for a relationship experienced by most adolescents could well be more distracting than its fulfilment.


20) Conclusion
No sane person would choose to be a paedophile and no insane person is culpable for the manifestations of their insanity. The "manifestations" here refers to attractions, not to actions. "The tendency for the subject of paedophilia to generate strong opinions rather than facts can be problematic for offenders, practitioners, and, by implication, society more generally" (28). Stereotypes of child sex offenders are frequently totally inaccurate. For example, far from being strangers who lurk menacingly in the shadows and kidnap children into the back of vans, half of the victims of molestation <6 years old are molested by a family member, as are 42% of those aged 6-11 (01).

Society's failings, characterised by impulsive vituperation towards child molestation, rather than an evidence-based, rational response leave it significantly blameworthy for every failure to prevent another molestation. Anybody finding this offensive has just had a minute taste of how a non-molesting paedophile probably feels when presupposed to be a sexual predator, based upon their age alone, rather than any aspect of their character. Age does not define guilt. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" applies to the magnitude of guilt as well as its qualitative attribution. The ease and rapidity with which alleged molesters are dehumanised exemplifies the true root of much, if not all, human evil.

While paedophilia and child molestation are wholly distinct, there is additionally a vast spectrum of severity of molestation and of potential mitigating factors for that crime. There is a huge chasm of difference between a violent, sadistic serial rapist, who controls and threatens his victim and somebody who develops a forbidden attraction to a minor and engages in sexual contact, always approaching their "victim" in a considerate and compassionate way, with full apparent consent. The general public are utterly blind or indifferent to this distinction and take a sadistic pleasure themselves in seeing both of the above archetypes mercilessly punished. The public therefore emulate the worst of the very same traits that they automatically assume the perpetrator to posses. Humanity does not deserve a just world when it demonstrates such animosity towards justice.


21) Recommended Further Reading/Viewing
• A well written interview with a non-offending teenage paedophile and his mother.
• My brother is a sex offender.
• Children as young as 9 placed on national sex offender registers, often for life.
• Can you sympathise? A video advocating an objective response to the problem of child molestation.
• Hard-hitting discussion to stimulate thought, rather than advance any specific conclusion.
• A full report on the use of publicly-accessible sex offenders registers, with numerous examples of consequences.


22) References

(01) Hall & Hall, 2007, A Profile of Pedophilia: Definition, Characteristics of Offenders, Recidivism, Treatment Outcomes, and Forensic Issues. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 82(4), 457-471

(02) Goldman & Associates: Chicago's Leading Criminal Law Firm. What is Grooming in Illinois? 17/07/2013. [Online - Accessed: 15th Feb 2016].

(03) CPS, Sexual Offences involving the Internet, and 'grooming'.  [Online - Accessed: 15th Feb 2016].

(04) Suzanne Presto, 19/07/2014, Dad's 911 call: I've beaten up my son's assailant. CNN.

(05) Priya Joshi, 19/07/2014, Police Chief Defends Actions of Father who Beat Son's 'Sex Attacker' Unconscious. IBTIMES.

(06) Dr. Drew staff, 21/07/2014, Mom of alleged sex abuse victim talks to Dr. Drew. HLNTV.

(07) Godeau et al., 2008, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 162(1), 66-73, DOI: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2007.8

(08) Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011-2013, National Center for Health Statistics

(09) Haugaard & Tilly, 1988, Characteristics predicting children's responses to sexual encounters with other children. Child Abuse & Neglect. 12(2), 209-218, DOI: 10.1016/0145-2134(88)90029-4

(10) Lamb & Coakley, 1993, “Normal” childhood sexual play and games: Differentiating play from abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect. 17(4), 515-526, DOI: 10.1016/0145-2134(93)90026-2

(11) Larsson & Svedin, 2002, Sexual experiences in childhood: young adults' recollections. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 31(3), 263-273

(12) Daily Mail, 24/12/2013, Man asks to be taken off sex offender list 24 years after conviction because he was 19 and later married the 17-year-old girl he was arrested for 'abusing'.

(13) D. Finkelhor, 1990, Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors. Child Abuse & Neglect. 14(1), 19-28

(14) Hanson & Bussiere, 1998, Predicting relapse: a meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism studies.. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology. 66(2), 348-62

(15) Fagan et al., 2002, Pedophilia. JAMA. 288(19), 2458-2465, DOI: 10.1001/jama.288.19.2458

(16) Glasser et al., 2001, Cycle of child sexual abuse: links between being a victim and becoming a perpetrator. The British Journal of Psychiatry. 179(6), 482-494, DOI: 10.1192/bjp.179.6.482

(17) Bagley et al., 1994, Victim to abuser: mental health and behavioral sequels of child sexual abuse in a community survey of young adult males. Child Abuse & Neglect. 18(8), 683-697

(18) M.C. Seto, 2009, Pedophilia. Annual Review Clinical Psychology. 5:391-407, DOI: 10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.032408.153618.

(19) McSheffrey, Shannon, 2006, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in late Medieval London. University of Pennsylvania Press, Page 17

(20) Helle et al., 2008, Marrying women 15 years younger maximized men's evolutionary fitness in historical Sami. Biology Letters. 4(1), 75–78, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0538

(21) Rind, Tromovitch & Bauserman, 1998, A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin. 124(1), 22-53. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.22

(22) Bauserman & Rind, 1997, Psychological correlates of male child and adolescent sexual experiences with adults: A review of the nonclinical literature. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 26(2), 105-142, DOI: 10.1023/A:1024581610658

(23) B. Rind, 2001, Gay and bisexual adolescent boys' sexual experiences with men: an empirical examination of psychological correlates in a nonclinical sample. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 30(4), 345-368, DOI: 10.1023/A:1010210630788

(24) Nathaniel McConaghy, 1998, Paedophilia: A review of the evidence. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 32(2), 252-265, DOI: 10.3109/00048679809062736

(25) Richard Green, 2010, Hebephilia is a Mental Disorder? Sexual Offender Treatment. 5(1)

(26) Matt Chorley, 25/11/2014, Teachers given power to delete sexting images from pupils' phones, sparking fears schools could be covering up criminality. Daily Mail.

(27) Tom Jackman, 09/07/2014, In ‘sexting’ case Manassas City police want to photograph teen in sexually explicit manner, lawyers say. Washington post.

(28) Harrison et al., 2010, Multi-Disciplinary Definitions and Understandings of ‘Paedophilia’. Social Legal Studies. 19(4), 481-496, DOI: 10.1177/0964663910369054

(29) CDC, 03/12/1999, MMWR, 48(47), 1073-1080

(30) UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), 15/10/2014, International comparisons of teenage births.

(31) Martin et al., 01/01/2015, Births: Final Data for 2013. National Vital Statistics Reports. 64(1), page 4

(32) Sedgh et al., 2015, Adolescent Pregnancy, Birth, and Abortion Rates Across Countries: Levels and Recent Trends. Journal of Adolescent Health. 56(2), 223–230, DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.09.007

(33) Kenyon et al., 2014, Classification of incidence and prevalence of certain sexually transmitted infections by world regions. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 18, 73–80, Table 1, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2013.09.014

(34) RW Dumond, 2003, Confronting America's most ignored crime problem: the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 31(3), 354-360

Sunday 31 January 2016

University - TGS - References

Detailed below are the numbered references for the essay entitled "University - The Great Squander". The numbers are hyperlinks.

(01) HEPI-HEA Student Academic Experience Survey (2015)

(02) European Commission. ECTS Users’ Guide (2015). p77 [Online]

(03) Crawford & Jin, (April 2014) Institute of Fiscal Studies, IFS Report R93

(04) UK Ministry of Justice - Open Justice. How sentencing and rehabilitation works 09/10/2015 [Online]
Available from: http://open.justice.gov.uk/how-it-works/sentencing-and-rehabilitation/#cc [Accessed: 5th Dec 2015].

