In the lexicon of human migration there are still hierarchical words, created with the purpose of putting white people above everyone else. One of those remnants is the word “expat”.
What is an expat? And who is an expat? According to Wikipedia, “an expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (‘out of’) and patria (‘country, fatherland’)”.
Defined that way, you should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad.
Africans are immigrants. Arabs are immigrants. Asians are immigrants. However, Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for ‘inferior races’.
Don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal, the leading financial information magazine in the world, has a blog dedicated to the life of expats and recently they featured a story ‘Who is an expat, anyway?’. Here are the main conclusions: “Some arrivals are described as expats; others as immigrants; and some simply as migrants. It depends on social class, country of origin and economic status. It’s strange to hear some people in Hong Kong described as expats, but not others. Anyone with roots in a western country is considered an expat … Filipino domestic helpers are just guests, even if they’ve been here for decades. Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese are rarely regarded as expats … It’s a double standard woven into official policy.”
The reality is the same in Africa and Europe. Top African professionals going to work in Europe are not considered expats. They are immigrants. Period. “I work for multinational organisations both in the private and public sectors. And being black or coloured doesn’t gain me the term “expat”. I’m a highly qualified immigrant, as they call me, to be politically correct,” says an African migrant worker.
Most white people deny that they enjoy the privileges of a racist system. And why not? But our responsibility is to point out and to deny them these privileges, directly related to an outdated supremacist ideology. If you see those “expats” in Africa, call them immigrants like everyone else. If that hurts their white superiority, they can jump in the air and stay there. The political deconstruction of this outdated worldview must continue.
More than a million young people will be enrolling in universities in England and Germany this autumn.
But in financial terms their experience couldn't be more different.
In Germany tuition fees have been abolished, while England has the most expensive fees in Europe, with every indication that they are likely to be allowed to nudge even higher.
But what difference does it make to their universities?
The Higher Education Policy Institute's director, Nick Hillman, has published an analysis - "Keeping up with the Germans?" - which looks at the impact of these contrasting funding systems.
The biggest difference is that a much smaller proportion of young people go to university in Germany.
In Germany, about 27% of young people gain higher education qualifications. In the UK, the comparable figure is 48%. The expansion in university entry in the UK has been one of those changes that has been so big that no one really notices.
Degrees of 'free'
But it would be wrong to think that the absence of fees means that the German system is starved of funding.
Germany spends a slightly higher proportion of GDP on higher education, there are more academic staff in German universities and Germany is significantly ahead in spending on research and development, both from public and private sources, investing 3% of GDP compared with 1.7% in the UK.
Image copyrightPAImage captionWhile tuition fees were acrimoniously increased in England, they were scrapped in Germany
Students muttering about what had happened to their £9,000 might be relieved that spending per student is about 20% higher in the UK than in Germany.
In terms of quality, there are more UK universities at the top end of international league tables. But this is because league tables do not always include research institutes which do not teach or award degrees - and Germany has a much more distinct separation between teaching and research universities.
Report author Mr Hillman says that if the elite German science institute, the Max Planck Society, were included in global rankings it would overtake both Oxford and Cambridge.
The biggest difference seems to be not the outcome but the political decision about who pays. In Germany it's the taxpayer, in England the individual student gets the bill.
And that poses different types of question for what happens next.
Can the German university system afford to expand and produce more graduates under the current taxpayer-funded "free" model?
Value for money?
For the English system, the questions are for the students who have to pay. How much is too much? Even with a system of loans and deferred repayment, when do the costs outweigh the benefits?
Image copyrightPAImage captionFigures published this week showed that more than half of young women now enter higher education
Questions about value for money - and warnings about debts - have been recurrent since fees were introduced in the 1990s. They've risen in volume as fees have risen rapidly from about £1,000 to £3,000 and then £9,000.
While tuition fees have stolen the headlines, the biggest financial challenge for families might often be the low level of maintenance loans for living costs.
Adding to these money worries are stories about graduates who cannot get graduate jobs or who are unemployed.
A report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development last month claimed that more than half of graduates were overqualified for their jobs. In contrast, the institute said that only 10% of German graduates were in non-graduate jobs.
But such anxieties about the cost of going to university tend to overlook the the cost of not going to university or getting high-level vocational skills.
Figures last week from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed unemployment for graduates had fallen back to pre-recession levels, with 2.6% of graduates unemployed. Rising numbers of graduates did not mean more graduates without jobs.
There is no breakdown of graduate and non-graduate jobs, but 86% of graduates were satisfied with their careers.
The international evidence from organisations such as the OECD has remained steadfastly in favour of the financial benefits of higher education.
The economic think tank has argued that an increasing proportion of jobs will require high levels of skills and qualifications - and it rejects the idea that there is an over-production of graduates.
'Precariat'
The OECD has warned that the biggest risk is not to disgruntled graduates, but to young people with few qualifications competing for an evaporating pool of unskilled work.
In the US, the Pew research group highlighted that while graduates might have had a tougher time during the recession, the real losers were those with few qualifications.
The so-called "precariat" - those trapped in low-skilled, low-pay, insecure jobs - might not get the same attention as under-employed graduates, but they are the other side of this polarisation of the workforce.
While such economic viewpoints tend to take an overview of the labour market, for individuals it's about personal ambitions and family aspiration, rather than percentages.
And in the UK there has been a seemingly irresistible rise in demand for university.
Despite the surge in tuition fees in England, this week's figures on higher education participation show no sign of a reduction in demand.
These latest figures show 47% of people entering higher education in England, up from 43% the year before. Among young women, the proportion is 51%. It's now an expectation for a majority of young women.
Don't expect the arguments about value for money to go away, but don't expect any fall in demand for places.
Children are getting an average of $12.37 a week in pocket money but the gap is widening between the earnings of boys and girls.
Pocket money has hit a nine-year high but the gender gap is growing, with sons receiving almost 12% more than daughters. The Halifax survey of nearly 1,800 children aged eight to 15 and their parents found that they now receive $15.00 a week on average..
Boys received an average of $13.08 per week, compared to girls who got an average of $11.62. Despite getting more, boys were also more likely to complain that they were not getting enough - 44% said their parents should pay them more, compared to 39% of girls. There was also a gender gap last year but it was just 2%. ONS figures show that the gender pay gap for adults is 9.4%, based on the median earnings of full-time employees. The average pocket money payment reached $15.80 (£8.37) in 1987 and fell slightly to just over $15.10 (£8) in 2007 but, when the financial crisis hit in 2008, weekly childhood earnings plummeted to an average of $11.57 (£6.13). The bank found that nearly 80% of current youngsters are saving some of their pocket money, with nearly one in eight saving all of it. Giles Martin, head of Halifax Savings, said: "It's reassuring to see that the average weekly amount has reached a nine-year high. "Some parents are clearly not feeling the pinch in the same way as they have done in recent years, when weekly pocket money dipped as low as $11.12 (£5.89). "It's likely it'll be a few more years until we reach the dizzy heights of $15.80 (£8.37) in 2005 though, when we saw the highest average pocket money since our records began." London children enjoyed the highest average pocket money rate of $15.50 (£8.21), up 7.3% on last year, while children in East Anglia received an average of just $9.36 (£4.96), down 11.9% on last year. Scottish children had the second-highest rate of $13.33 (£7.06), while children in the South East earned $12.89 (£6.83) a week and those in the North West got an average of $12.61 ( £6.68). NB: The dollars are in Canadian money :-)
