Education

Access to education is the principle, not required education.

As can be seen in the LIFE Matrix, education can be provided at different layers in the community structure depending on the breath of need as well as the resources and sophistication required to provide it.

Primary general education in the basic skills of life (the 3 Rs and general life skills) is a Community level responsibility and need. It is more difficult to have an informed and involved citizenry if they cannot read or write, understand voting or use the information system.

At each successive higher level of education the curriculum becomes more specialized and requires more specialized teachers and facilities, as well as being likely to attract a smaller proportion of students. That suggests that higher education will be provided better when addressed to a larger population at a Region or State level. One can extrapolate the same logic to the most advanced research facilities where consolidation is more likely to be limited by issues such as language and are therefore likely best done at a State or Transterritorial layer.

Community

The primary provider of primary education has to be the Community. In most industrialized societies this infrastructure already exists, but is often underfunded.
As with all BASE services, the investment focus must at the lowest levels first and in education that means making sure that the primary, secondary and general education services at the Community level are fully supported.

Facilities

Considerable investment is needed in physical facilities for education and it makes sense that these investments in the Community infrastructure serve the population to the maximum extent possible.
Schools and associated facilities should be considered an open Community resource and maximum use made of them when they are not serving their primary purposes. Using these facilities to provide General Education can supplement the use of the Community Center.

General Education

One important need that many modern societies struggle to meet, is the need for adult and general education to maximize the citizenry’s ability to function in the modern, technological world.
This is a vital service that is key to the development and maintenance of an active, involved and informed citizenry and it is the Communities’ responsibility to ensure that the general education of all of their residents receives the appropriate focus, funding and facilities.
The curriculum and other related aspects of this are discussed at Topic – BASE – Education, your input is welcomed.
There is a great opportunity for Communities across Regions and States to arrange and participate in educational lecture tours in which the presenter of the material can go from Community to Community. The content could vary widely, Community Centers could provide facilities and there could even be a Transterritorial booking system that would allow each Community to cover the general education topics of particular interest to them.

Further Education

The more expensive and specialized the education gets, and the smaller the portion of the population interested in the subject, the more likely it is that such needs will be best met by services established at layers with larger constituencies. This is natural logic and already in play. and needs little change.
Perhaps the only factor worthy of note is to reiterate the natural impact that the structure of the Standards of LIFE will have. It is the perogative of Communities to promote their services and so it is the Communities that are effectively the ‘customers’ of BASE services delivered from any higher layer. This will result in facilities such as universities run at a Region or State level being dependent on providing the services demanded of them by the Communities they serve, for the funds necessary to run such facilities will come from the Communities. (The funds to cover the costs of providing BASE services are distributed to the Communities, and it is then up to them to decide what they would like to promote and fund.)

Specialized Education

The more advanced training needed by the specialists in a society, such as doctors, lawyers and technologists, is one of the largest investments we make, both for the society and for the individual. Yet many of the most advanced social benefits of modern society are dependant on these people, their skills and their education.
This needs to be balanced so that the costs of getting the training can be modified by the social benefits. To create this balance there needs to be a compensation system that relieves the individual of the personal cost of the specialized education they receive if they contibute back to the society. To create this balance there needs to be a system in place that allows graduates to receive relief of education expenses in proportion to the time spent in public service; approximately two years of public service for each year of education.