I would kind of expect that, when dealing with someone who will be making decisions that affect vast numbers of children, people will make some effort to consider the long-term effects of such choices.
I am not sure why exactly it does not work this way, but as a matter of fact, it does not. Specifically I am thinking about department of education in Slovakia. As far as I know, it works approximately like this: There are two kinds of people there; elected and unelected.
The elected people (not sure if only the minister, or more people) only care about short-term impression on their voters. They usually promise to “reform the school system” without being more specific, which is always popular, because everyone knows the system is horrible. There is no system behind the changes, it is usually a random drift of “we need one less hour of math, and one more hour of English, because languages are important” and “we need one less hour of English and one more hour of math, because former students can’t do any useful stuff”; plus some new paperwork for teachers.
The unelected people don’t give a shit about anything. They just sit there, take their money, and expect to sit there for the next decades. They have zero experience with teaching, and they don’t care. They just invent more paperwork for teachers, because then the existing paperwork explains why their jobs are necessary (someone must collect all the data, retype it to Excel, and create reports). The minister usually has no time or does not care enough to understand their work, optimize it, and fire those who are not needed. It is very easy for a bureaucrat to create a work for themselves, because paperwork recursively creates more paperwork. These people are not elected, so they don’t fear the votes; and the minister is dependent on their cooperation, so they don’t fear the minister.
I am not sure why exactly it does not work this way, but as a matter of fact, it does not. Specifically I am thinking about department of education in Slovakia. As far as I know, it works approximately like this: There are two kinds of people there; elected and unelected.
The elected people (not sure if only the minister, or more people) only care about short-term impression on their voters. They usually promise to “reform the school system” without being more specific, which is always popular, because everyone knows the system is horrible. There is no system behind the changes, it is usually a random drift of “we need one less hour of math, and one more hour of English, because languages are important” and “we need one less hour of English and one more hour of math, because former students can’t do any useful stuff”; plus some new paperwork for teachers.
The unelected people don’t give a shit about anything. They just sit there, take their money, and expect to sit there for the next decades. They have zero experience with teaching, and they don’t care. They just invent more paperwork for teachers, because then the existing paperwork explains why their jobs are necessary (someone must collect all the data, retype it to Excel, and create reports). The minister usually has no time or does not care enough to understand their work, optimize it, and fire those who are not needed. It is very easy for a bureaucrat to create a work for themselves, because paperwork recursively creates more paperwork. These people are not elected, so they don’t fear the votes; and the minister is dependent on their cooperation, so they don’t fear the minister.