I am in favour of countries, in the same way that I am in favour of houses having lockable front doors. Countries have good precedents: the first biological cell seen by Robert Hook in 1665 seemed to him like the small cellular rooms monks lived in. The cell is the motor of life, and it has a well-defended boundary. The great advantage of having a national border is that you can repel boarders, in the same way that biological cells repel intruders that seek to invade and destroy it.

Within a country you can establish laws that regulate what happens in the street outside your front door. That is useful, because even if your house is your castle, it is no use to you if strangers are allowed to lay siege to it. You must be able to have the quiet enjoyment of your abode, at the cost of paying taxes for the laws that protect it. Good fences make good neighbours, and fences are strongest when backed up by national laws. By Saxon times most arable land in England was spoken for, and in Mediaeval times most litigation was about access to water power, where every inch of water level mattered.

Question is: What is the right size for a nation? Too large and the nation may fall apart, under the weight of its contradictions. Too small and it is held hostage by more powerful entities. Is there a rational way to scale the optimal size of a nation? Small and homogenous sounds very good for a friendly and tranquil life. Large and sparsely populated sounds better for an independent and more exciting existence. This is an active debate in the United Kingdom, where Scotland wishes, or partly wishes, to leave England, and appears to be an incipient debate in the United States, where some states would like to be rid of some other states, particularly those which are costly nuisances. Right sizing a country is a difficult business.

Russia is very, very large; Canada, China, United States, Brazil and Australia are very large, but the wealthiest countries (on a per capita basis) tend to be smaller. Have those smaller places some secret sauce? Are there beacon countries, admired and envied, as in their time England and the United States were, and then Sweden perhaps, and so on, which have lessons to impart?

Recently the Financial Times suggested Uruguay, as The Economist had done some years ago. It is worth studying that recommendation, using the past beacons of US and UK as comparison, and taking as regional benchmarks Uruguay’s two big neighbours, Argentina and Brazil, and as cultural and genetic reference points Italy and Spain, where most Uruguayans come from.

Is Uruguay a special case?

Consider wealth per adult. Look at the map of the world, and it is evident that Europeans are the wealthiest in the world, (plus Japanese and Koreans). Europeans build wealth even in the frozen wastes of Canada and in the baking deserts of Australia. Not even Gilbert and Sullivan operettas can drive them to penury.

Find South America (bottom left) and note there is only one country on that continent where median wealth is in the $20,000-30,000 dollar range. That country, Uruguay, is 87.7% European. Case proved? It is on a level found in Eastern Europe, and in newly risen China.

Here is a small comparative table, drawn from United Nations or World Bank data. Remember that all these figures contain an error term, and other sources will be slightly different, though the rankings will be pretty similar. I prefer actual figures to rankings, since they are more informative.

Adult mill: adult population in millions
Density: population per square kilometre
GDP: per capita in actual dollars
GDP ppp: per capita adjusted in terms of local buying power (Nominal rates are more important for trade and influence, purchasing power parity for those who wish to emigrate in either direction).
Wealth: median wealth, which is most representative of the average person
GINI: coefficient of wealth differences, high score meaning large differences
HDI: human development index, showing the general quality of life per country
Honesty: meaning the opposite of corrupt
PISA: overall scholastic scores in most recent studies.

Population adult:
Population density: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-by-density
GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Median wealth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult

Uruguay is a very small country, with low population density, high wages, high GDP, and very wealthy in regional terms. It has a smaller gap between rich and poor than its neighbours, has a good human development index, and is extremely honest. Its countries of origin are more corrupt, its neighbouring countries even more so. (One of Uruguay’s biggest industries, paper mills owned by Finns, came to Uruguay because Argentine corruption was outrageous).

Can all these good things be true? If so, how do you become a resident?

Very simple: You need a clean criminal record and must be able to prove a monthly income of around 1500 USD per person. If you are a family of four, the main applicant having an income of $2,000 is permissible. Married people are preferred. (Despite my pleas, Uruguayans think in months). 1,500 USD is a good wage in Uruguay. Well qualified young people make about 1800 to 2000 USD per month. Those skilled in IT, mostly working for US companies, can earn two or three times that. The above route gets you citizenship in 3 years for families to 5 years singletons. Caution: in your first year you will be expected to be here for 9 to 10 months. By the way, when I say dollars, I mean the real market rate for the greenback. There are no restrictive lower rates imposed by the government.

