So if I buy an expensive box of breakfast cereal and it turns out nobody in the house wants it, I should sue the shop that sold it to me?

Maybe I missed something.

Perhaps this is why the smart money is in Scientology and Hillsong.

After all, if your members fail to "clear" their Thetans for the next life, or fail to get into heaven - they can't exactly sue you, can they?

:D

But seriously, schools and universities have nothing to fear from well-heeled parents litigating, if they just apply a bit of hard-nosed commercial nous (granted, this is in short supply in most schools). After all, if these families are going to insist upon treating education as a product and a private consumer good, then the principles of caveat emptor will apply.

It cuts both ways.

Applying the principle of buyer beware to the experience of FMP81: if FMP81’s parents had done their homework, they might have learnt sooner that in Australia (and the USA, and Ireland, and the UK), education at the “right” university or in the “right” qualification has never really been a guarantee of getting the “right” job, and was never intended to be.

However, the educational cultures of Japan, Germany and France are somewhat different, and in those countries most universities have direct links with employers and tailor-make their degrees accordingly. (Also, it’s a two-way street as the employers adjust their training programs to the level of the graduates they know they will get.)

It’s not quite so cut-and-dried as I’ve portrayed it, but it’s a definite tendency that has been empirically supported in a number of substantial comparative OECD studies.

So if FMP81’s parents were looking for a rolled-gold career matched to a tertiary education degree, they would have been better off sending their children to Japan or Germany.

Perhaps price also had something to do with the decision...?

At bottom, FMP81’s experience looks like a case of expectation mismatch. It is unfortunate, but hardly surprising, if people misread the cultural cues of a foreign country or assume that the way education works in their country will be the equivalent here in Australia. Buyer beware? Or do the education marketers need to manage expectations more carefully? Probably a bit of both...

What a load of nonsense.It is about time the learners and the educators took responsibility for their own actions.To bring the notion of litigious,parasitical lawyers as a solution to educational standards,just demonstrates how bereft we all have become of original ideas and innovation.

Get the lawyers involved and they will destroy education,just as they have destroyed the social frabric in our society by selling us rights,rather than pushing the notion of personal responsibility.

Education is a two way street,both the learner and the educator have to dedicated.This happens because of the ethics and dedication of our society in general,not because of the scum sucking bottom feeders that dwell in the weakness of our humanity.

People have been threatening schools with the possibility of litigation for decades. But it hasn't gone very far, and is not likely to.

What education aims at is complex (and highly contended). What methods are teaching are appropriate are also highly contentious. The causes of any student's outcome include the nature, aptitude and attitudes of the student, the attitudes (and education) of the parents, and government policies and policy changes.

Except in the case of quite ludicrous irresponsibility, it will be extraordinarily hard to demonstrate on the balance of probabilities that it was the failure of a teacher or of a school to act in a particular fashion has produced an inferior result.

As for universities, the long bitter struggle to maintain standards--or rather to slow their decline--continues. It is a struggle against governments, treasury and education departments, and often vice-chancellors as well. And then there are go-getting collegues.

Even so, I don't know of a university which guarantees jobs.

<humour>
It's about time people like Arjay stopped blaming the lawyers for destroying "the social fabric of our society" and accepted "the notion of personal responsibility" for it.

It's the lawyer-blaming attitudes of people like Arjay who have led us to today's degenerate society where nobody takes personal responsibility for anything.

If only those "scum sucking bottom feeders" hadn't started "selling" us the foolish notion that we have rights, then those pesky asbestos victims would be put right back in their place and leave great companies like James Hardie alone.
</humour>

Jus' keeping you ideologically pure, Arj.

Arjay,

Hi,

"our society by selling us rights,rather than pushing the notion of personal responsibility"

If we rearrange your words a littl,e we can ask for rights to personal responsibility. Both as a student and a university lecturer, I have seen some pretty poor peers in both camps. I see nothing wrong with failing an under performing student nor suing an underforming university.

It is a two way street.