網絡公開課無法解決美國教育危機

Optimists have scoured the dictionary for superlatives to describe the future of internet education. But the cult of the Mooc – massive online open courses – took a blow last week when one of its leading Silicon Valley pioneers, Sebastian Thrun, described it as a “lousy product”.

對於互聯網教育的未來，樂觀者用盡了詞典中所有最高級形容詞予以讚美。然而，對大型開放式網絡課程(Massive Online Open Courses，簡稱MOOC)的崇拜最近遭遇了一次巨大打擊：該領域的硅谷先驅之一塞巴斯蒂安•特倫(Sebastian Thrun)稱其爲一種“十分糟糕的產品”。

Students taking Mr Thrun’s online courses at Udacity performed far worse – and dropped out in far higher numbers – than those with a human instructor. Mr Thrun, who invented the self-driving car, is at least temporarily dropping out of the business. Luddites everywhere will be feeling vindicated.

在特倫的Udacity網站註冊在線課程的學生，成績遠遠差於那些當堂聽課的學生，退課的比例也大得多。曾經發明自動駕駛汽車的特倫，至少暫時退出了這一業務。對此，世界各地反對技術進步的人將覺得自己的觀點被證明正確。

Yet the need to reinvent US education is more pressing than ever. If America’s college dropout rates are not persuasive enough – nearly half of US students fail to complete their four-year degree within six years – the fate of those who make it ought to be. Graduate earnings have fallen 5 per cent since 2000. The college premium is still there but only because the earnings of those with a high-school diploma have dropped by far more. Meanwhile, the costs of getting a degree continue to rise, which means the trade-off of taking on ever larger debt to boost future earnings keeps getting weaker.

然而，重塑美國教育的需求比以往任何時候都更加迫切。如果美國大學的退學率還不足以說明問題（近半數美國學生未能在6年內完成4年期的本科學位課程），那麼成功完成學業的大學生的遭遇應該能說明問題。自2000年以來，美國畢業生的收入下跌了5%。大學帶來的收入溢價依然存在，但只是因爲只有高中文憑的人收入降幅更大。與此同時，獲得學位的成本在繼續上漲，這意味着爲提高未來收入而揹負更多債務的取捨越來越難了。

This is where online education comes in. Moocs can drive down costs to almost zero. Yet they will be hard-pressed to fix the cost problem if more than 90 per cent of their enrollees lose interest, which was the outcome of Udacity’s much-hyped experiment. This is twice the attrition of mainstream students.

這正是在線教育能夠發揮作用的地方。MOOC能把教育成本壓低到接近於零的地步。然而，如果超過90%的公開課註冊者失去對課程的興趣（這一比例是主流教育方式的兩倍），他們必然爲解決成本問題而焦頭爛額。

Yet it makes only marginal difference whether a student gets his or her education from a computer or a real live human if the content is irrelevant to the jobs market. As the economist Tyler Cowen argues in his seminal book, Average is Over , there is a larger crisis in what US students are being taught. Content, rather than medium, is the problem.

然而，如果課程內容與就業市場無關，學生所受教育來自電腦還是來自真人只會有很小的差別。正如經濟學家泰勒•考恩(Tyler Cowen)在他有巨大影響的《平均時代的終結》(Average is Over)一書中所稱的，美國課堂裏講授的內容存在更大的危機。內容纔是問題所在，而不是媒介。

Washington’s mindset is about getting students to be more like machines. But humans are destined to lose the race against the robots – just ask any chess grandmaster. The goal of education ought to be to complement rather than outrun the power of computers. Those unconvinced by Mr Tyler’s plea for a revival of humanities should take a look at the US jobs market. According to the Harvard Business Review, the US has shed 750,000 jobs in the information sector since the turn of the millennium – second only to manufacturing in percentage terms. Yet information is precisely the sector to which US college degrees are increasingly tailored.

美國政府的教育理念是讓學生更像機器一些。然而人類是註定要在比賽中輸給機器人的——只要問問那些國際象棋特級大師就知道了。教育的目標應該是彌補計算機能力的不足，而不是要超過計算機。那些對泰勒所提倡的復興人文學科不以爲然的人，應該看一看美國的就業市場。根據《哈佛商業評論》(Harvard Business Review)的數據，自新千年以來，美國信息產業領域失去了75萬個工作崗位，降幅僅次於製造業。然而越來越多的美國本科專業恰恰是面向信息產業的。

Given its implications, the HBR study has attracted less attention than it deserves. Its results show that Washington’s goal of boosting the share of Americans who study science, technology, engineering and maths – the so-called Stem subjects – may be ill-conceived. It also puts Moocs in their place. Moocs can reduce costs and broaden access, both of which are highly desirable. But they have no special insight into tomorrow’s labour market.