For those in more of a hurry, invest. For a person to become a tax resident by having main economic interests in Uruguay, they must invest in real estate or an enterprise and stay in Uruguay for at least 60 days per year. The minimum amount accepted for a real estate investment is $390,000. The minimum amount for an enterprise is $1.7 million, so long as that company also creates 15 jobs throughout the year.

Those that move their tax residence to Uruguay are eligible for a tax holiday on their foreign-sourced financial income. As of 2020, a tax residence act extended this holiday to 11 years. After that, tax residents will pay a standard 12% personal income tax on foreign interest and dividends. Uruguay tax residents can live tax-free on any foreign-sourced income for 11 years.

All good? There are some drawbacks. The current Government is still clearing up the excesses of the last one. The economy is picking up, people are feeling richer, though prices are high relative to earnings. Like in other parts of the world, the young are finding it very difficult to buy property. Some youngsters prefer social benefits to employment. A barbershop owner tells me he has vacancies for another 3 to 4 haircutters, but cannot find them. The last candidate lasted a fortnight, then left. The owner was relieved, since the young man had spent most of his time on his iPhone.

Uruguay is an entrepot for the drugs trade, bringing cocaine down from Bolivia to be hidden in containers in the port of Montevideo. Gang warfare has somewhat intensified in response renewed police action against the trade which is damaging the gangs’ earnings, which now fight more over their market shares.

The greatest sadness, however, is the parlous state of education, which was formerly good. Countries do sometimes have a golden age. The post-war period of the late 40s and early 50s was a time of good agricultural profits and a cultural flowering. When commodity prices fell around 1957 the cultural and social quality slowly deflated. Many youngsters left in the terrible 60s. According to international studies like PISA, Uruguay has been at a low level for at least 20 years.
For example, let us look at Uruguay’s score in PISA for 2018

Students in Uruguay scored lower than the OECD average in reading, mathematics and science.

Compared to the OECD average, a smaller proportion of students in Uruguay performed at the highest levels of proficiency (Level 5 or 6) in at least one subject; at the same time a smaller proportion of students achieved a minimum level of proficiency (Level 2 or higher) in at least one subject.

In Uruguay, 58% of students attained at least Level 2 proficiency in reading (OECD average: 77%). At a minimum, these students can identify the main idea in a text of moderate length, find information based on explicit, though sometimes complex criteria, and can reflect on the purpose and form of texts when explicitly directed to do so.

Some 2% of students in Uruguay were top performers in reading, meaning that they attained Level 5 or 6 in the PISA reading test (OECD average: 9%). At these levels, students can comprehend lengthy texts, deal with concepts that are abstract or counterintuitive, and establish distinctions between fact and opinion, based on implicit cues pertaining to the content or source of the information. In 20 education systems, including those of 15 OECD countries, more than 10% of 15-year-old students were top performers.

Some 49% of students in Uruguay attained Level 2 or higher in mathematics (OECD average: 76%). At a minimum, these students can interpret and recognise, without direct instructions, how a (simple) situation can be represented mathematically (e.g. comparing the total distance across two alternative routes, or converting prices into a different currency).

The share of 15-year-old students who attained minimum levels of proficiency in mathematics (Level 2 or higher) varied widely – from 98% in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China) to 2% in Zambia, which participated in the PISA for Development assessment in 2017.

On average across OECD countries, 76% of students attained at least Level 2 proficiency in mathematics.

In Uruguay, 1% of students scored at Level 5 or higher in mathematics (OECD average: 11%). Six Asian countries and economies had the largest shares of students who did so: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China) (44%), Singapore (37%), Hong Kong (China) (29%), Macao (China) (28%), Chinese Taipei (23%) and Korea (21%). These students can model complex situations mathematically, and can select, compare and evaluate appropriate problem-solving strategies for dealing with them.

Some 56% of students in Uruguay attained Level 2 or higher in science (OECD average: 78%). At a minimum, these students can recognise the correct explanation for familiar scientific phenomena and can use such knowledge to identify, in simple cases, whether a conclusion is valid based on the data provided.