(05) UK Ministry of Justice - Open Justice. Sentences by offence type 09/10/2015 [Online]
Available from: http://open.justice.gov.uk/sentencing/ [Accessed: 5th Dec 2015].

(06) UK Ministry of Justice - Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly Update to September 2012 [Online]
Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/220090/criminal-justice-stats-sept-2012.pdf [Accessed: 5th Dec 2015].

(07) UK Ministry of Justice and The Rt Hon Mike Penning MP. Unlimited fines for serious offences. 12/03/2015. [Online]
Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/unlimited-fines-for-serious-offences [Accessed: 5th Dec 2015].

(08) Van Der Vleuten et al., (2000), The need for evidence in education. Medical Teacher. 22(3), 246-250, DOI: 10.1080/01421590050006205

(09) Philip Davies, (1999), What is Evidence-based Education? British Journal of Educational Studies. 47(2), DOI: 10.1111/1467-8527.00106

(10) Charles Griffith, (2000), Evidenced-based educational practice: the case for faculty development in teaching. The American Journal of Medicine. 109(9), 749–752, DOI: 10.1016/S0002-9343(00)00665-3

(11) David Hargreaves, (1997), In Defence of Research for Evidence-based Teaching: a rejoinder to Martyn Hammersley. British Educational Research Journal. 23(4), 405-419, DOI: 10.1080/0141192970230402

(12) Robert Slavin, (2004), Education Research Can and Must Address “What Works” Questions. Educational Researcher. 33(1), 27-28, DOI: 10.3102/0013189X033001027

(13) Hillage et al., (1998), Institute for Employment Studies - Research Report No 74. Excellence in Research on Schools.

(14) Kerry Hempenstalla, (2006), What does evidence-based practice in education mean? Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities. 11(2), 83-92, DOI: 10.1080/19404150609546811

(15) Roksa & Arum, (2011), The State of Undergraduate Learning. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 43(2), 35-38

(16) Australian Society for Evidence Based Teaching - Turning research into practical advice [Online]
Available from: http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/ [Accessed: 5th Dec 2015].

(17) Pascarella et al., (2011), How Robust Are the Findings of Academically Adrift?. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 43(3), 20-24

(18) OECD (2013), “Educational attainment”, in OECD Factbook 2013: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/factbook-2013-77-en

(19) OECD Skills Surveys - About the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). [Online]
Available from: http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/surveyofadultskills.htm [Accessed: 6th Dec 2015].

(20) OECD (2014), OECD Factbook 2014: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, OECD Publishing, p189 & 195. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/factbook-2014-en

(21) OECD Skills Surveys - PIAAC Data Explorer, 2012.

(22) OECD (2010), “Education expenditure”, in OECD Factbook 2010: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/factbook-2010-78-en

(23) OECD (2012), Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing.

(24) OECD (2016), Education spending (indicator). doi: 10.1787/ca274bac-en (Accessed on 11 January 2016), Available from: https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

(25) Frith & Dolan (1996), Cognitive Brain Research, 5(1–2), 175–181, DOI: 10.1016/S0926-6410(96)00054-7

(26) Roediger & Karpicke, (2006), Test-Enhanced Learning - Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention. Psychological Science. 17(3), 249-255

(27) Karpicke & Blunt, (2011), Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping. Science. 331(6018), 772-775

(28) Mcdaniel, Roediger & Mcdermott, (2007), Generalizing test-enhanced learning from the laboratory to the classroom. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 14(2), 200-206

(29) Pastotter & Bauml, (2014), Retrieval practice enhances new learning: the forward effect of testing. Frontiers in Psychology. 5, 286, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00286

(30) Dolmans et al., (2015), Deep and surface learning in problem-based learning: a review of the literature. Advances in Health Sciences Education. 1-26, DOI: 10.1007/s10459-015-9645-6

(31) Cindy Hmelo-Silver, (2004), Problem-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn? Educational Psychology Review. 16(3), 235-266

(32) Dolmans & Gijbels, (2013), Research on problem-based learning: future challenges. Medical Education. 47(2), 214–218, DOI: 10.1111/medu.12105

(33) Norman & Schmidt, (1992), The psychological basis of problem-based learning: a review of the evidence. Academic Medicine. 67(9)

(34) Vernon & Blake, (1993), Does problem-based learning work? A meta-analysis of evaluative research. Academic Medicine. 68(7)

(35) Joanna Dunlap, (2005), Problem-based learning and self-efficacy: How a capstone course prepares students for a profession. Educational Technology Research and Development. 53(1), 65-83, DOI: 10.1007/BF02504858

(36) Schmidt, (2011), The process of problem-based learning: what works and why. Medical Education. 45(8), 792–806, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04035.x

(37) Galvao et al., (2014), Problem-Based Learning in Pharmaceutical Education: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. The Scientific World Journal. Article ID 578382, DOI: 10.1155/2014/578382

(38) Bassir et al., (2014), Problem-Based Learning in Dental Education: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Journal of Dental Education. 78(1), 98-109

(39) Clare Onyon, (2012), Problem-based learning: a review of the educational and psychological theory. The Clinical Teacher. 9(1), 22–26, DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-498X.2011.00501.x

(40) Chrastil & Warren (2012), Active and passive contributions to spatial learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 19(1), 1-23, DOI: 10.3758/s13423-011-0182-x

(41) Ying Cui, (2013), An Empirical Study of Learning Outcomes Based on Active Versus Passive Teaching Styles. International Journal of Education and Management Engineering. 1, 39-43, DOI: 10.5815/ijeme.2013.01.07

(42) Alyssa & Karin (2013), Brain activation patterns resulting from learning letter forms through active self-production and passive observation in young children. Frontiers in Psychology. 4, 567, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00567

(43) James et al., (2002), “Active” and “passive” learning of three-dimensional object structure within an immersive virtual reality environment. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers. 34(3), 383-390, DOI: 10.3758/BF03195466

(44) Peruch & Wilson, (2004), Active versus passive learning and testing in a complex outside built environment. Cognitive Processing. 5(4), 218-227, DOI: 10.1007/s10339-004-0027-x

(45) Benware & Deci, (1984), Quality of Learning With an Active Versus Passive Motivational Set. American Educational Research Journal. 21(4), 755-765, DOI: 10.3102/00028312021004755

(46) Beets et al., (2012), Active versus Passive Training of a Complex Bimanual Task: Is Prescriptive Proprioceptive Information Sufficient for Inducing Motor Learning?. PLoS ONE. 7(5): e37687. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037687

(47) Minhas et al., (2012), The effects of passive and active learning on student preference and performance in an undergraduate basic science course. Anatomical Sciences Education. 5(4), 200–207, DOI: 10.1002/ase.1274

(48) Bunce at al., (2010), How Long Can Students Pay Attention in Class? A Study of Student Attention Decline Using Clickers. Journal of Chemical Educaction. 87(12), 1438–1443, DOI: 10.1021/ed100409p

(49) Johnstone & Percival, (1976), Attention Breaks in Lectures. Education in Chemistry. 13(2), 49-50

(50) Stuart & Rutherford (1978), Medical student concentration during lectures. Lancet. 2(8088), 514-516

(51) Burns, R. A. (1985), Information Impact and Factors Affecting Recall. Paper presented at the Annual National Conference on Teaching Excellence and Conference of Administrators (7th, Austin, TX, May 22-25, 1985). ERIC Number: ED258639

(52) Haidet et al., (2004), A Controlled Trial of Active Versus Passive Learning Strategies in a Large Group Setting. Advances in Health Sciences Education. 9(1), 15-27, DOI: 10.1023/B:AHSE.0000012213.62043.45

(53) James Mathewson, (1999), Visual-spatial thinking: An aspect of science overlooked by educators. Science Education. 83(1), 33-54

