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Many graduates earn ‘paltry returns’ for their degree

    Mr Halfon, a former skills minister, stated in his speech that the nation has “become obsessed ______(1) full academic degrees”.

    “We are creating a higher education system that overwhelmingly favours academic degrees, while intermediate and higher technical offerings are comparatively tiny. The labour market does not need an ever-growing supply of academic degrees. Between a fifth and a third of our graduates take non-graduate jobs. The extra return for having a degree varies wildly according to subject and institution. For many, the returns are paltry.”

    Mr Halfon said that there is a strong need for intermediate skills. “There are skills shortages in several sectors. And there are millions ______(2) people who want to get on in life – preferably without spending £50,000 on academic degrees,” he added. “There has been growing concern about the amount of debt students are accumulating and the interest being charged on that debt.”

    A spokesman for UUK (a representative organisation for the UK’s universities) said: “Official figures are clear that, on average, university graduates continue to earn substantially more than non-graduates and are more likely to be in employment. A university degree remains an excellent investment.”

    “We must, however, be careful to avoid using graduate salaries as the single measure of success in higher education. Many universities specialise in fields such ______(3) the arts, the creative industries, nursing and public sector professions that, despite making an essential contribution to society and the economy, pay less on average.”

Adapted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42923529

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Learn to code, it’s more important than English as a second language

    Apple CEO Tim Cook says coding is the best foreign language that a student in any country can learn. The tech executive made the remarks to French outlet Konbini while in the country for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. The tech leader gave some brief thoughts on education:

    “If I were a French student and I were 10 years old, I think it would be more important for me to learn coding than English. I’m not telling people not to learn English in some form – but I think you understand what I am saying is that this is a language that you can use to express yourself to 7 billion people in the world. I think that coding should be required in every public school in the world.”

    Of course, it’s in Cook’s best interest to have the world learning how to code. He runs a tech company that depends on access to a constantly growing pipeline of talent. But it could be in your interest too: studying coding could increase your chances of pulling in a big salary. A computer-science education, at least in countries like the US, is one of the most viable and lucrative career paths open to young people today.

    But, Cook says, the benefits go beyond that. “It’s the language that everyone needs, and not just for the computer scientists. It’s for all of us”. He added that programming encourages students of all disciplines to be inventive and experimental: “Creativity is the goal. Coding is just to allow that. Creativity is in the front seat; technology is in the backseat. With the combination of both of these you can do such powerful things now.”

Adapted from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/apple-ceo-tim-cook-learning-to-code-is-so-important.html

                             Switzerland’s invisible linguistic borders

      There are four official Swiss languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh, an indigenous language with limited status that's similar to Latin and spoken today by only a handful of Swiss. A fifth language, English, is increasingly used to bridge the linguistic divide. In a recent survey by Pro Unguis, three quarters of those queried said they use English at least three times per week.

      In polyglot Switzerland, even linguistic divisions are divided. People in the German-speaking cantons speak Swiss-German at home but learn standard German in school. The Italian spoken in the Ticino canton is peppered with words borrowed from German and French.

      Language may not be destiny, but it does determine much more than the words we speak. Language drives culture, and culture drives life. In that sense, the Rõstigraben is as much a cultural border as a linguistic one. Life on either side of the divide unfolds at a different pace, Bianchi explained. “[In my opinion] French speakers are more laid-back. A glass of white wine for lunch on a workday is still rather usual. German speakers have little sense of humour, and follow rules beyond the rigidity of the Japanese."

      The cultural divide between Italian-speaking Switzerland and the rest of the country - a divide marked by the so-called Polentagraben - is even sharper. Italianspeakers are a distinct minority, accounting for only 8% of the population and living mostly in the far southern canton of Ticino. “When I first moved here, people told me, Ticino is just like Italy except everything works’, and I think that's true,” said Paulo Gonçalves, a Brazilian academic who has been living in Ticino for the past decade.

      Coming from a nation with one official spoken language, Gonçalves marvels at how the Swiss juggle four. “It is quite remarkable how they manage to get along,” he said, recalling going to a conference attended by people who spoke French, German, Italian and English. "You had presentations being given in four different languages in the same conference hall.’’

      Living in such a multilingual environment "really reshapes how I see the world and imagine the possibilities,” Gonçalves said. “I am a significantly different person than I was 10 years ago.”

      Switzerland’s languages are not evenly distributed. Of the country’s 26 cantons, most - 17 - are German speaking, while four are French and one Italian. (Three cantons are bilingual and one, Grisons, trilingual.) A majority of Swiss, 63%, speak German as their first language.

                                                                      (Abridged from http ://www.bbc.com)