從其潛在影響看，《哈佛商業評論》的這份研究報告得到的關注太少了。這份報告的結果表明，美國政府提出的目標——提高攻讀理科、技術、工程及數學（所謂“STEM”學科）的人羣比例——的出發點可能錯了。這一研究結論也將MOOC打回原形。MOOC能降低教育成本和擴大接受教育的人羣，這兩大優勢都是非常可取的。但它們對明日的就業市場並沒有特別的洞察力。

The trends in today’s jobs market should be startling enough. Since 2000, the number of US computer-related jobs, including hardware and software engineers, has fallen by more than 100,000, according to the HRB, while those in telecoms, including equipment and line installers, has dropped by a stunning 567,000. These are big growth sectors, in terms of revenue and margins. But they are also most vulnerable to automation. The same is true of jobs in telemarketing (down 44 per cent), electrical engineers (37 per cent) and desktop publishers (39 per cent).

如今的就業市場發展趨勢應該足夠令人震驚。根據《哈佛商業評論》，自2000年以來，美國與計算機有關的工作崗位（包括硬件和軟件工程師）數量減少了逾10萬個，而電信行業工作崗位（包括設備和線路安裝在內）減少了令人震驚的56.7萬個。就營收和利潤率來看，這些都是高增長行業。然而它們也是最容易受到自動化影響的行業。同樣的結論對於遠程銷售、電氣工程師和桌面出版行業也成立，它們的工作崗位分別減少了44%、37%和39%。

Contrast that with the jobs that grew. The number of library employees in America has risen a third since 2000. Jobs in acting were up 12 per cent, music directors and composers grew 35 per cent and writers and authors were up 6 per cent. Technology is reducing the need for most kinds of labour. At the same time it is vastly expanding the number of channels for creative output. That ought to make humanities – and the study of humans – more relevant. It makes no more sense for most people to study computer engineering than it does for air passengers to master avionics.

以上結論與那些出現增長的工作崗位形成反差。自2000年以來，美國圖書館員工的數目增加了三分之一。演藝類崗位增加了12%，音樂總監及作曲家增加了35%，而作家和文藝創作者增加了6%。技術進步正在降低多數工種的需求。與此同時，它爲創意產出開闢了更多渠道。這應該令人文學科（以及以人爲研究對象的學科）變得更加相關。對於多數人來說，學習計算機工程的意義並不比讓民航乘客掌握航空技術大。

Where does all this leave the Moocs? As the techno-optimists keep pointing out, we can now download the Library of Congress and Ivy League lectures for free. A few motivated groups, such as older employees trying to keep pace, reservists in the US military and ambitious youngsters in places such as India, tend to finish online degrees. But most people, including Mr Thrun’s enrollees, rapidly lose interest. The real challenge facing US educators, in other words, is to motivate the unenthused majority. This is far easier said than done. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

這一切使MOOC處於什麼地位呢？正如科技樂觀主義者不斷指出的，如今我們能免費下載整個美國國會圖書館(Library of Congress)的藏書和常青藤盟校(Ivy League)的課堂授課。少數有動力的人羣——比如試圖跟上時代的年長員工、美國軍隊的預備役人員以及印度等地有進取心的年輕人——傾向於完成在線學位課程。而包括特倫課程的註冊者在內的多數人會迅速失去興趣。換句話說，美國教育人士面臨的真正挑戰是如何鼓舞缺乏熱情的大多數人。這一點說起來容易，做起來可就難多了。你可以把馬牽到水邊，但你沒法強迫它喝水。

Insurance companies call America’s millennial generation the “invincibles”, because the young rarely worry about their health. But I prefer Mr Cowen’s moniker of the “limbo generation”, since they are worried sick about their financial prospects. The newest portion of the US workforce is saddled with more than $1tn of debts in a market that isn’t paying. Those who thrive in this less forgiving world will be savvy enough to tap the boundless resources they can get from Moocs in particular and the internet in general. Alas, Udacity’s setback reminds us that they are almost certainly in a minority. At best computers can offer a partial answer to America’s education crisis. Though we tend to cost more, the rest of it is down to human beings.

保險公司將美國新千年一代稱爲“不可戰勝的一代”，因爲這一代年輕人很少擔心自己的健康。不過我更喜歡考恩提出的那個綽號——“無着落的一代”，因爲他們對自己的財務前景擔心得很。美國最新一代的勞動者揹負着逾1萬億美元的債務，卻面臨一個薪資不怎麼樣的就業市場。在這個不那麼順當的世界如魚得水的人，將是那些足夠明智，能夠充分利用MOOC乃至整個互聯網的無限資源的人。可惜，Udacity的挫折提醒我們，這類人幾乎可以肯定是少數。往好了說，電腦只能解決美國教育危機的部分問題。其他問題還是要由人來解決——儘管人的成本往往更高。