(54) TED (Feb 2012), Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do

(55) TEDxGoteborg (2012) Idriz Zogaj: How to become a memory master

(56) Simon Reinhard, New World Record in Speed Cards: 20.438 sec

(57) Larry Squire (2011), Psychology: The art of remembering. Nature. 472(7341), 33–34, DOI: 10.1038/472033a

(58) Fielder & Carey, (2010), Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Hookups Among First-Semester Female College Students. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. 36(4), 346–359, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2010.488118

(59) Kenney et al., (2013), First-Year college women's motivations for hooking up: A mixed-methods examination of normative peer perceptions and personal hookup participation. International Journal of Sex Health. 25(3), 212–224, DOI: 10.1080/19317611.2013.786010

(60) Garcia et al., (2012), Sexual Hookup Culture: A Review. Review of General Psychology. 16(2), 161–176, DOI: 10.1037/a0027911

(61) Wellings et al., (2006), Sexual behaviour in context: a global perspective. The Lancet. 368(9548), 1706–1728, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69479-8

(62) Chanakira et al., (2014), Factors perceived to influence risky sexual behaviours among university students in the United Kingdom: a qualitative telephone interview study. BMC Public Health. 14:1055, DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-1055

(63) Rivera L., 2011, Ivies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: Elite employers’ use of educational credentials. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. 29(1), 71–90

(64) Hart Research Associates (2015), on behalf of the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU). Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success.

(65) Goldacre et al., (2003), Preregistration house officers' views on whether their experience at medical school prepared them well for their jobs: national questionnaire survey. BMJ. 326(7397), 1011, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.326.7397.1011

(66) Matheson & Matheson, (2009), How well prepared are medical students for their first year as doctors? The views of consultants and specialist registrars in two teaching hospitals. Postgraduate Medical Journal. 85(1009), 582-589, DOI: 10.1136/pgmj.2008.071639

(67) Wall et al., (2006), From undergraduate medical education to pre-registration house officer year: how prepared are students? Medical Teacher.28(5), 435-439, DOI: 10.1080/01421590600625171

(68) Evans et al., (2004), The effect of an extended hospital induction on perceived confidence and assessed clinical skills of newly qualified pre-registration house officers. Medical Education. 38(9), 998–1001, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2929.2004.01908.x

(69) Windish et al., (2004), Do Clerkship Directors Think Medical Students Are Prepared for the Clerkship Years? Academic Medicine. 79(1), 56-61

(70) Hilmer et al., (2009), Do medical courses adequately prepare interns for safe and effective prescribing in New South Wales public hospitals? Internal Medicine Journal. 39(7), 428–434, DOI: 10.1111/j.1445-5994.2009.01942.x

(71) Langdale et al., (2003), Preparing Graduates for the First Year of Residency: Are Medical Schools Meeting the Need? Academic Medicine. 78(1), 39–44

(72) ONS, Graduates in the UK Labour Market 2013, Labour Force Survey.

(73) Graeme Paton, (17/01/2014), Graduates earning less than those on apprenticeships. The Telegraph.

(74) EveningStandard (12/08/2013), Don’t waste time and money on useless degrees, students told.

(75) UK labour market insights – the entry-level dilemma, A totaljobs.com report prepared by IPPR, November 2014

(76) Katie Morley, (04/03/2014), Are university degrees an expensive mistake? Data obtained from the IFS. The Guardian.

(77) High Fliers Research Limited. The Graduate Market in 2014 - Annual review of graduate vacancies & starting salaries at Britain’s leading employers.

(78) Cribb et al., Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2012, IFS Commentary C124, ISBN: 978-1-903274-90-3

(79) The World Bank - Development Research Group, World Databank: World Development Indicators, GINI index (World Bank estimate)

(80) OECD (2016), Adult education level (indicator). doi: 10.1787/36bce3fe-en (Accessed on 11 January 2016)

(81) Istvan GyorgyToth (Sept 2013), Gini Policy Paper 3, Time series and cross country variation of income inequalities in Europe on the medium run: are inequality structures converging in the past three decades? p23.

(82) Ian Townsend (2009), UK income inequality (with international comparisons). Commons Briefing papers SN03870.

(83) "CLA+ National Results, 2013-14". Council for Aid to Education. p8.

(84) Wheater & Worth (Dec 2014), BIS Research paper Number 182 - Young Adults’ Skills Gain in the International Survey of Adult Skills 2012, UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

(85) Paul Bolton (5/10/2015), Briefing Paper Number 917 - Tuition Fees Statistics, House of Commons Library.

(86) Taylor et al., (15/05/2011), Is College Worth It? - College Presidents, Public Assess, Value, Quality and Mission of Higher Education. Pew Research Centre.

(87) BBC News (09/03/2010), Call to scrap 50% university student target.

(88) Educational Attainment - Five Key Data Releases From the U.S. Census Bureau

(89) EHRC (2015), Largest ever review reveals ‘winners and losers’ in progress towards equality in Great Britain. Highlights from "Is Britain Fairer?"

(90) EHRC (2015), Is Britain Fairer? - The state of equality and human rights 2015

(91) Fry et al., (2011), The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being - The Old Prosper Relative to the Young. Pew Research Centre.

(92) Illing et al., (2013), Perceptions of UK medical graduates’ preparedness for practice: A multi-centre qualitative study reflecting the importance of learning on the job. BMC Medical Education. 13(34), DOI: 10.1186/1472-6920-13-34

(93) Cook et al., (2008), Internet-Based Learning in the Health Professions - A Meta-analysis. JAMA. 300(10), 1181-1196, DOI: 10.1001/jama.300.10.1181

(94) Piccoli et al., (2001), Web-Based Virtual Learning Environments: A Research Framework and a Preliminary Assessment of Effectiveness in Basic IT Skills Training. MIS Quarterly. 25(4), 401-426, DOI: 10.2307/3250989

(95) Means et al., (2013), The Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature. Teachers College Record. 115(3)

(96) Glance et al., (2013), The pedagogical foundations of massive open online courses. First Monday. 18(5), DOI: 10.5210/fm.v18i5.4350

(97) Shea & Bidjerano, (2014), Does online learning impede degree completion? A national study of community college students. Computers & Education. 75, 103–111, DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2014.02.009

(98) Bloom et al. (2015). Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), 165-218, DOI: 10.1093/qje/qju032

(99) Hill et al., (2003), Does it matter where you work? A comparison of how three work venues (traditional office, virtual office, and home office) influence aspects of work and personal/family life. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 63(2), 220–241, DOI: 10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00042-3

(100) Lehmann et al., (2014), Youth apprenticeships in Canada: on their inferior status despite skilled labour shortages. Journal of Vocational Education & Training. 66(4), 572-589, DOI:10.1080/13636820.2014.958868

(101) Lehmann et al., (2015), ‘Go west young man!’ Youth apprenticeship and opportunity structures in two Canadian provinces. Journal of Education and Work. 28(1), 44-65, DOI:10.1080/13639080.2013.802834

(102) Muellera & Schwerib (2015), How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation. Oxford Economic Papers. 67(4), 1057-1077, DOI: 10.1093/oep/gpv040

(103) Graeme Paton, (17/09/2014), For top universities, students come second - Universities are increasingly complex, multibillion-pound organisations in which teaching comes a distant second on the priority list. The Telepgraph.

(104) Bartimote-Aufflick et al., (2015), The study, evaluation, and improvement of university student self-efficacy. Studies in Higher Education. DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2014.999319

(105) Richardson et al., (2012), Psychological correlates of university students' academic performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 138(2), 353-387, DOI: 10.1037/a0026838.

(106) Lee Parker, (2002), It’s been a pleasure doing business with you: a strategic analysis and critique of university change management. Critical Perspectives on Accounting. 13(5–6), 603–619, DOI: 10.1006/cpac.2002.0561

Monday 18 January 2016

University - The Great Squander


INTRODUCTION

This essay critiques the prevailing mentality that higher education should be an essential prerequisite for employment in many fields and, more broadly, that it is the most useful educational process available to us. It focuses on UK higher education as an example but draws upon evidence related to tens of other countries. The numbered references used are cited at a separate URL.



