Quote:
Originally Posted by Farmer
No compulsory schooling is interesting, particularly in a higher tech environment. Seems like a lot of things that would be needed in terms of general knowledge would be well underpinned by at least some basic requirement to attend school. Even without compulsion, surely most of them attend to some point, even if they're corporate academies?
|
It's more complicated than that.
* The Brazilian Empire is floridly capitalistic, with massive inequalities of rich and poor, and the moral doctrine that envy of others' wealth is a sin. There's no redistributive taxation (though various religious bodies sponsor charities, and most people are religious). So there are still people available to be hired as servants, and the rich or even the prosperous are more comfortable with conspicuous consumption than in our society, and are willing to employ servants.
* Still, most parents do want their children educated.
* Much education is provided by what we would call private schools: corporate schools run by the city government for the benefit of its employees (but open to nonemployees who can pay the fees), religious schools, schools for the socially aspirational, technically oriented schools. There are also less formal schools, such as the capoeira academies, which may do their teaching in the streets.
* However, there are also a lot of online educational resources. Poor parents may just subscribe to a recorded course with automatic tests; better off ones may also pay for access to an advisor.
* There are people who give private lessons.
* The wealthy hire governesses and tutors, who give their kids one on one education.
* In the empire on Earth, there are universities, but Pavonis Portal is too small to have one, and more focused on commerce than on scholarship. Kids who want a scholarly education may go to Harmonia for a few years at one of their universities.
* Literacy isn't universal but is close to it, around 90-95%.
* Relatively few jobs have formal certification by taking examinations. Rather more have apprenticeships. Still more work on the basis that "if you can demonstrate the ability to repair a computer, then you're a computer tech." People acquire work dossiers online that their prospective employers can review.
This will probably come up in play. Sakura is from Aoteara, which is a province of the Japanese Empire, and though it's relatively freegoing by Japanese standards, she still had a very formal education. Her husband and her sisters-in-law had tutors and freedom to study things that interested them. Her youngest sister-in-law (an NPC) is going to a Muslim family for lessons on playing the lute, for example.