In Uruguay, 1% of students were top performers in science, meaning that they were proficient at Level 5 or 6 (OECD average: 7%). These students can creatively and autonomously apply their knowledge of and about science to a wide variety of situations, including unfamiliar ones.

As regards education, Uruguay is in the 52nd rank of the global class (though many countries don’t participate, probably very prudently). More to the point, it feels like a remedial class. What has gone wrong? Sure, it is above rivals Brazil and Argentina, but this is hardly a jewel in the crown.
Here is the comparative table again:

Uruguay is not at Italian or Spanish levels. What has gone wrong? Opinions vary, but it is clear that Uruguayan schooling, like most Latin American instruction, laid emphasis on memorisation of approved texts, which were then declaimed. Far less emphasis was placed on testing whether knowledge could be applied in novel circumstances. Content only, rather than competence in applying knowledge. Teachers of History were taught the texts they must use, and not a critical approach to historical records. Rhetoric rather than empiricism.

So, what the Uruguayans are trying to do is to move from parrot-like declamation to real competence. The difference between bewailing misfortune and finding a way out of prison.
One observer, Jana Rodriguez Hertz, said that the main thing which needed to be done was to pay teachers properly: “you cannot get a Finnish level education if you invest at the Namibia level”. Later, we will consider whether that would work.

A more recent problem is that after the pandemic many children have missed a lot of schooling, and many have remained truant. One group, Eduy21 is trying to boost school attendance, which fell because of the pandemic, and among other things, aims increase teaching hours in vulnerable neighbourhoods, and to monitor pupil progress every two months.

Uruguay understands it needs to improve its educational system, and so has set up a reform process which begins to be implemented this year. The assessment system is to be made more consistent over grades, and the curriculum will have more real-world problems as the focus of teaching. The new emphasis is on establishing competences. You advance once you have shown a basic level of competency (which must be tested) before you are taken to the next level. The system is focussed on the rhythm of learning of each student.

That is all well and good, but the reformed curriculum envisages the following Competencies:

meta-cognitive, intrapersonal, interpersonal, initiative and action oriented, communication, creative thought, critical thought, scientific thought, computational thought, and competence in citizenship locally, globally and digitally.

Guillermo Fossati, a member of the team tasked with assessing all this says mildly: “This will be a great challenge”. He adds: “Traditional schools fail to support students in addressing critical gaps in knowledge and skill. Consequently, students become increasingly burdened by learning gaps that accumulate and widen over time. Schools measure proficiency in highly variable ways, both within courses and between different schools.

A competency-based education will require consistent definitions of the proposed competencies and skills. Teachers have to measure student mastery consistently and hold all students to the same standards. We need to establish shared expectations for what students will know and be able to do at every performance level”.

Another educationalist said: “The government knows progress must be gradual, so each school can choose 3 competencies to begin with”.

Less mildly, I would say that grandiose statements of this sort damage pupil’s ability to read, write and count. Education departments all over the world adore this noble posturing, and find the daily task of teaching less interesting. Perhaps the best thing education managers could do is quit making mission statements and start dealing with the nitty gritty of school performance: making sure teachers and pupils show up, that classes start on time and are well organised, that classrooms are conducive to learning (including control of distracting students), that homework is set and marked, and that the best examples are exhibited. Basic stuff. (These points came from UK research on successful schools. Class size had no particular effect).

Would all state educational systems be improved if parents were issued with vouchers? This would allow parents to avoid weak schools, which would have to be put under improvement conditions, or eventually closed. Competition would drive an increase in standards, advocates claim. There would have to be stipulations that the vouchers must be used with approved schools, and there would have to be some adjustments if so many schools were being avoided that the system had no chance to improve itself. When I float this possibility I am told, with a weary smile, that it has no chance of being implemented because the teaching unions would not agree to it.

What should educational systems prioritise? They tend to want to do everything, which may account for the shortfalls. Perhaps what all education systems should concentrate on is the basics of teaching.