CONTENTS

01) The Cost of Higher Education (HE)
02) Evidence of Efficacy
03) Evidence against Efficacy
      03a) Efficacy Studies
      03b) HE - Prevalence vs Aptitude
      03c) HE - Expenditure vs Aptitude
      03d) HE - Miscellaneous Criticisms
04) How do we Learn?
      04a) The Retrieval Effect
      04b) Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
      04c) Active vs Passive Learning
      04d) Spatial Memory
05) Perceived Benefits of HE
06) A Case Study: Medical School
      06a) UK Studies
      06b) International Studies
07) Earnings Benefit
08) Social Mobility
09) HE Contributes to Inter-generational Inequity
10) Superior Alternatives: Apprenticeships
11) Superior Alternatives: Online Learning
12) Limitations and Rebuttals
13) Conclusion



01) THE COST OF HIGHER EDUCATION (HE)

Consider the truly vast resources expended upon university attendance. For UK students:
• The average student works 30.5 hours per week for at least 3 years (01)
• Typical expectations for full time study are 1,500-1,800 hours work per year (02)
• Student debt averages >£44,000 and 73% will be repaying this in to their 50s (03)

Such expenditure necessitates an unequivocally well evidenced benefit of the same magnitude. Were no such evidentiary justification to exist, restricting career progression solely to graduates would be irrational and potentially unethical, on a similar scale.

Comparisons to criminal sanctions can be used to contextualise the severity of the aforementioned exertions. For example, the UK Ministry of Justice describes how "offenders who get community sentences can be ordered to carry out between 40 and 300 hours unpaid work... this requires them to work hard and lose much of their free time" (04). The maximum community sentence imposable is therefore equivalent to the time commitment needed for just one fifth of an academic year. As can be seen from the below pie charts, sexual assault, ABH and burglary are all punished with a community sentence in about a third of cases (05).


Over two thirds of all crimes in the UK are punished with fines and >99% of these are administered by magistrates' courts (06). The maximum fines these courts could inflict until 2015 was £5,000 (07). University attendance is therefore equivalent to approximately 9 times the maximum criminal fine traditionally imposable combined with >15 community service orders. What crime warrants such harsh retribution?



02) EVIDENCE OF EFFICACY

There appears to be no evidence of the efficacy of university, particularly as a means of enhancing prospective employees' productivity. The onus is clearly on any organisation that mandates degrees as an essential prerequisite for career progression to justify this demand, particularly when they are obtained at the great expense of students themselves.

Any entity seeking to establish that university is worthwhile must demonstrate that:
• Students learn, and more enduringly so than is required simply to pass the exam
• Students learn useful things or gain useful skills
• The resources used for this are proportional to the gains
• There is no, immediately apparent, more effective alternative approach to achieving the above

Currently, higher education's pedagogies are simply not evidence-based. One group of researchers highlighted this issue with particular candour: "In this article a plea is made to use evidence in education. A remarkable difference in attitude is noted between university staff in their role as scientists in their discipline and in their role as teachers. Whereas evidence is the key to guide scientists in the development of their discipline, evidence on teaching and learning hardly affects their role as teachers" (08). Numerous other researchers identify the dearth of evidence that supports current practices and the "need for high-quality systematic reviews and appraisals of educational research" or decry the "science-aversive culture endemic among education policymakers and teacher education faculties" (09-14).

The central point here is that advocates of university have the burden of proof to demonstrate its efficaciousness. Without this, imposing it on people by penalising those who do not attend, or who lack the "right" degree, is immoral, particularly when the demand originates from "professional bodies", rather than employers themselves. Given that UK HE employs over 660,000 people, this squandered human effort is not limited to students alone. Wastefulness is bad for employees, bad for employers and bad for society as a whole.



03) EVIDENCE AGAINST EFFICACY

Both rational and empirical reasons exist to seriously question the utility of university tuition.

03a) EFFICACY STUDIES

Peer-reviewed studies are almost invariably composed by employees of universities and unsurprisingly start with the axiomatic assumption that university education is beneficial and, at best, consider how tertiary "education" might be modified to improve it. The foundation itself is rarely questioned. Consequently, studies seeking to ascertain whether or not university itself is effective are near impossible to find. They are however not entirely unheard of.

A nationally representative, longitudinal US study of >2300 students found that almost half made no gains across the final two years of their university-level education: "How many students show no statistically significant gains in learning over the final two years of college? Answer: 45 percent. A high proportion of students are progressing through higher education today without measurable gains in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and writing skills" (15). Among students who did gain, the average gain would place a student who was at the 50th percentile point when starting at the 68th percentile point upon completion. This minuscule improvement could easily be attributable to the basal development of young minds rather than university intervention itself. In fact, given that the Australian Society for Evidence Based Teaching notes that "students progress 6 percentile points just by growing 1 year older", the "benefit" of university appears negligible (16).

The findings of this 2007 research by sociologists Arum and Roska were subsequently corroborated by other researchers: "Our results with a different sample of institutions, a different sample of students, and a different standardized measure of critical thinking closely parallel those of Arum and Roksa. We conclude that the findings of Arum and Roksa are not the artifact of an anomalous sample or instrument and need to be taken seriously" (17).



03b) HE - PREVALENCE VS APTITUDE

Increasing HE Prevalence
The OECD is a consortium of 34 nations that strive for mutually beneficial economic cooperation and development. The below image indicates that the the prevalence of higher education (HE) is increasing among the populations of most OECD nations. The green squares delineate the percentage of the total working-age population that have engaged in tertiary education, for each country, with the orange triangles revealing HE's prevalence among the younger generation. Across OECD nations, "38% of 25-34 year-olds have a tertiary attainment, compared with 23% of 55-64 year-olds" (18). Prevalence has doubled over the last few decades for many countries.


PIAAC
The OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) "measures the key cognitive and workplace skills needed for individuals to participate in society and for economies to prosper" and includes problem solving, numeracy and literacy (19). There is no inter-generational disparity for literacy or numeracy in the UK, despite the prevalence of tertiary education among the younger generation being approximately double that of the over-34s (20, 21). Comparing PIAAC scores for nations with the highest prevalence of HE to the OECD average may grant further insight in to the efficacy of university education. Depicted below is the percentage of 25-64 year olds that have undergone HE in each OECD nation, with the top-8 coloured on the right, which includes the UK.





Despite hosting populations with substantially more exposure to tertiary education, only two of the countries among the top-8 have average PIAAC scores above the OECD average, indicating that at best, HE adds nothing to these "key cognitive and workplace skills". As depicted below, Australia and Japan are the only two of the top-8 to surpass the OECD average PIAAC score (21). There is additionally no clear relationship between prevalence of HE and PIAAC scores. No PIAAC data is available for Israel.



PISAs
The OECD also performs PISA studies to assess the performance of 15 year olds and both Japan and Australia scored significantly better than average at this age too, indicating that their superior PIAAC scores are likely attributable to pre-tertiary education. Below, Japanese and Australian adolescents can be seen to have consistently outperformed the OECD average, while the US and UK, included as points of reference, generally performed slightly worse than it. Were HE of substantial benefit, those countries with the highest prevalence of HE would greatly improve their PIAAC scores relative to their PISA scores, compared to other nations.





03c) HE - EXPENDITURE VS APTITUDE

The pervasiveness of tertiary education within a population is far from the sole measure of its prominence and it might be claimed that international differences in funding account for the discordance between prevalence of HE and PIAAC competency. The biggest spenders are Canada, Korea, the US and Israel, which "spend between 1.8 and 2.9% of their GDP on tertiary institutions" (22). Though no data is available for Israel, not a single one of the other biggest spenders surpass the OECD average for literacy, numeracy or problem solving skills.

