A topic for the NACT talk-fest. Needs a slogan for success.

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, January 15th, 2009 - 13 comments
Categories: education, flip-flop, humour, national, same old national - Tags: ,

My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up in the east, west, and south of the US and Canada. Probably something similar is happening here but we are unlikely to know until later this month.

The reason that this is significant is twofold. Entrants to the workforce are usually the first to notice that it is harder to get work, and people who are finding a problem getting work will often start to retrain. It also involves a significant investment of time and money (especially in the US). People who aren’t particularly committed to education will usually leave it at the bottom of the list. So you get extreme spikes in enrollment numbers when recessions start to bite hard. Usually this will happen earlier than unemployment figures show up.

Of course this usually increases the costs on the public purse and often elicits a rather daft cost-cutting response from right wing governments. Rather than treat this as an opportunity to upskill their workforce to reduce skills shortages in the next upturn, they start to cap enrollments. It would be great if our new and rather lethargic right wing government got proactive and increased funding prior to the need being retrospectively apparent.

Now we know that the NACT government responds best to having a meaningless phrase that they can craft legislation and programmes around. This appears to be the only common denominator for the flurry of undemjandals_web2.jpgocratic urgency in the house prior to Christmas. To my eye it looks like a short phrase was required for the checklist so that it could be ticked off. If the phrase was too long then it didn’t make it on the list.

However I can’t think of a good short slogan for “lets use the recession as an opportunity to upskill the workforce before the next bull market”. I feel that it is absolutely critical that we find a good one. Then JK and the rest of the lethargic NACT bunnies can sprout it off at their upcoming talk-fest and might actually do something useful. While it is unlikely that they can do much about jobs – they can do something about the upcoming education  shortfalls.

Anyone got a suggestion in the right wing style for a good slogan for our special flip-flopper?

13 comments on “A topic for the NACT talk-fest. Needs a slogan for success. ”

  1. ‘Smarter Kiwis for a brighter future’?

    ‘Investing in a more productive workforce’?

  2. Sam P 2

    “Flipping our floppers into Do-ers”

    “Smart thinking, underfunded training”

  3. “Flipping our floppers into Do-ers’

    brilliant

  4. You’re right on the money, We’re seeing a lot of stupidity about this where I am right now: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28628103/

    This week’s news is that the state universities are going to get hit hard. They’re even talking about reducing student numbers from other states — Berkley & UCLA aside. After all, it’s not as though having all the really good students from other states does anything for the quality of education experienced by the local students, does it?

    But, yeah, why not use this time to increase the skill levels of NZers, rather than waiting around for the next upturn and all the employers complaining about how we can’t get skilled NZers to do the work, and so we need to import more skilled workers…

  5. Today you learn or tomorrow you die!
    Adult Education: An inferior good for inferior people
    Let them eat calculus
    Become a qualified radiologist, moron.

  6. jason 6

    Save New Zealand, vote us out!

  7. lprent 7

    Danyl seems to have it. These are good right wing sentiments…

    “Learn to pull your weight” ?

    captcha: HOPELESS care
    Now that almost sounds workable.. In fact I can imagine the bloated one using that.

  8. Greg 8

    I found this analysis on why economic ‘stimulus’ is a joke. It pretty much sums up my opinions on the matter, but I’d like to hear a ruttal to it, if anyone has the time?

    Here’s the link: http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/01/bailouts-and-stimulus-plans.html

    The US is its subject, but I feel the concepts apply pretty well universally.

  9. Dr.Strangelove 9

    NACT ?

    How about MNAct – Maori and Act parties framing National ?

  10. SPC 10

    Upskilling in a downturn.
    Smart growth.
    Educating a Keynesian generation.
    Learning our way to productivity.
    Any fool can do a job (in a low wage economy).
    Think before you act.
    You are the national resource in development.
    Just give us the foreshore.

  11. DeeDub 11

    “Got jobs?”

  12. Phil 12

    My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up…

    Two points;
    Firstly, the first article mentions the effect of a price differential impact. In aggregate, total tertiary education enrollment may be doing nothing at all.

    Secondly, even if enrollments are increasing, isn’t it about the right time for grandkids of the baby-boomer generation to be enrolling? Maybe we can put this down to simple demographics?

  13. Akldnut 13

    How about

    Handle the Jandle!
    Get used to it!
    Make it happen!
    We talk the talk – you do the walk!
    Its now or never, don’t ask us!
    We didn’t create it so you fix it!
    It was here when we got here, so don’t blame us!

    a bit off track but it’s how I see it

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