Chapter 629 Education
Austrian businessmen plan to bring East African students to Austria to work as workers. This contrast is actually not surprising, just like many Filipino maids in the past had university degrees. In addition, East Africa itself has promoted compulsory education at the secondary school level, but the local area cannot absorb it, and many still have to engage in agriculture, so going to Austria to work as an industrial worker is also a good choice.
Middle school students in East Africa who have academic qualifications, a certain level of cultural literacy, and most importantly, speak German, can become high-quality industrial workers with just a little training. Moreover, their prices are definitely lower than those of Austrian talents with the same level of academic qualifications, so they are cost-effective. Therefore, this is very reasonable.
"Mayor Kranis, I would like to ask, have all your cities in East Africa achieved universal compulsory education like Mogadishu?" Austrian businessman Trell still does not quite believe that East Africa has the ability to popularize compulsory education at the secondary school level throughout the country.
No matter how small Mogadishu is, it is the capital of a province in East Africa, so its status is very different from that of ordinary cities, so it is not surprising that there is a middle school there.
Mogadishu has an urban population of less than 10,000 people, so it is indeed a small city, so one middle school is enough.
The first baby boom in East Africa happened about ten years ago. In another four or five years, this new generation will be old enough to go to middle school. By then, the number of middle school students in East Africa will see a qualitative leap.
The city of Mogadishu will not be affected because East Africa annexed and developed the northern province much later than the eastern province, and this was even more so for the inland and southern regions, which were even later than the city of Mogadishu.
However, even so, there are still many secondary school students in East Africa, with more than 1.7 million (age range of approximately 12 to 17 years old), which is more than the population of some small countries. About 300,000 students graduate each year.
There are several main aspects for East Africa to absorb middle school students. One is to continue their studies. Several local universities cannot recruit many people. The number of local college students in school has not yet exceeded 10,000, with only more than 3,000 people. The schools they go to only recruit about 100 people per grade, and the entire school has only a few hundred people. In addition, there are 4,000 international students every year, which adds up to more than 7,000 people.
This number is not small. You should know that when Germany was unified in 1871, there were only more than 13,000 students with higher education in the country. By 1880, the number of college students in Germany had grown to more than 20,000. It was quite difficult for East Africa to accumulate such a large fortune.
This is because East Africa is a German country. Otherwise, there would be no way to send international students there. Monarchy countries like Germany, Austria, and Sweden are important destinations for international students from East Africa.
For example, Japan can only send thousands of international students to Europe and the United States every year, and the price is not cheap. However, East Africa has several friendly countries to cooperate with for international students, which greatly saves costs and has more places.
The second is the military, with the navy being the largest part. The naval and army academies, namely the Hechingen Military Academy and the Ferdinand Naval Academy, account for a certain share and belong to the military system.
The third is factories. Factories absorb a part of the workforce, but in areas like Mogadishu where there is no industry, there is no relevant demand. Ordinary people with low education or even no education are able to complete most of the work. Industrial cities such as Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and Mbeya absorb much more workers.
Kranis didn't think much about it, and just said in response to Terrell's question: "Of course, the compulsory education in East Africa is very popular and started relatively early. Although it is not as developed as the developed areas of your Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is much better than those backward areas. Basically, every city in East Africa has popularized compulsory primary and secondary education."
The only regions with more mature compulsory education in the Austro-Hungarian Empire than in East Africa are Austria, the Czech Republic and other regions. Hungary is slightly worse. The level of popularization in other economically backward regions cannot be compared with that in East Africa.
“How many cities in East Africa have universal compulsory education at the secondary level?”
"Of course, all of them. Maybe some remote areas or undeveloped areas have not yet achieved universal compulsory education. However, many older cities will have no problem. Schools will be built immediately after construction in every city, so every city in East Africa has a middle school."
Kranis didn't know how to explain to Trail the difference between East African administrative cities and European cities, because East African cities, like the Far Eastern empires of the previous life, also managed a large number of territories, including towns and villages, while European cities and villages were clearly divided.
Because of this, Kranis does not know how many cities there are in East Africa. However, according to European standards, the number must be no less than fifty. After all, there are more than twenty provincial capitals alone. Some provinces are well developed and have more cities. For example, the Central Province has six cities.
Moreover, the administrative divisions of East Africa often change. Take Plateau Province as an example. Plateau Province includes the original Plateau Province, Kilimanjaro Province, South Great Lakes Province, (old) Hohenzollern Province, and the grassland area in the regional era. Therefore, there are five cities in Plateau Province that have served as provincial capitals or regional capitals.
However, the frequent changes in administrative divisions also show that the self-regulation ability of East African countries is currently in a healthy state. After all, East Africa is a new country, and its territory is frequently expanding, and the original administrative divisions will not keep up with the development of the times.
What Trail wanted to ask was not this, but the specific number of cities in East Africa, so that he could calculate the number of middle school students in East Africa, but he subconsciously ignored the issue of the existence of rural middle schools in East Africa.
Although they visited the No. 1 Middle School in Mogadishu, Mogadishu is a provincial capital and an ancient city, so the existence of a middle school did not surprise the Austrians.
However, Trayer did not quite believe what Kranis had said before about universal compulsory education at the secondary level throughout the country, even after visiting Mogadishu No. 1 Middle School.
This is the prejudice of Europeans. Although East Africa calls itself a German country, this does not affect the stereotype of East Africa held by traditional German countries such as Germany and Austria, which is that East Africa is just a colony. Even though its area is larger now, it is nothing more than a larger colony.
After all, even top powers like the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not fully popularize compulsory education at the primary level. How can a colony like you in East Africa go a step further and promote compulsory education at the secondary level throughout East Africa?
This point actually makes sense. Whether East Africa can be considered to be promoting compulsory education at the secondary level remains to be verified. At least from the European standards, secondary schools in East Africa can only be considered semi-finished products. The expenditure on compulsory education at the secondary level in East Africa is not much more than that at the primary level. It is nothing more than preparing five more years of textbooks and doubling the number of teachers.
If Kranis knew what was going on in Traylor's mind, he would have certainly refuted it. East Africa could certainly not compete with the Austro-Hungarian Empire economically, but politically the Austro-Hungarian Empire might not be much stronger than East Africa.
Take compulsory education for example. It is not entirely a matter of economics, but also a political achievement project that tests a country's government's ability to allocate resources. In this regard, East Africa is much stronger than the noisy Austro-Hungarian Empire.
It can be imagined that if East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire carried out national mobilization at the same time, East Africa would completely defeat the current Austro-Hungarian Empire in terms of efficiency and scale, because the populations of the two countries are now at the same level.
East Africa also attaches great importance to standardization, including public infrastructure such as telegraphs, railways, and roads. In contrast, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a wide variety of railway gauges alone, and various telegraph companies operated independently. In other words, East Africa's territory is too large, which may hinder its operating mechanism in this regard.
But on the other hand, the land area has given East Africa a great sense of security, and it can effectively use space to exchange for time. Tsarist Russia must have been well aware of this. The two countries have more difficulty in building roads and railways than other countries, after all, the amount of work is larger.
(End of this chapter)
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