Perhaps a more robust indicator of HE's financing in each country is the expenditure per year, per student. The below chart compares the US dollars spent per student in each country in 2012 with the average 2012 PIAAC scores for those countries. There is no clear correlation between spending on HE and performance, though a line of best fit (not shown) reveals a negative relationship. This is despite the fact that OECD countries spend far more on tertiary education per student per year than pre-tertiary education, averaging $7,719 at primary, $9,312 at secondary and $13,728 at the tertiary level in 2009 (23). All countries are included below where there is full PIAAC and expenditure data available (21, 24).




03d) HE - MISCELLANEOUS CRITICISMS

Further factors undermining the purported essentiality of a university education to employment within certain professions include that:
• Those who currently occupy all senior positions within the industries graduated 20, 30, or even 40 years ago, or perhaps didn't graduate at all.
      ○ It seems implausible that they remember the contents of their degrees in any detail.
      ○ Their degrees would additionally have been vastly different from modern ones.
• The contents of a HE course can also vary substantially from university to university, as can job-roles from employer to employer.
• It frequently takes graduates a year or more to enter into some industries, by which time most of what they learned during their course, which is very unlikely to have been recalled during that interlude, will likely have been forgotten.
• It is not the case that new graduates turn up to work and are expected to know how to do the job. On-the-job training always occurs.
• Any information that is essential to doing the job will, by its very nature, be apparent and maintained within the working environment.



04) HOW DO WE LEARN?

As the aforementioned studies would suggest, rather than developing critical thinking, university is often little more than a memory test. This is not necessarily problematic as the defining feature of higher cognitive functions is that information is "held in mind for a period of time" (25). It is a problem however when this information is inefficiently assimilated, can easily be sourced if needed, and is neither enduring, nor relevant to future endeavours.


04a) THE RETRIEVAL EFFECT

Evolutionary Predisposition
Our memory serves to retain information. As an evolved trait, it must have been selected to be useful. A useful memory is one which retains useful information. Useful information, for the most part, is that which needs to be repeatedly recalled because recollection is instigated by need, which equates to utility. From this, we can deduce that our memories are intrinsically predisposed to best retain information that we have repeatedly recalled.

Retrieval Effect
There is a strong evidentiary basis to support the above deduction. "Taking a memory test not only assesses what one knows, but also enhances later retention, a phenomenon known as the [retrieval] effect" (26). Some researchers have even started to quantify this: "The advantage of retrieval practice... over elaborative studying with concept mapping... represented about a 50% improvement in long-term retention scores" (27). Multiple other studies further attest to the superiority of the "retrieval effect" for memorisation (28, 29).

HE Vs Work
The hundreds of facts covered within a day's university lectures are often never recalled (retrieved) and certainly not repeatedly so. This is in direct contrast to learning on the job, where information is repeatedly recalled in order to produce the same product or service. Our evolutionary ancestors' lifestyles defined the selective pressures that shaped the genesis of our critical faculties and they learned on-the-job, rather than through attending universities. HE exhibits a profound indifference to our innate predispositions for learning.



04b) PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING (PBL)

Definition
"PBL students discuss professionally relevant problems in small groups" (30). Research indicates that "by having students learn through the experience of solving problems, they can learn both content and thinking strategies" (31).

PBL At Work
PBL spontaneously occurs within the working environment in order to overcome obstacles to product/service delivery, or simply when optimising. There is no natural analogue within higher education's "conventional lecture-based learning environment" (32). Resolving occupational problems, such as equipment downtime, or those arising from human error, typically has an immediately apparent, real-world benefit, unlike even the most innovative of academic questions. It is difficult to conceive of any setting that could more effectively capitalise on PBL's ability to "enhance intrinsic interest in the subject matter" (33).

PBL At University
Studies on PBL "generally support the superiority of the PBL approach over more traditional methods" (34, 30-38) but the scope of these studies is limited to the academic environment and the magnitude of the benefits is neither sizeable, nor consistent (30, 34, 39). One reviewer notes that "there is a wealth of theory underpinning the use of PBL... despite disappointing results; future research should concentrate on the reasons behind this uncoupling of theory and outcomes" (39).

Resistance to questioning academia's role as the sole potential source of PBL may well underlie this anomaly. One study notes that "the use of authentic problems of practice... are presented as the catalyst for students' improved self-efficacy" (35). Another describes how "flexible scaffolding provided by cognitively and socially congruent tutors also seems to be reasonably effective, as opposed to ‘hard’ scaffolding represented by, for instance, worksheets or questions added to problems" (36). It therefore seems that the more PBL strategies emulate an occupational environment, the closer the unity between theory and outcomes.

Conclusion
Overall, PBL within academia, like many pedagogies, appears to simply be a superfluous attempt to mimic the spontaneously arising experiences of those engaged in occupational work. It is a poor, unnecessary and counter-productive substitute, particularly when there are ample genuine professional conundrums awaiting resolution.



04c) ACTIVE VS PASSIVE LEARNING

Definitions
Active learning is generally characterised by autonomously seeking out and using information, while passive learning simply involves being exposed to it, such as occurs in lectures. Multiple studies suggest that active learning may impart superior learning potential compared to passive approaches (40-43). Results are again mixed however, (44-47), with the academics often touted as the sole purveyors of teaching.

Attention Span
Several studies identify the incongruousness of lengthy lectures with our natural attention span in such passive-learning environments. They note that "student engagement alternates between attention and nonattention in shorter and shorter cycles as lectures proceed" (48), with attentiveness rising "sharply to reach a maximum in 10-15 min" (49) and then falling "steadily thereafter" (50-51) and lapses occurring approximately every two minutes by a lecture's end (48).

Useful Learning
One study found that those who learned in order to put their knowledge to use, teaching others, "had higher conceptual learning scores" and felt "more actively engaged" than those who learned "the same material with the expectation of being tested on it" (45). A separate study used active learning to reduce "the amount of time spent in teacher-driven content delivery by 50 percent and covered the same amount of content with no detrimental effects on knowledge acquisition" (52). These findings highlight the benefits of learning for a useful purpose and the limited importance of lecturers to doing so.



04d) SPATIAL MEMORY

One researcher notes that visual-spatial thinking is "neglected in science classrooms", and goes on to criticise the "subservient role of visual-spatial learning with the dominance of the alphanumeric [memory] encoding skills in classroom and textbooks" (53). Visual-spatial thinking combined with vivid experiences, entailing extensive use of sensory perceptions, are the defining features of "memory palaces" used by "Memory Championship" contestants, in order to learn vast quantities of information.

National champions Joshua Foer and Idriz Zogaj discuss and demonstrate the significant advantages of using vivid sensory experiences and visual-spatial memorisation for encoding memories in their TED and TEDx talks (54, 55). The world record for memorising the order of a shuffled pack of 54 playing cards using such techniques is under 21 seconds, as of 2015 (56). However, Foer now "rarely uses the techniques" as they are "hardly vital in an age of external memory in which remembering information may be less important than knowing how to find it" (57). The internet is the most potent means currently available for sourcing information and it is available to all, whether they have graduated or not.



05) PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF HE

A Positive University Experience
With the "university experience" being a popular colloquialism that emphasises the social, rather than educational appeal of university life, many who profess satisfaction with their HE may in fact be drawing upon fond memories of prolific socialising, rather than any intellectual transformation. Congenial memories of their first copulations or a subconscious desire to take ownership of their acquiescence to three years of drudgery may be alternative motives for graduates' positive reflections upon their HE experience. In the former case, various studies find that approximately 60% of students have "hooked up" within the first semester post-matriculation (58-61). A qualitative study of UK students found that "almost all participants spontaneously viewed alcohol as the cornerstone of students’ social life" and that students "were expected to have a very active social life" (62).

