I recently went to a wedding which was attended by a high number of Doctors who originated from Sri Lanka. They all grew up together and I was drawn into some of their stories.
The level of poverty that they lived in during 1950/60s was bleak, as you can imagine: Rivers used as open sewers, Rabid dogs and monkeys commonly encounted in the street, non existent food safety standards. Yet every single kid that they knew now had a university degree and upper middle class jobs somewhere in the west.
The value of education that their culture had was fierce. 8 hours + independent studying a day since they started school, enforced by their parents. No resources aside from government funded schools and textbooks, paper, pencils, the family dining table and a gas lamp after dark.
Why can’t we as a rich nation with near universal internet access even get many of our teenagers to read at age level, let alone graduate high school?
Not everyone has that same value of education and some have lost hope in the ability of this country to provide opportunity for all. I disagree with both, but that is what I see.
These Sri Lankans left their homeland for a better life. Our ancestors in America left their homeland and crossed the ocean knowing they would likely never return. Today many of their descendants refuse to leave their economically distressed areas because it is “home”. Something has been lost.
Students shy away from STEM fields because they are “hard”.
People rely on the government or unions to protect them, will little success.
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Why can’t we as a rich nation with near universal internet access even get many of our teenagers to read at age level, let alone graduate high school?
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The successes that you mentioned were likely the children of parents who strongly valued education and the pursuit of a career. Their community likely also shared those values.
Here, we naively assume that the community/govt alone valuing education is enough. It’s not. If the family does not also value education, and make sure their kids attend school and do their homework, then fewer kids will succeed.
The vast, vast majority of people never leave their homeland. It takes a certain type of individual to get up and leave. You have to have certain resources. You have to go through processes. It weeds out a lot of people.
Comparing the general population of poor here with the poor who came over isn’t a fair comparison.
The immigrants are not a representative sampling of Sri Lankan people. They are a selection of people filtered by the US immigration system, which has visa categories for skilled workers (e.g. physicians) and graduate students and their families. So you are seeing a sampling that is preselected by immigration for high educational attainment.
“The value of education that their culture had was fierce. 8 hours + independent studying a day since they started school, enforced by their parents.”
If OP has read the forum long enough he or she would know that majority if not the vast majority of forum members—and I imagine general public at large—do not appreciate such Asian educational approach, nor do they believe it should be rewarded in the college admission process.
I for one also do not share the view that such “fierce” approach by parents is in the best interest of children and is applicable in the context of US career development.
I didn’t ask why don’t all poor Americans get graduate degrees, that’s not vital for our economy.
What is vital is that everybody has the education level required to get jobs that provide a net surplus of tax revenue. But we don’t, too many people don’t graduate high school and rely on welfare.
What these Sri Lankan’s prove is that it’s actually very cheap to highly educate a child, they only really need access to a teacher and their own textbook to take home.
It feels like our education spending is inefficient.
^ You asked: Why do education outcome of skilled immigrants from developing nations differ to many of USAs poor?
It isn’t a fair comparison.
The people who immigrate from Sri Lanka are NOT just some random poor children. It’s not like we take everyone in Sri Lanka, throw them in a lottery, and randomly pick some to come to the US.
The ambitious apply. It’s why we have high rates of skilled immigration.
Also, I was relying on welfare even as a graduate student. I was an average welfare recipient: one who was on for a few years because I was broke and eventually earned off of it.
If this is the case (despite some difference in the base of age 15-64 versus adults versus age 25+), Sri Lankan Americans and their educational attainment and values with respect to education should not be seen as representative of Sri Lankan people overall.
Similar differences can be seen for many other Asian American ethnic groups compared to their countries of ancestral ethnic origin.
Sri Lanka has a population of 21 million. 45% of the population have incomes of under $5 a day. Education is free in Sri Lanka, including at public universities – so there is a very high literacy rate, but entrance into universities is extremely competitive – less than 16% of applicants who qualify get admitted to state universties, and of those only half graduate. However, the number of college grads far outweighs the employment opportunites within the country, so there are significant incentives to emigrate.
