20070329EconomicForumReports

Last year, we held first place in both reports. This year we've dropped to sixth place in the Global Competitiveness Report and seventh in the Global Information Technology Report. Not surprisingly, our education system got singled out (particularly math and science) for it's poor quality. Unfortunately, it seems likely that there's going to be another witch hunt and that teachers are probably going to be blamed for something that's mostly not really their fault.

How are our teachers expected to give a high quality education, when they're loaded down with accumulated detritus? Junk such as the US customary measurement system really needs to be removed from the curriculum in order to streamline it into something that's effective for out students and their future employers or employees. At the moment, we have to teach metric measures as extra part of math and science that's often quickly forgotten due to lack of use in the wider community (unfortunately, university lecturers often end up having to re-teach it to students before they can go on to teach the actual content in modern science courses).

If we're going to remain the foremost country in technology and competitiveness, we have to ensure that our children are getting a good education that's not hampered by ancient measurements and get rid of the penalties we're currently incurring in everything from science to manufacturing by using two sets of measurement systems. Not only is the current system a waste huge amounts of precious learning time, it also means that our students don't have a good grasp of metric measures when they finish their education (sometimes even at the tertiary level) and are not truly prepared for the global workplace. Countries that don't have to deal with antiquated measuring systems have more time to teach their students useful life skills in class and get into more depth at a junior level instead of re-teaching the basics of measurement every few years. From the business and manufacturing side, they don't have to deal with conversion errors (not to mention the time wasted actually doing the conversions in the first place) and manufacturing for two different measuring systems.

As a country, it's time to get over the fears and senseless nationalism surrounding metrication and finish the job. Done properly, we can finish metrication in 5 years. If we continue the way we are, this issue is going to haunt the next generation as well.