It's the knowledge economy, stupid

Wednesday 1st August 2001

Or is it?

One of the best newspaper cartoons to have been published in recent years appeared the Christmas before last in The New Zealand Herald. It showed three wise men on camels trekking east, following a star, looking for salvation. The joke, of course, was that the riders happened to be faculty members at the University of Auckland. They were heading east for the greener pastures of the United States.

The cartoon really ought to have been republished as part of the promotional material for the "Catching the Knowledge Wave" conference, which is being convened by the same university, in partnership with the government. Not only is the picture a challenge in its own right, it also says a lot about the very problem the gathering should be addressing.

Prime Minister Helen Clark has said the conference will build on the themes of innovation and the knowledge society that featured in this year's Budget. Terrific. Economic case studies from overseas will be presented to an estimated 450 participants, including politicians, business leaders, trade unionists, community workers and civil service bores. Marvellous. Keynote guests have been drawn from such countries as Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Singapore and the US. One hopes that at least one of the international guest speakers has the courage to come right out and say that the reason their cultures have economically succeeded where ours has failed is because theirs are pro-intellect, while ours most emphatically is not.

On the New Zealand front, most of the speakers have been drawn - but of course - from das capital. Organisers are hoping their wisdom will inspire the country to finally find a way to halt and reverse its quarter-century slide into economic inauspiciousness and international irrelevancy.

Disturbingly, however, the promotional material features only the predictable nativist logo, as well as a list of luminaries who, on closer inspection, appear to have spent precious little of their lives in the dynamic private sector they will no doubt vaunt as a cure-all for the nation's problems. Will any of them get around to addressing New Zealand's chronic problem of retaining the best and brightest academics - the arbiters of any future knowledge economy - and the direct bearing this continues to have on our current global status as a stupidity economy?

Our scholars and researchers are decamping for institutions in Europe and North America, because, they have said, their own universities lack inspiration and research funding. Some local newspapers have even begun listing the names of academics known to have left the country, publishing their professional details in the same way they publish lists of victims of crime. Which, in a sense, you could say they are.

The local speakers at the conference, in fact, appear to be very much the usual slew of suspects, among them the Prime Minister and a number of her cabinet offsiders, political commentator Colin James, Business Roundtable chief executive Roger Kerr and Reserve Bank governor Don Brash. What the devil will they have to say that hasn't already been said many times before? Will they present a timetable for national change, a scheme for incorporating ideas from the conference into New Zealand at large? Will any of them offer anything of passing relevance to university education in general?

To her credit, the Prime Minister has never made any secret of her disquiet at the ever-yawning gap in educational performance among New Zealanders and their international counterparts. Although this country boasts one of the world's best publicly funded school systems, it lags behind all its major trading partners in post-secondary education. Fewer than 11% of our 3.8 million population have successfully completed a university education compared with 49% of Americans, and nearly as many Irish and Israelis. Despite the fact that the proportion of households with computers and internet access in New Zealand ranks as one of the world's highest, we continue to lag behind in translating this technological literacy into significant economic gain. The information technology sector accounts for just 7% of gross national product. Expenditure on research and development is a joke.

One of the worst-kept secrets among Wellington's educational planners and officials is that despite gene-ral recognition of the country's shortcomings as a brain-based economic power, nobody has the faintest clue how to improve it. The conference's programme could, if it isn't careful, reflect as much: here a well-meaning natter from Colin James, there a lecture from the Singaporeans, somewhere else a word of economic piety from Don Brash. The standing ovations will be given, the tubs of shrimp devoured, the tax dollars spent - and all the while, the drumbeat of hooves will sound ever more loudly as our wise men continue to head east. Or will it be something better?

Kate Wrath

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