Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Education

Translator: 549690339 |

Seeing Minister Pierre decisively agreeing to his request, Arthur nodded contentedly and laughed, “Minister Pierre, as long as you can successfully complete this three-year plan, your merits will undoubtedly be great. But do not forget one thing, while developing our steel industry, don’t forget to build other industries that we need.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Pierre nodded solemnly.

“Industrial development burns money quickly, Minister Pierre. I’m allocating you twelve million pounds in funds, to be paid off in three years. All the industrial equipment will also be handed over to you. I’m looking forward to seeing your achievements,” Arthur said, laughing.

With adequate industrial equipment, twelve million pounds in funds over three years, which equates to four million pounds per year, is certainly not low.

“Yes, Your Highness! I promise to complete the task!” Minister Pierre stood up vigorously, speaking very solemnly to Arthur.

“Well, now that the industrial sector’s plan has been temporarily finalized, it’s time for the education sector, right? As the saying goes, education makes a country prosperous. With a large number of talents invested in the country’s development and construction, Australia will truly have the hope of rising.” Arthur turned his gaze to Minister of Education Richard Noble Chapman, asking with a smile.

“Your Highness, our country’s education situation is currently very backward, with only just over 60% literacy rate. This doesn’t seem like much, but our primary school graduation rate is only 51%, with nearly half of the people not even graduating from primary school. This is partly due to our low per capita income, where some people cannot afford the cost of education. It is also because the current education environment in Australia is very poor, and we do not have enough schools to accommodate all the school-aged children.” Minister of Education Richard Noble Chapman stood up, saying with a bitter smile.

Although Minister Richard had done a good job in education in Tasmania State, it does have a smaller population, which greatly reduces the difficulty of developing education.

Looking at the whole of Australia, to completely solve the education problem, in addition to building enough schools to accommodate students, it is also necessary to reduce tuition and miscellaneous fees as much as possible so that most Australian families can afford the tuition.

“Does the Ministry of Education have any good solutions?” Arthur inquired.

Arthur is also aware of the education situation in Australia.

Logically speaking, most of Australia’s population should be European immigrants and therefore have a high level of education.

But in reality, most of these people are gold diggers attracted by the gold mines and the gold rush. These people were also poor in Europe and couldn’t afford to eat, so they traveled across the ocean to Australia in search of opportunities to survive or even get rich.

Under these circumstances, the fact that both the literacy rate and primary school graduation rate in Australia can be maintained at over half is already an unexpected result.

“Your Highness, I believe that our current education policy should prioritize the development of basic education and quickly improve the literacy rate and the popularization of basic education. According to the general trend, with the construction and development of our country, a large number of high-income positions will be born. These positions generally have one thing in common: they involve some specialized knowledge and fields. Although our basic education cannot teach the workers these skills, at least when they come into contact with them, they can adapt more easily,” Minister Richard explained.

A person with a knowledge and cultural reserve is more likely to learn new things faster than someone without a reserve.

Australia must be home to many technical positions in the future, and Australians will naturally be responsible for these positions.

It also means that the government must now rapidly improve the knowledge and culture level of the Australian people as quickly as possible, and at least greatly increase the literacy rate so that they can adapt quickly when they take on these positions in the future.

“Well, go on,” Arthur agreed, nodding and motioning Minister Richard to continue.

“Your Highness, the priority of basic education also has another advantage – that the demand for scientific research equipment and teacher reserves is not so urgent. I think our primary task is to quickly popularize basic education in Australia, at the same time, concentrate some funds to build a key university, which can meet the domestic vacancy of universities, and also become the cradle of our future talent. If this university has a large amount of research funds, it may also contribute to our talent recruitment work in Europe,” Minister Richard said with a smile.

European countries have done a great job in education, with universities training a large number of talents every year.

But because of this, there will always be some frustrated talents who are dissatisfied with their treatment and seeking other ways for their dreams.

If Australian universities offer a large amount of research funds to all talents, it will definitely attract some scientists who are passionate about research but cannot get much research funding to conduct research in Australia.

Once these talents come to Australia, it becomes easy to control them.

This is also the purpose of Minister Richard’s proposal of unlimited funding for university research – to attract talent to Australia through a large amount of research funds.

“Well, how much funding does the Ministry of Education need in total? How long will it take to see the results of basic education construction?” Arthur asked.

Minister Richard’s proposal is excellent, not only can it save resources for the government as much as possible, but it can also improve Australia’s education situation, and even attract talents to Australia in the future.

However, before seeing the actual results, all this is ultimately just empty talk.

“Your Highness, if we are only popularizing basic education, we need to build urban and rural primary schools in various cities and states. As the scale varies, so does the funds needed. According to my conservative estimate, the funds needed for popularizing basic education will be around two million pounds. The construction of primary schools will be completed in half a year and the education environment will be improved in one year,” Minister Richard thought for a while before slowly saying.

“What about the cost of building a university?” Arthur inquired.

No matter what, the construction of a university, the cradle for cultivating top talents, must be carried out, even if the cost is high.

Therefore, the cost of university construction must also be included and executed as soon as possible.

“Your Highness, just the cost of building an advanced university may be around a million pounds. If we include the funds needed for purchasing research equipment and recruiting talent, a conservative estimate is two million pounds,” Minister Richard thought for an even longer time before finally giving a surprising answer.