Those who achieve employment in industries for which their degrees are an essential prerequisite will likely reflect positively on their HE, often without considering the extent to which their degree facilitated their current aptitude or whether this could be replicated by less burdensome means. A great many may, for example, erroneously conflate the desire to become a doctor with the desire to go to medical school, yet these two pursuits are not synonymous, even if the former is contingent upon the latter.

The Employer's Perspective
The efficaciousness of universities appears to be a culturally enshrined myth, sustained to an extent by their selectivity, which excludes the worst candidates, who would likely make inferior employees on average, irrespective of educational background. Indeed, one study found that "educational credentials were the most common criteria employers used to solicit and screen resumes... [however], it was not the content of an elite education that employers valued but rather the perceived rigour of these institutions’ admissions processes" (63). There is additionally an intrinsic bias towards non-disclosure of educational inadequacies. A teacher who admits that their students are not well prepared calls their current employment in to question; a student who admits to being insufficiently benefited diminishes their own employability.

The Student's Perspective
Students are frequently forced through the HE system, either by the unsolicited intervention of "professional bodies" in their career progression, or by submission to the ubiquitous cultural narrative that HE is the only reliable means of escaping relative poverty. According to the 2015 nationally representative survey of >15,000 current UK students, 29% think their degree is poor or very poor value for money and "with the benefit of hindsight, one-third (34%) of undergraduates would ‘definitely’ or ‘maybe’ have chosen a different course" (01). This equates, in one year alone, to ~500,000 who may regret their costly investment.

The Mismatch
Current students' satisfaction with their courses remains high however, as do their perceptions of their preparedness for employment. This may well change once they are catapulted in to a saturated graduate jobs market with staggering debts as their pre-eminent memento of HE. Research published by the Association of American Colleges & Universities reveals the "notable gap" between employers' and graduates' perceptions, as depicted above. The survey concludes that "large majorities of employers do not feel that recent college graduates are well prepared" (64).



06) A CASE STUDY: MEDICAL SCHOOL

Medical practitioners must be fully competent to deal with critical, "life or death" situations, perhaps more so than members of any other profession. This is reflected in the working hours required of medical students, which trump all other subject areas, at just under 44 hours per week in the UK (01). Furthermore, these courses last 5-6 years, almost double that of a typical degree, and must therefore represent HE at its most rigorous.


06a) UK STUDIES

A nationally representative survey of newly qualified doctors found that only 4.3% strongly agreed that their tuition had prepared them well for their jobs. Over 40% disagreed or strongly disagreed that their HE had left them well prepared (65). Another study seeking to establish whether or not consultants and specialist registrars considered newly qualified "F1" doctors to be well prepared by their HE did not provide reassuring results: "F1s were seen as not prepared for starting work... overall, F1s in the study were not well prepared either to perform the tasks that await them or in terms of most of the specific background knowledge and skills necessary for the successful execution of those tasks" (66).

Research on recent medical school graduates found that they "rated themselves significantly higher than did their consultant supervisors in thirteen out of the seventeen areas tested" (67). This finding replicates the previously depicted employer/employee disparity and sheds further doubt upon the reliability of the value students attribute to their own HE.

A study of new graduates trialled an "extended induction" in to the working environment as well as assessing doctors' abilities pre-induction and then again, after one month of on-the-job experience. It found that "newly qualified doctors do not feel prepared... and objectively are not competent in basic clinical skills." However, "one month into post there were significant improvements in all areas" (68).



06b) INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

A nationally representative US study of clerkship directors, who are responsible for the final years of trainee doctors' tuition, mirrored this, with almost half "concerned that students do not receive adequate preparation in key competencies before starting the core clinical clerkships" (69). It is noteworthy that the pre-clerkship portion of training is the largely classroom-based component of medical school. Yet another study, of newly qualified doctors in Australia, found that the participants "demonstrated significant deficits in prescribing of regular medications, initiation of new therapies, prescribing of discharge medications, and particularly prescribing of Schedule 8 medications" (medications with high potential for abuse and addiction) (70).

A US study zeroed in on the problem with academic training and assessment: "Medical schools consider their curricula successful if their students consistently pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination... However, new physicians require more than a basic working knowledge of common disease states and diagnoses to function with even a modest degree of independence and responsibility in the evaluation and management of active clinical problems" (71). Transiently memorising vast numbers of facts offers highly limited benefit when it comes to employment.



07) EARNINGS BENEFIT

As seen below, graduates do receive an earnings advantage compared to apprentices and the less qualified (72). This is unsurprising in that:
• Universities only admit a higher-achieving slice of the population, filtering out inferior workers. This heightened ability may be due to greater social capital, better pre-tertiary education or even superior genes.
• Many higher paid jobs feature an institutionalised prerequisite for HE, irrespective of applicants' aptitude.
• There may be an inherent bias among employers towards graduates, due to the prestige of university, or to preferentially remunerate them for their increased investment in education.

There are therefore a multitude of mechanisms, which operate entirely independently of any elevated skill level among graduates, that may account for the earnings disparity between graduates and non-graduates.


Does Everybody Benefit?
However, even assuming that the HE process is somehow responsible for this earnings benefit, a great many graduates are not advantaged by their qualifications. Frank Field, MP and author of the UK governmental "Review on Poverty and Life Chances" describes how "successive generations of young people have been shoehorned into universities on the promise of improving their lifetime earnings", which leaves them "saddled with eye-watering levels of debt" (73). Sir John Stuttard, master-elect of the Company of Educators elaborates: "pupils are encouraged to try for university with few other higher education alternatives presented to them. We have the prospect of many graduates leaving university with large debts and with degrees in subjects that give little or no career choice — other than to work in coffee shops and bars” (74). This is a predictable consequence of leaving such hefty investment decisions in the hands of the only people in the country of working age who have zero experience of forming a career.


Underemployment
These assertions are empirically verified by the ONS, which finds that as of 2013, 47% of those who graduated in the UK in the last 5 years are working in non-graduate roles (72). Similarly, over a third of those who graduated more than 5 years ago can be seen to still be underemployed. For both categories, underemployment is increasing and this is likely to be exacerbated by the ever-increasing number of UK graduates. Is a process that fails at least 30-45% of the time worth keeping, let alone expanding?




Unemployment and High Pay
Underemployment is not the only pitfall of the HE route. Three times as many graduates (16%), as apprentices (5%), are unemployed upon their first year of entering the UK labour market (75), demonstrating the tendency of apprenticeships to conjoin the number of trainees with the availability of jobs. Though graduates do earn a higher wage on average than non-graduates, among British workers earning over £48,000 a year, 48% do not possess a degree (76). If earnings are a reliable gage of an individual's "skills" then it appears that half of the countries most skilled workers lack a degree. Even granting that HE engenders useful skills, this strongly suggests that it is far from the only route to their development.

Recruitment

30-40% of graduate vacancies in the top-100 graduate employers are reserved for those who already have experience working for those companies, as charted below (77). This and the other selection mechanisms associated with recruitment betray the apparent inadequacy of degrees alone as a means of ensuring the quality of employees.



08) SOCIAL MOBILITY

Gini Index
HE is frequently cited as a facilitator of social mobility. Among the most salient metrics of social mobility is the ability to improve income and we would therefore expect to see a correlation between income equality and the percentage of the population that graduate. I.E. A higher proportion of the population graduating would lead to increased social mobility and therefore reduced income inequality. "The most widely used measure of income inequality is the Gini coefficient", alternatively known as the Gini Index (78).

Expected Correlation
As income equality increases, the Gini index should decrease, with 0% equating to total equality and 100% equating to total inequality (I.E. one person having all the wealth). If, as is often proposed, HE does increase social mobility, the prevalence of HE and expenditure on it should have strong negative correlations with the Gini index. In the two charts below, this would require that the blue and dashed yellow lines slant in opposite directions.


