There is an interesting feature story to be found here on billionaires who dropped out of formal education. The list includes Dhirubhai Ambani and Bill Gates, of course, but there are many others, like Subhash Chandra of Zee.
Makes you wonder about the popular myth, sustained by governments and their apologists, that "education" is essential for economic success.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
All over the world, highly educated college professors are poor.
Sportspersons, musicians, actors and other performers – often with little education – are rich.
To succeed in the market economy one needs just one "fragment of knowledge" to call one's own. Sachin Tendulkar knows cricket; he need not know anything else. Johnny B Goode plays the guitar; he can be "rationally ignorant" of all else. If you know how to make good pizza, you can easily get by without formal schooling. And possibly be richer than the school topper, too.
The formal school education system imparts "generalized" knowledge, of little use when it comes to earning a living. If you study continuously for 15 years, you can access only limited professions: like medicine, engineering, baboodom, accountancy, science, management, the law and so on.
The market economy is an arena that rewards various other types of knowledge – the VJs and DJs, tattoo artists, performers, sportspersons, chefs. And, of course, entrepreneurs. The story referred to above showcases billionaire entrepreneurs who made it despite dropping out. Thus, there is much that can be learnt outside the formal education system, and there is also much that cannot be taught formally. Successful entrepreneurs rarely have an MBA degree.
I therefore place economic freedom higher than formal "education." With economic freedom, much more real knowledge will get employed in markets, and more people will achieve economic success.
Young people who do not enjoy what they are studying in school and college would be better off dropping out. Instead, they should "seek a calling" and find knowledge relevant to that calling. This specialized fragment of knowledge will enable them to succeed in life.
I too am proud to be a dropout: I opted out of my MA in Economics at the Delhi School of Economics in 1978. I am self-taught.
I second you! Also as a drop out of Delhi School of Economics 2006
ReplyDeleteProbably, the worst years of my life was going to school in India (grade 8-10), not only was it utterly boring, but true tortute....there is a lot for the police to learn from teachers