(Omal compares the educational levels of people working in the government and now and also from twenty years ago. His conclusion is that it is decreasing and people need to have a more active role in their children’s education.) 

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Omal: questions.

Russ: hmm okay, Tia was talking to us about Mexico and the problems they’re having down there and with those problems that they’re having, how is our government do you feel going to respond to that?

Omal: give them financial aid and support, try to subsidize their operations of industry. In turn, creating a false economy and when a false economy runs out what happens? Things go kaput.

Russ: right.

Omal: and I will make a quote, "if you want to be happy for a day kill a pig".......no, "if you want to be fed for a day kill a chicken. If you want to be fed for a week kill a pig. If you want to be fed for life learn to fish". In other words, what they need to do is learn to support themselves, not surviving on handouts.

Russ: yeah but they’re sort of used to it by now. I mean it’s just like welfare people up here….

Omal: correct.

Russ: they’re used to it and I think the point's past where they could get to self-support.

Nicole: maybe they just don’t haven’t got the initiative because the government has taken so much away from them?

Omal: that is very likely. After all, Mexico does have a very high tax rate, it also has some very lax laws which contributes to corruption.

Russ: hmm, so essentially what we’re looking at is both Mexico and ourselves doing without government.

Omal: you need a group of elected officials to represent you on the world stage….

Russ: uh-huh.

Omal: so therefore a government is necessary but a large government like Mexico has, like your country, Canada, France, most of the world as a matter of fact, having a large governmental body and a large bureaucracy under that governmental body is a drain on the people. How many percent of your population works for the government in one capacity or another?

Russ: hmm, I don’t have any numbers.

John: about a quarter or 20% or so?

Omal: I think it is a little less, I think it is about 18%.

John: 18%?

Omal: now if you travel backwards in time 200 years to when your country was just a young nation, do you know what percentage of the population at that time worked for the government?

Russ: hmm?

Omal: less than 1%, much less.

John: yeah that’s what I would guess, yeah.

Russ: wow.

Omal: and your country did extremely well without such a large governmental body. Admittedly it was a smaller population but in proportion there were far fewer people working for the government.

Russ: is this just because of the lack of educational levels that were available at the time?

Omal: actually the educational levels, the standards were quite high for those people that could get education. However, being a pioneer society at that time, it was hard for people to get education and those that had were in high demand. Education was certainly very prevalent. If you just walk down the street you will see old schools. If you go down to the valley to the east of you you’ll see old schools, single room schools.

Russ: uh-huh.

Omal: and the educational levels were much higher.

Russ: I see.

Omal: that is part of the problem of a bureaucracy is that education no longer plays an important part. What is the average reading level of a child that leaves school today compared to one that left let’s say 20 years ago?

John: sixth or seventh grade.

Russ: no I’d say higher, I’d say more like around 10th, 11th.

Nicole: yeah, same in our country.

Omal: but it is less than it was when people 20 years ago were leaving school….

Russ: right.

Omal: much less. The average college student has a very poor education and is very poorly prepared in your country for going to college, especially children from the large inner cities where the actual level of reading skill is lower.

Russ: well has the emphasis on education changed then?

Omal: yes.

Russ: to what?

Omal: to a liberal form of education, you do not push the child because you do not wish the child to feel bad, you have to build up the child’s esteem of itself. Which in a certain extent, yes that is a good idea however if you take it too far, then it fails and fails dramatically.

Russ: hmm, okay. Now back then though, I mean you had a choice between going to school or working on your father’s farm…

Omal: uh-huh.

Russ: or whatever business he was doing. You learned your father’s business because someday you would be taking that over.

Omal: uh-huh.

Russ: you didn’t have the proportion of people who went to school. I mean here you have mandatory school for everyone….

Omal: uh-huh.

Russ: back then it was optional.

Omal: yes and the standard of education was much higher.

Russ: right.

Omal: most people, especially the pioneers, were very literate. It is common for a country to lose its productive proportion because they see their own country becoming unproductive and they want to continue being productive so they move somewhere else were they can. Productive people tend to be intelligent, intelligent people tend to be literate.

Russ: I see. Well back then parents would teach their children….

Omal: at home.

Russ: at home whereas now people just kick their kids off to school and trust the school to do all the work for them.

Omal: teachers are paid quite well however some of the teachers are very poor in education. It became a popular pursuit to become a teacher, the market was flooded with teachers and in turn the demand for teachers was decreased, the pay scale dropped, all the good ones dropped out, what are you left with?

Russ: hmm, you're left with people who aren’t teaching our children the way they should be.

Omal: there are always the exceptions to the rules.

Russ: so now more than ever, self-education should be the….

Omal: should be….

Russ: the goal of everyone.

Omal: correct. There is a gentleman that I am aware of through various sources who was taught at home. The gentleman is about 80, he is a computer you might say wizz kid, he is very literate. His education has been finished off in a public school whereas he is looked upon as being very, very smart.

Russ:  hmm.

Omal: but he is no smarter than anybody else, it’s just that he has been educated.

John: well isn’t there a dramatic increase in people educating their children at home?

Omal: I believe so yes.

John: yes, I do believe that’s true. Because we do have the technology nowadays where you can do it but you’ve got to be a good, conscientious parent to do that.

Omal: and to push them to do their work. It has been a long time since I have been a parent.

Russ: uh-huh, okay. So what do we get from all of this then?

Omal: you get from all this that education is very important. The people that are out there are not very literate, they do not have a very strong linguistic ability of even their own language.

Russ: uh-huh, okay.

Omal: you could think of yourselves as being very lucky to be well-educated. I’m not fully versed on the young lady’s area of education from her area but I assume that it is of a high standard as she is quite eloquent when she has spoken.

Nicole: thank you Omal.

Omal: you’re welcome.

Nicole: that’s a nice complement.