Hi to my less-than-numerous readers,
Yes, we are back from our 2 months trip to Asia, and the kids are now back in school. With all these new found free hours, I have no excuse but to start blogging again :-)
Since I have no new idea this week, I am gonna write about an old idea of mine that I discussed over lunch with a friend of mine today.
In the US, professional sports is fed by a pipeline of talent, with eco-system of scouts, coaches, scholarships starting from high school thru college, supported with incentives and contracts.
I wonder if we can apply it to schools in general?
Agencies (talent companies) can invest in promising young people who shows strengths and intelligence, but may lack resources or come from less than privileged background. Such agencies can line up coaches and scholarships to help kids along the way, and shepherd them through a multi year process to realize their full potential. At the end, either they are either honor bound or contract bound to work a job for the highest bidding company for a number of years that the talent agency has secured, hopefully benefiting all parties financially and professionally.
Some might say this is some form of indentured servitude. So is varsity and professional sports.
In fact, this system is used in many countries, though there is no middleman agencies, instead big companies sponsors kids directly. By introducing a middleman, it allows smaller, younger companies to participate as well. Grooming a talent takes years, think of it like futures contract. So a younger company willing to take a chance on younger talents can go to agencies to see if they can take over some contracts about to mature. Also investors can buy up promising young contracts to trade later.
Applying Capitalism to help fund Education to produce skilled labor force for the Knowledge Economy!
