Education superclass?

[Amber2]

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100245274/it-is-much-worse-than-sir-john-major-says-a-new-superclass-is-being-created-in-london/

This is interesting coming from John Major ...sounds like more lobbying along the lines of the Sutton Trust but do people really think it's much worse than it ever has been..? and this is do with with the inexorable rise of London...and the global money flowing in there...and so to creating an elite superclass of private schools also ...not just any old private school but a small handful of elite ones, applications to which have reached record numbers, presumably more and more from London and from overseas with over inflation rises in fees pricing out the traditional middle classes that used to be able to afford these schools.

I worked in a US consulting firm, as did my DP. I can assure you that business is carried out in the language of the country. Only when reporting to boards or when doing PE work were presentations ever in English. Language and cultural skills are indispensable.

Of course people who only speak English only get to work in English.

Tell that to the people on here who are saying that the City Law Firms, etc, are so clogged up with brilliant applications that they will be impressed by this sort of thing and it will sway their judgment. Also, I did work out in Paris while I was working in my law firm, and I definitely needed a good level of French for that. And increasingly, foreign nationals were taking up the training contracts even as long ago as I worked there, because of their language skills.

I had the chance to start a glittering career in London but saw that in exchange for a promise of riches and a possibility of joining the high-fliers they wanted their pound of flesh. And at the end there was no guarantee of joining the high-fliers: despite taking on many new recruits every year there was still only one Managing Partner, so the odds were stacked against. They lure you in with sweet talk but the reality is different. Even in the provinces only about half of us made it through qualification, never mind progression after that.
The way to greatest happiness is not to be a wage slave but to be your own boss.

(was talking to Indians, btw...)

And all the adults I know who are plurilingual have added to their language repertoire as business requires. DP learned Italian aged 40 when he opened his Itslian subsidiary. My BIL learned Dutch aged 40 when he went to work for a Dutch bank. My friend learned Korean when she went to work for l'Oreal in Seoul. Etc.

And I don't know any translators or interpreters.

Now that we talk about the use of language... All I can say is that I have used the English language all over the world. The only place I really struggled was in Japan as they dont speak English well. ironically they have the third biggest econmy. In Asian countries English is well spoken. It is the same for Africa and to some extent in south America. Although it is easier to know Spanish when in the US esp in the southern states.

So yes you can get away with it....but isnt it just fun to speak in a different language and bond with another person because of it.

Selection by money is how it works ATM. This perpetuates the system of more leaders in politics/business etc. coming from private school backgrounds. The state should offer the same opportunities, and if that means bringing back grammars or more super-selectives then so be it.

(Mind you, I didn't actually need my French in the office - just for living in France!...)

Bonsoir - I currently work in an international practice. In a very senior role. I'm not making it up as I go along nor am I editing my memories to present the story I am invested in. But if people don't want to believe me then that's fine.

My kids don't want to do this sort of work so apart from an interest in the people we recruit I really don't care, much.

I worked in a US consulting firm

Nicely swerved bonsoir. IIRC you are currently a SAHM so your super-education isn't actually put to work at the moment and all this is pure theory to you?

I am not disagreeing with anyone but My imagination is struggling a bit trying to envisage the future.

I live internationally between several countries just at the moment but have a rural home where the local economy is strong for such an area? People have less but seem more content with what they do have.

I have DC whose education had a bit of 'making do' in it before the later teenage years when it was strong. I admit none are yet looking for employment but the elder two are at Oxbridge Colleges. I treated them as projects in that I attempted to expose them to what I believed they needed and could usefully enjoy doing but it is mostly stuff I like too.

They are not polymaths. They are not exceptional in comparison with their friends though they are resilient. I am finding it hard to imagine the slightly apocalyptic future described in a World where healthy economic diversity seems to disappear. I really am.

rabbit practically everyone posting in this thread about city firms is posting from memory. Not me, though. So obviously I'm the one who's wrong.

It always makes me smile when people talk about a multilingual elite but others (not on this thread) complain about 1st/2nd generation immigrations speaking their mother tongue.

DH and his friends are N African and speak Arabic, French and English as a minimum. Some of them drive buses.

