eConomic or eThical Crisis

I just couldn’t sleep tonight, it is always very overwhelming when I come to these agents workshops to see the schools and the agents tire themselves to make sure that they are doing the right thing for the “kido” that will eventually be the “bum on seat” who will learn and return home to become a member of the “knowledge society” that we are all here working towards.

Ok lets take it from the start. You have a dream of creating a knowledge society, but you are not a government, who has the control of all the resources, and of course you are not rich, which would mean you are not going to be in diamond exploration business rather in the dreamers business. Then the late nights, the midnight coffee, and the long working hours all year round starts. Your diary will be shaped to work around the school system, exhibitions will only happen when the young members of the knowledge society have exams, and then there are the trips to the various schools and colleges to determine quality, and the long night trying to match the requirements of the various countries and the accreditations and the long list of what students need to study and where. And then the student’s emails, and the phone calls. I counted on days we will be working for eighteen hours just to complete the tasks. Now of course we do not have seasons any more as we seem to be working nonstop all year round.

All of this is great if it bears the fruits. An agent or an education consultant ( as I prefer to call him/her) have devoted time and invested funds to make it easy for the students, parents and funding providers to travel to their destination quickly and to start their studies on time without delays and without interruptions. This consultant has passion for learning and passion for education and hence the long hours and the hard work are the stepping stones for the young learners.

The consultant have the responsibility to prove that he is here to facilitate the trip and be part of that learner till he or she complete his/her education and come back to become a member of the knowledge society that we are creating. In the mean time of course we need to receive the rewards of the hard work.

Does this happen? It could happen but not to every body. You would ask why not? Its only natural to assume that we are not in a perfect market. And if you studies economics this is a perfect question. Lets put things into perspective and figure out why:

1. There is the group who become agents for the wrong reasons:
Earn more money than usual
Get all the students
Get to the scholarship providers in any way
Charge the students gigantic amounts of money
Officials start to learn that agents make commissions so they want part of it too

2. And there is a group who are friends with counselors in various schools, and those counselors push the students there way.
3. And there is a group who lie and say that they are government or semi government just to be able to introduced to the kings and the queens
4. And there is us, grass root marketers who work for the student and choose for him/her what is best.
I think each one of us have contributed to the economic crisis in one way or another, however because we are in the education field, we must not create an ethical crisis too. which country can survive if both of these elements are infected?