Actual Correlation
For HE prevalence (left chart), the Gini index (inequality) is actually greater in countries with more HE. Increased HE spending per student (right chart) does correspond to increased income equality but while the Gini index changes <5% across the 22 nations featured, expenditure on HE changes by approximately 300%, from <$10,000 to >$25,000. The Gini index is depicted as the line of best fit for the countries listed, which were included on the basis of availability of data (24, 79-80). All Gini data is from 2010-2013 except for Japan (2008).

Focussing on the UK
If HE reduced income inequality, we would expect a significant decrease in the Gini index (inequality) for the UK from 1992-2013, a period across which the percentage of the UK populating graduating more than doubled (72). Instead, the Gini index appears largely static throughout this increase in graduates (81) and in fact, a 2009 governmental report noted that "income inequality has generally increased over the past two decades" (82). Increasing income equality, a key measure of social mobility, would require that the Gini index (yellow line), slanted downwards as the prevalence of graduates (blue area) increases.



09) HE CONTRIBUTES TO INTER-GENERATIONAL INEQUITY

US Versus UK
This essay focuses on the UK but US/UK pedagogies are generally the same, incorporating lectures, practicals and tutorials. US HE however features more frequent assignments, broader tuition (minors/majors) and two or four, rather than three year UK courses. Together, these two countries account for over half of the top-200 ranked universities and both are among the top-3 spenders on HE. Despite this, about 40% of new US graduates are not proficient in critical thinking (83) and, according to the UK's Department for Business Innovation & Skills, "the number of years spent in education in England does not provide a good explanation for differences in proficiency amongst the working population" (84).


Tuition Fee Explosion
Private contributions to tuition fees have increased 9 fold across less than a decade in the UK, from £1,000 in 2006 to £9,000 in 2012 and "average fee levels for new students in England from 2012 are likely to be the highest for public or state-dependent private institutions in the developed world". Overall, including private institutions, the cost of HE to English students is second only to those in the US (85). This is a time of ever-increasing tertiary education, with President Obama's 2020 target for the US to posses the highest prevalence of graduates in the world (86) and the UK's goal of having 50% of the population graduate (72, 87). In the US 32% of the population have completed four or more years of college as of 2014. The chronology of increasing US HE is depicted for 4-year courses alone above (88).


Inequality Exacerbated
In 2015, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the "most comprehensive review ever carried out on progress towards greater equality" in Britain. This review found that "a new divide has opened up: between the young and older people", with the former having "the worst economic prospects for several generations" (89). The report details how "young people are set to be better qualified than in previous generations but, despite this, experienced considerable disadvantage in the labour market" and are "more likely than older people to experience poverty". Of particular pertinence, "the strong educational performance of girls and young women did not translate into rewards in the workplace" (90). A similar trend exists in the US, where in 2009, a household headed by those aged >64 "had 47 times as much net wealth as the typical household headed by someone" <35 years old, far worse than the 10 fold disparity that existed in 1984, illustrated, right (91). Unsurprisingly, 57% of Americans believe that HE "fails to provide students with good value for money" (86).

Evidently HE does not impart such economically lucrative "skills" as is often reputed and this inter-generational inequity is significantly enhanced by increasing tuition fees and university attendance.



10) SUPERIOR ALTERNATIVES: APPRENTICESHIPS

Every aspect of the service provided to HE students by universities seems substitutable to provide a far less expensive and more effective training regime. Apprenticeships/ internships alone seem apt to achieve this, though other methods could be used in unison to negate any weaknesses of apprenticeships.

Composition of Apprenticeships:
• These entail trainee employees shadowing experienced staff members during every activity engaged in within a given job role, while the process is explained to them.
• These explanations can be inclusive of the theoretical underpinnings of processes.
• Trainees can then replicate these same tasks under direct supervision and do so repeatedly, as required by the service, to thoroughly learn the process.
• As apprentices become more experienced, they engage in progressively more complex tasks and are supervised less. They master one set of tasks before progressing, as part of competency-based learning.
• Learning can potentially be consolidated by short pre-recorded lectures covering the more abstract aspects of any task.


Apprenticeships versus University
The same key factors that are inherently absent from HE are intrinsically integrated in to apprenticeships. Many of these are detailed in the below table, which describes a dozen areas where apprenticeships are superior to university.


Comparable Characteristic Apprenticeships University
01) Student:Trainer ratio Mostly one-to-one Mostly one to >50
02) Trained by Those who are a daily part of a student's prospective career Those who work in a distinct employment sector
03) Involves Interactions with People across the entire spectrum of the industry Students/Lecturers
04) Similarity of Environment/Apparatus to Job Role Identical A dissociated environment, with different apparatus
05) Nature of the Information Conveyed Empirically apparent facts, with abstract concepts closely linked to vivid sensory experiences Mostly abstract facts, typically unassociated with many, if any, vivid sensory experiences
06) Extent of Reiteration Repeated experience of the actual job, needed to produce the same product/service One-off experience of a process/ information, which is often not relevant in the prospective career
07) Availability of Experts for Questioning (E.G. Tutorials) Generally 5 days a week, 0900-1700, every week Less than 2 hours per week
08) Investment by Student Prior to Employment Zero: Travel expenses paid by employer, Possible salary >£44,000 and >4500 hours of work
09) Link Between Number of Trainees & Number of Jobs Available Very Strong Very Weak
10) Retention of Training-related Information within the Workplace Information conveyed during training is systematically reiterated within the workplace Information learned during training is rapidly and progressively lost as the years pass
11) Indicativeness of performance during training of performance on the job Extremely indicative, due to extreme similarity between job/training Unreliably indicative, due to the relative dissimilarity between job/training
12) Productivity of Training Useful service/product produced No useful service/product produced


Superiority of Apprenticeships
Children learn entire languages by being around those who use them and repeatedly doing so themselves. Similarly, adults learn skills such as cooking and driving almost exclusively through hands-on experience. Both of these involve learning multifaceted processes, while navigating a plethora of potentially lethal hazards.

If two people, of equal capability, were to receive tuition, one learning at university and the other learning how to perform tasks within their chosen career, who would exhibit greater aptitude at the job? The answer is immediately obvious and while some may heckle that HE serves as more than a preparatory step for employment, this continues to be irrelevant as long as degrees are an essential prerequisite for certain jobs.

Redirecting Our Resources
A dissertation should not be needed to elucidate the normalised insanity of having the next generation of workers whisked off to buildings that are isolated from the world of employment for training. Consider how much could be achieved with the >£44,000 and the >4,500 hours expended upon university, were they redirected more productively. For example, £44,000 could pay for a senior staff member in most industries to provide full-time one-to-one tuition for a whole year and this would require far less than 4,500 hours on the part of the student. In actuality, entry-level apprentices could be trained primarily by junior staff and would not even require full-time supervision. To summarise, apprenticeships are not proposed in isolation, but in comparison to the phenomenal exertions required by the currently-dominant HE approach.

Availability of Jobs
Apprenticeships pair up the availability of employment with those investing in getting into a career. The current university system involves people investing huge amounts of time and money trying to qualify to enter professions where there may or may not be any vacancies. In contrast, an apprenticeship would see excess applicants rejected at the point of entry, prior to their enormous investment. It would also grant apprentices a progressively more informed opinion about whether or not they truly wished to work within that industry, allowing them to drop out prior to full investment, if desired. Instead of incurring enormous debt at the start of their careers and wasting three years of their lives, apprentices would, at worst, have the cost of living to pay. The menial tasks undertaken by apprentices would simultaneously reimburse employers for their training investment.

Essentiality of On-The-Job Training
Following on from the earlier case study of medical schools; it is bizarre that HE is considered irreplaceable despite widespread variation in graduates' ability and the absence of any metric for gauging quality. The authors of a recent UK study summarised the literature on this, noting that "preparedness for practice varies with medical school but we do not understand why" (92). This study "highlighted the importance of students learning on the job", reconfirming the findings of other researchers: "Data from trainees, and from those working with them, indicated a need for more ‘on-the-job’ training prior to starting work. Recent work by others supports our important finding [22,28,43]. Learning how wards operate, about the work of a junior doctor and how to prioritise work are all best learned on the job" (92).



