[Omid-]

In the case of children, if they are not mature enough to have a driver's license, they are not mature enough to make their own choice in important matters (such as education). For their own protection (if they lose any chance of having an education because they were too lazy to get up in the morning)

Sure, I get that, but that doesn't make forcing them to school — using coercion, fear, intimidation, manipulation and all of that stuff — any less evil. Laws should be there to protect people from other people, not from themselves, in my opinion. If a kid decides he doesn't want it, he should be allowed to quit school no matter what age. Like I said, I think it's more moral to let someone fuck up because of their own decisions than to make them succeed under your coercion. Or has my sense of morality failed here?

and for the protection of others (how would you like to be among the 5% who actually work and have to support the social care for the rest of semischooled dumbasses)?

Now first of all, people who aren't schooled don't sit around at home masturbating incessently or anything; they just do the shitty factory jobs and such. Secondly, I don't think a lot of people will quit school if compulsory education dissapears. Parents will still, however sad it is, pressure kids to succeed; schools will still be the best place to socialize; and, provided we also change the minimum amount of subjects you have to take up, I think kids will actually get inspired to go to school. I mean, if I only had English, Dutch and History as subjects in school, not only would I be a hundred times more proficient/knowledgeable in these subjects, but I'd actually like going to school and doing my best. Kids don't necessarily hate school, they hate the subjects and teachers; atleast, that's my experience with it.

[Bamfy]

Kids don't even know what they want. So letting them decide for themselves isn't an option really.

[Omid-]

Kids don't even know what they want. So letting them decide for themselves isn't an option really.

Which is why they should be allowed to change their chosen subjects every 6 months, at their will. The choices they make at 12 should definitely not be permanent, ofcourse. It certainly doesn't help if the state chooses for them. Like I said, a 12-year-old Dutch kid, 99.99% of the time, has no interest in French whatsoever; forcing him to study it until he's 15, when he can drop it, is a waste of his time, and more importantly, really fucking evil.

That's the system here btw; you get French in your first year of high school; German, economics, and physics enter in the second year; and chemistry says hello in the third year. You have other subjects ofcourse, but these are the ones I understand least. You'll have something like 12 subjects in the third year, and you can drop 4 of them for the next years (depends on your level how many years you still have to go) in high school. Only 4!

And ofcourse those choices at the third year, when you are 15, are permanent. Which sucks for me because for some dumbass reason I chose fucking French, German and economics over cool things like physics, biology and civics. Is there anybody in their right mind who would consider this a good system? Why I think not!

[Maladiq]

The choices they make at 12 should definitely not be permanent

They aren't. In Romania it is possible with one year intensive preparation (during the 12th grade) to prepare for anny admission exam to anny faculty.

[Omid-]

They aren't. In Romania it is possible with one year intensive preparation (during the 12th grade) to prepare for anny admission exam to anny faculty.

And you can just change (without extra costs or anything), if you don't like what you chose?

[Maladiq]

And you can just change (without extra costs or anything), if you don't like what you chose?

Nobody forces you to choose a certain faculty after highschool. The preparation could be, however, pretty expensive. You could/should prepare yourself in private with a teacher. The sad part is that you are advised to do it even if you choose to follow the classes of a faculty which the highschool prepares you for (ex: you study mathematics and informatics in highschool, there's a high chance that you will need private tuition for the admittance exam for a mathematics or informatics faculty).

The reason for this is that in Romania, school teachers are among the least paid people in the budgetary system, so a lot of people who choose to do this are in fact idiots who didn't manage to get a proper job after they finished their faculties.

There are, however, some better highschools which actually prepare you for the admittance exam and you don't need any private tuition (which is around 10 euros/2 hours, quite a lot for Romania).

However, one could theoretically go from a mathematics-informatics profile to a totally different faculty without any extra cost (except the books you buy for yourself). For example, the Law School of Bucharest requires an admittance exam in economics and grammar, both of which can be studied without too much trouble at home.

The highschool kids also have the possibility to transfer from one specialization to another (from informatics to philology) without any cost, in any year of highschool, provided they equate their studies up to that year (they must pass examinations in all the subjects they haven't studied in their former class).

[Omid-]

Well that sounds a bit better than what we have here, but it's certainly nothing ideal. Somehow education should be completely free of costs; undoubtedly, children should not have to worry about/be limited by money when working on their development. But that's a problem much harder solved.

[Maladiq]

Somehow education should be completely free of costs

Theoretically we have that here. 10 full years of mandatory, free education. Practically we have quite a lot of drop-outs after the 8th grade especially and people still have to pay for miscellaneous (pens, paper, notebooks, uniforms and so on).

[Darth Crow]

http://politicalcompass.org/printabl...-4.88&soc=0.51
this is my one. I'm kind of scared, I have never thought of myself as a leftist, let alone an authoritarian

[Nikolai81]

Norwegian nationalist here. Authoritarian, and center-left on economic issues. Ásatrúar at heart.

I don't like that test though. It's too focused on the American political landscape, and many of the questions are so biased that you have to disregard them and rather answer based on what you think the underlying principle is.