Sri Lanka has a wonderful record in education and has achieved near universal literacy, but education is compulsory only through age 14 (9th grade)-- average school attendance among students aged 15-19 is under 53% and 47% of students do not continue school beyond GCE O/L levels (10th grade). Average pass rate for GCE’s is 37%.
So when you meet a doctor who is an immigrant from Sri Lanka, you are meeting someone who is a product of that country and system, and came out on top.
You are not looking at representative sample – and you have to consider the context of the system they grew up with when you hear stories of the “fierce” pressure they had to study growing up. You were talking only to the cream of the crop – not the many who were weeded out by the stringent exam-focused system or who simply chose to quit earlier along the path. (Apparently less than 2% of the Sri Lankan population have college degrees)
We’ve tried for decades to spend our way out of this problem by throwing money at the education system. It doesn’t work because that is not fundamentally where the problems are.
Don’t get me wrong. Our education system is abhorrent for a large segment of our population.
IMO though, that is a completely different issue than the original question.
Because yes, if you don’t have a way of getting to school or a school building that’s safe or food in your stomach, no matter how much money we spend on “education,” that money is going into a dark hole of nothing.
Agree with the commenters here - the OP met some highly selected folks and it makes no sense to compare their outcomes to the general population of low-income families in the U.S. From post #10, one might ask why we can’t expect more from the Sri Lanka school system.
My two older brothers and I grew up in poverty in a foreign country just like the Sri Lankans mentioned in OP around the same period of time. My family valued education a lot as it was the only way to change our life. One of brother struggled in high school and could not graduate, however, he went through evening schools and part-time program while working to receive his associate degree many years later. He almost finished his bachelor degree at the age of 35 from an open university when he was diagnosed with cancer and forced him to quit. He passed away a few years later. My other brother took a gap year after high school to work before getting into a community college. Finally he received an MBA degree in a remote college program after working for 8-10 years. I was the more fortunate one that got into college immediately after high school with full financial aid support and then came to the US for a PhD degree decades ago.
Even neither of my brothers are top student or smart person, they value education very much and take every opportunity to learn. My remaining brother and I have immigrated to the US many years ago and have our families here. We taught our kids to do their best in school even they never experience poverty. That is properly a very common story among Asians.
The parents make a huge difference. My husband grew up in India in a very typical middle-class household. The ENTIRE emphasis of his childhood was education…going to the US…getting a job as an Engineer. That was seen as the way forward for the ENTIRE family. I now live in a neighborhood where almost ALL of my neighbors were raised with the same goals and the same pushing/support from parents.
If the parents are hyper-focused on education as a means to a high paying job…that will be the end result in almost all cases as far as I can tell.
Sometimes, it just depends on the kid. Education was emphasized heavily in my low-income family (with one immigrant, though not Asian, parent). One kid is going on to get a phd. The other made it through a few semesters of a local college before dropping out.
I don’t disagree that parents make a huge difference but I don’t think kids come out of the womb a blank slate. Some kids have academic drive, some don’t.
Again though, let’s assume that 90% of Sri Lankan parents push their kids in relatively the same way. There is still a reason why only 1% of them will ever immigrate to America (or anywhere else for that matter).Just like there is a reason that only a relatively small percentage of low income students ever go on to get degrees, let alone advanced degrees or high-powered jobs.
I used to work with kids in an ELL school. Most of our kids were refugees who came from Burma (that’s what the children called it, not Myanmar), Somalia, Egypt, Mexico, and Thailand. Some of those kids were already showing a lot of academic promise whereas others were not. Whether or not they were had absolutely no correlation to their nation of birth.
I recently had an eye exam from a doctor who grew up in poor conditions in Latin America. He said to me, “we don’t have poor in this country. You people have no idea what poor is.” He told me that the type of poverty he grew up in was his motivator.
@CValle’s #15 So the life goal of the smartest, most ambitious segment of the population is to leave their homeland? And the countries of origin do nothing to prevent the brain drain or to encourage successful emigrants to come back?