We live in a world obsessed with communication. The captains of industry never seem to tire of articulating their vision. The first thing one sees in the lobbies of large companies is usually a marble plaque with mission statements crafted by language wizards who are experts in the use of buzzwords.
In most cases, the articulation of visions does not prove to be convincing. They are meant to create perceptions and in business, as in politics, perceptions often equate to reality. Visions are often not much more than dreams unless business and political leaders have both the will and the ability to make dreams come true. If any of these qualities is missing, dreams often end up becoming nightmares.
We are just approaching the end of the second decade of this millennium. In 2010, the then European Commission president José Manuel Barroso struck a triumphant tone when he launched the Europe 2020 vision document. The three pillars of this vision were inclusive growth, smart growth and sustainable growth. Europe 2020 was not much different from the Lisbon Strategy of a decade earlier.
The Lisbon Strategy key slogan was “making the EU the most competitive and knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010”. Who can deny that this objective was not much more than a dream of the Union leaders and their army of PR gurus? The reality is that despite some fringe improvements, the gap between politicians and ordinary European continued to grow. This is evidenced by the rise of populist parties that exploited the frustrations of people who lost faith in traditional parties of the right, left and centre who no longer understood the concerns of their electorate.
We risk living a nightmare in the next decade and beyond if we do not heed the message of the wake-up call educational and poverty statistics are sending us
EU political leaders blame the failure of the Lisbon Strategy objectives on the financial crisis that hit Europe in 2008. This is partially true. But the reforms undertaken after the crisis failed to address the fundamental weaknesses adequately in the way the European economies are being managed.
The Europe 2020 strategy has been unable to address rising unemployment, especially among young people. It also failed to tackle all the incentives in current tax systems and capital markets which encourage speculation and short-termism at the expense of long-term commitment to the real economy.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the Europe 2020 record is the failure of the EU economies to promote inclusive growth. European leaders seem to have accepted that the gap between the high earners and the working poor cannot be bridged in any significant way. The main reason behind this failure is the bad management of educational systems that is giving rise to some worrying trends in the increase of those at risk of poverty.
Political parties of the left are being penalised the most for this failure. Workers that traditionally supported social democratic parties have now either lost interest in voting or are following maverick populist leaders.
Levelling up the quality of life of unskilled or low-skilled workers seems to be no longer on the agenda of traditional social democratic parties. Why bother to undertake educational reforms that may take a whole generation to show results when there is juicier low-lying political fruit to be reaped?
The achievement levels of most EU countries are far behind the global best of breed benchmarks. This does not augur well for the next decade. The EC president may keep repeating the importance of investing in the green economy as the goal of the Union for the next decade, but unless educational standards are improved, Europe will continue to be a laggard in the global economic league.
We cannot afford to be passive or, even worse, complacent about our educational system and the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society. Some educational statistics are a deep cause of concern.
According to Eurostat, in 2018, 41 per cent of single-parent families with dependent children were in persistent at-risk-of-poverty, i.e. households with a level of income below the poverty threshold in at least three of the last four years. Only Lithuania has a worse record in the EU. What is even more worrying is that public opinion does not seem too concerned about this social travesty and the media only occasionally deals with this issue.
We risk living a nightmare in the next decade and beyond if we do not heed the message of the wake-up call educational and poverty statistics are sending us. Our children deserve much better.