11) SUPERIOR ALTERNATIVES: ONLINE LEARNING

As Good As HE
The rise of mass communication technology has enabled online distance-learning, such as massive open online courses (MOOCs). Despite many such courses being free and frequently lacking official "accreditation", a multitude of studies indicate that they are at least as effective at teaching as traditional courses (93-96). Furthermore, a nationally representative US study found that "students who take some of their early courses online or at a distance have a significantly better chance of attaining a community college credential than do their classroom only counterparts" (97).

Working From Home
Some critics of distance learning suggest that people cannot be relied upon to work from home. This however is contradicted both by the above studies and by others which find that working from home boosts productivity and increases worker satisfaction and retention (98-99). Many people work from home and this trend is increasing, despite those employees needing to support themselves and their businesses in competitive markets, unlike universities; with their captive clientele.

Advantages
Online courses are whole orders of magnitude cheaper than traditional tertiary education, due to the elimination of needless duplication, as well as the costs of maintaining a campus. This not only negates the need for students to become heavily indebted but additionally enables almost universal education, delivered by the most accomplished teachers. Shai Reshef gave a TED talk, detailing some of the many benefits of his online courses for people around the world.



12) LIMITATIONS AND REBUTTALS

Apprenticeship Completion Rates
Efficiently run apprenticeships contemporaneously pay for themselves, with completion rates of minimal concern as trainees perform a combination of menial tasks, in addition to receiving valuable training, consolidating their knowledge of the basics, while contributing to the company's output. A trainee who drops out early has already "paid for their stay" and gained valuable work experience and an enhanced awareness of what job roles they are well suited to in the process.

Individuals would be naturally disincentivised from remaining perpetual apprentices by the low wages of these entry-level jobs. Both completion and uptake rates would likely be greatly elevated if apprenticeships ceased to be "perceived as being of lower-status compared to traditional post-secondary educational pathways" (100). Furthermore, the fact that "tighter regulatory frameworks are required to protect young people in apprenticeships from exploitative practices" could offer potential for professional bodies to finally serve a useful role, that genuinely benefits their subordinates (101).

Apprenticeship Quality Assurance
Mechanisms for assuring the training of employees are already in place. Employees who fail to engage with training, as measured by competencies, are fired or don't advance. Employers who fail to deliver their product or service to the required standard go bankrupt or suffer expensive litigation. Only organisations such as universities can escape this, as they rely on a captive clientele thanks to the institutionalised mandate for qualifications in order to ascend many career paths. The customers of other businesses are not penalised in any way for refraining from purchasing a service/product, other than by its absence. In contrast, failure to purchase a degree can have life-long, and frequently totalitarian, consequences for earnings/employability, irrespective of any demonstrable skills.

Narrowness of Apprenticeship Education
If a narrow scope is all that is required to do a job then that should be sufficient. Education superfluous to a job role can be pursued by individual employees as a hobby, at their own expense and leisure. If employers deem such information useful then it could be incorporated into any apprenticeship, as described above, thereby maintaining that information within the workplace, rather than having it learned at university and then progressively forgotten as time passes.

Inter-firm Transferability
Concerns about the restricted inter-firm transferability of apprentices are unfounded both in that HE is presupposed to avoid this pitfall and in that it is without empirical substantiation. A longitudinal Swiss study of apprentices found "high inter-firm and low occupational mobility", concluding that "skills are highly transferable within an occupational field" (102).

Trained by Researchers
Some may suggest that exposure to HE empowers students to bring the latest innovations to the workplace. The preparation of students for employment only requires that they know the existing state of the art however, rather than the fruits of ongoing research. Students do not enter employment and immediately begin revolutionising the workplace. On the contrary, students typically occupy entry-level jobs where their influence over operations is minimal and they gradually learn from the current experts and develop competency through on-the-job training. They additionally benefit from multiple trainers per trainee, in contrast to HE, where UK students spend over a third of their time in classes containing >50 pupils (01).

HE Teaches You How to Learn
This sentiment appears almost laughable when considered alongside the previous sections detailing the indifference of HE providers to evidence-based pedagogies. Whereas advanced tuition may have historically been more necessary to compensate for the inefficient modes of information storage/retrieval, in the digital era, search engines, and information technology more generally, serve to greatly expedite our ability to source relevant information.

Interactions With Students
The benefits of interacting with fellow HE students are often much lauded, though students are far from the most intellectually stimulating or enlightened within society. Sir Andre Geim, a Manchester University physics professor and Nobel laureate exemplified this when he stated: "I don’t like students very much... they come absolutely ignorant and they are not grown up yet as interesting people" (103). Furthermore, while university may feature interactions with students and lecturers, apprenticeships feature interactions with those constituting an entire spectrum of an industry, as well as those in parallel industries and fellow apprentices. It is a false comparison to imply that the sole alternative to interacting with students at university is to interact with nobody.



13) CONCLUSION

Student Traits Define Achievement
That students collectively achieve a wide spectrum of grades at any single university, despite going through an identical pedagogical process, reveals that achievement is primarily a product of students' pre-existing abilities, rather than any significant contribution of HE itself. This is especially true now, with increasingly robust electronic attendance monitoring ensuring that students endure all scheduled sessions. In fact, "the single most important (and reliable) predictor of university student achievement in recent decades is self-efficacy" (104-105). This should be unsurprising, given that students spend well over half of their time in HE engaged in independent study (01). As is apparent to any who untangle themselves from the myth that university attendees are granted irreplicable mystical powers of self-enlightenment, if the most important factor in success is independent of HE then clearly there is no reason that learning cannot occur within the working environment, where it would have enhanced relevance.

Commodification
The commodification of HE undermines its claimed role as an installer of valuable skills for employment. Across the same period that the prevalence of HE has rapidly increased, "commercial values are found to be usurping the previously dominant knowledge focussed values in universities" (106). Meanwhile, adolescents continue to be brainwashed in to believing that the HE process is genuinely beneficial, as is evident from employers' and new graduates' disparate assessments of the latter's preparedness for employment. Even were prospective students alerted to this fact, universities are insulated from the market forces suffered by other businesses, with failure to purchase their service severely punished, as seen in the differential between graduate and non-graduate pay. Of pivotal importance, acquiescence should not be misconstrued as endorsement of HE; participation levels are not representative of the quality of service, as they might be in other industries.

The insurmountable superiority of on-the-job learning to academia is exemplified by the open secret that employers value experience almost to the total negation of any concern for the bit of paper a university gave that entitles applicants to apply for jobs. Though constantly limited by the presupposition that learning may only occur within a classroom, researchers often acknowledge that "the lack of coherence in curriculum, pedagogy, and learning theory requires reform" (53).

Final Conclusion
The excessiveness, abstractness and limited-applicability of information covered at universities severely undermines the alleged broadness and endurance of a university education. The knowledge is transitory, sustained just long enough to pass exams, after which it is irrelevant and so swiftly forgotten. The average human mind is simply not predisposed to retain so much when it is not regularly retrieved.

The contingency of future employment and therefore quality of life upon performance at university make learning a strenuous competition, rather than an enjoyable edification. Lecturing on many facts is redundant if those facts do not persist in the minds of those present or if they can easily be ascertained when needed. In short, if, as the above essay suggests, HE is not an efficient use of resources, then forced participation is wasteful, irrational and unethical. HE should be an optional frivolous pursuit for some, rather than a mandatory prerequisite for all who wish to escape relative poverty.

It must not be forgotten that the burden of proof lies with those who claim HE to be effective and impose restrictions upon others who decline to engage in it.