However, the advantage may filter through to their children who are brought up in bi or tri lingual homes. They tend to spend holidays in their parent's home country so have several weeks of complete immersion each year as well.

We pay for a private education for our children and we live in London. I see how disproportionally few people where I work (in the City) come from the sort of state school background I had.

I think the property prices in London now are truly terrifying and I thank my lucky stars that I got on to the property ladder years ago.

Umm not convinced I would like to transact serious business when I have no idea what the people I am dealing with ware saying to watch other

Is that silly have I been watching too much James Bond?

I think one point is that purits if your dcs wanted to live in London there opportunity to do so is severely limited and this is new. Presumably you want them to have a chance at a good job, be able to buy a house etc etc.
The point about provincial towns relying on public sector wages is also very valid and service wages being paid by wealthy retirees see the other thread on here last night about the dismal lot (employment housing) young people are currently facing

Purits re the 50:50 split you mentioned are they all new job then? What happened to the locals who are doing them before?
Where are the taxes going to come from to keep those people in benefits and pay the tax credits of the 50% recent immigrants?

The trickle down effect just isn't trickling and very valid point re social mobility, I see it all around me

If you only speak English it is easy to miss out rather a lot of what is really going on in the world

For your purposes I am a SAHM, yes.

My family are linguists (not native level in any other than English) so I am not dismissing the value of learning languages as we have done so. Family friends and colleagues are multi national and multi lingual. Work, all over the World, is conducted English.

Purits re the 50:50 split you mentioned are they all new job then?

Yes, created on the back of our export contract. It's not all doom and gloom beyond the M25 but it is hard work

Each other

chazs the Dutch I know speak 4 or 5 EU languages very very well yet are fitters, secretaries etc etc I guess most have not been to Uni (some I know they havn't some I know they have some I just don't know) why are English children presumably of broadly similar IQ so incapable

Poverty of expectation, something Bonsoir said earlier about flaws in the system.....

I think experience and opinions are relevant not whether someone does international travel for work right now!

Yesterday I got an email from my aforementioned ex-employer inviting me to a professional event. It wasn't written in English and the event will not be in English. English is indeed the firm's mother-tongue but 80% of business in Europe is not conducted in English. How could if be when firms operate in national languages?

Arohaitis The Dutch I know all speak perfect English (well, some of them have a definite Canadian twang for reasons too complex to go into here) and often German too. They are all consultants or musicians though. The secretaries in our Dutch offices are mainly not Dutch. I don't know why.

Interesting that you think past experience is relevant but not current experience. However since I've been working internationally (including living abroad) for more than 20 years I have both past and current experience. :)

Mind you I would add that although I do not speak languages (much) I can read French,German, Dutch and Swedish in a functional sense (i.e. appropriate to my needs). Many of my colleagues have picked up similar skills (and many of our less senior (for a reason) overseas colleagues also have far superior reading language skills to listening/speaking ones). I don't think this necessarily proves or disproves anything but I think it is interesting when you consider the focus that is placed on speaking and listening in the current GCSE MFL courses.

Bonsoir I got two invitations to professional/political (essentially, exploring the nexus where the two meet. We live in interesting times right now) events taking place in Brussels this morning. The emails were in English, the events will be held in English. All the speakers (from a variety of countries) will be speaking in English. Even the French ones.

Local business may well be conducted in the local language (although in some countries where there is more than one local language it can still often be transacted in English) but transactional business is conducted in English.

TransNATIONAL. You'd think my laptop would have that word drummed into its spellchecker because it is one of my most frequently written words. But no.

Brussels functions in English (of sorts) in order to avoid offending French or Flemish speakers and in order to reduce translations. That is a Brussels oddity, not a sign that English has overtaken continental Europe.

Indians please point me to the place where I said current experience was not relevant?

I wonder whether your meetings/work places are more in English precisely because it is technical? English is the language of science medicine etc

Thankfully I am still some way away from needing to revisit GCSE MFL exams (although funnily enough we were recently talking about IB or the Cambridge international exams maybe being a better bet) ha ha for this thread