Direct Instruction is one of those approaches which stands out from other teaching philosophies by its simplicity and restricted focus. It is based on reinforcement learning, which is no longer popular, though it emerges in another form in all artificial intelligence learning models.
Its proponents describe it as:

a model for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. It is based on the theory that clear instruction eliminating misinterpretations can greatly improve and accelerate learning.
Students are placed in instruction at their skill level. When students begin the program, each student is tested to find out which skills they have already mastered and which ones they need to work on. From this, students are grouped together with other students needing to work on the same skills. These groups are organized by the level of the program that is appropriate for students, rather than the grade level the students are in.

The program’s structure is designed to ensure mastery of the content.
The program is organized so that skills are introduced gradually, giving children a chance to learn those skills and apply them before being required to learn another new set of skills. Only 10% of each lesson is new material. The remaining 90% of each lesson’s content is review and application of skills students have already learned but need practice with in order to master. Skills and concepts are taught in isolation and then integrated with other skills into more sophisticated, higher-level applications. All details of instruction are controlled to minimize the chance of students’ misinterpreting the information being taught and to maximize the reinforcing effect of instruction.

So, the approach is based on “modeling, reinforcement, feedback, and successive approximations”(Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun, 2000, p. 337). Joyce and colleagues specified the instructional design principles, which include the framing of learner performance into goals and tasks, breaking these tasks into smaller component tasks, designing training activities for mastery, and arranging the learning events into sequences that promote transfer and achievement of pre-requisite learning before moving to more advance learning. Essentially, Direct Instruction is “modelling with reinforced guided performance” (Joyce et al., p. 337)

Why is this not more widely used?

One reason seems to be that it is a very prescribed approach, requiring strict adherence to protocols, and works best when delivered by specially trained teaching assistants rather than conventional teachers. This makes teachers reject it. Another reason is that there are so many different educational fads that it may have got lost in the noise, and it cannot be fully evaluated until it is tried out more widely. The approach may be over-sold.

However, there is another problem, which is more fundamental. How much can schooling boost scholastic attainment? In relatively wealthy countries, probably no more than 10% at the very most. Detterman 2016. Basically, the main source of variance is the student, not the school.

Schools and teachers account for very little of the variance in academic achievement and should not be the focus of improving academic achievement. Doug Detterman, 2016

This has been known since the Coleman report in 1966.

Coleman report: variations in school quality (per pupil expenditure, size of school library, etc) showed little association with educational attainment, when students of comparable social backgrounds were compared across schools.

Coleman 1972: “All factors considered, the most important variable—in or out of school—in a child’s performance remains his family’s education background.”

Of course, family’s education background is closely related to family’s intelligence background, but Coleman did not go that far. He may have suspected it, but as a sociologist he was not willing to spell it out.

Coleman Report 1996 Teachers 1% of variance, schools 10-20%. Most of the differences were between students within schools, and not between schools.

Jencks, Smith, Ackland, Bane, et al. (1972) is the most extensive follow up study. They upheld the above results. 10% of variance in academic achievement due to school. Teachers must be less than 10%.

Gamoran and Long (2006) reviewed 40+ years of data from developing countries, and found that if average per capita income is greater than $16,000 per year, schools account for 10% of variance.

Expenditures on education make a difference when little has been spent, and as expenditures increase then a plateau is reached.

Average per capita income for Uruguay is 20,018, so well above the 16,000 cutoff point. The basics will already have been established, and the facilities, whatever they are, will be materially more substantial than the Shtetl shacks of Ashkenazi children. Perhaps of more note, teaching days in those Jewish schools were 10 hours long, and there was much to memorize. Learning and education were the ultimate measures of worth in the eyes of the community, while money was secondary to status.

If the most important thing in a school is whether they can attract bright children, then choice of school is unlikely to be crucial. The students provide the variance, not the schools.

Surely matters will be better when students struggle to get to the best universities? Won’t those high citadels of learning made a big boost in academic prowess? Apparently not, or more precisely, only 7% better. Angoff and Johnson (1990) studied US colleges and universities. 22,923 took the Scholastic Aptitude Test and 4-5 years later the GRE. Selected 7,954 students at 292 colleges or universities with more than 10 students. Used SAT Maths plus Major subject studied, plus gender to predict their GRE Math scores. The original scores and the eventual scores after 4 to 5 years of college/university education had an R squared of 0.93. That is to say, the original student scores accounted for 93 % of the variance. No more than 9% could be accounted for by the way they had been taught in their universities.

So, perhaps Uruguay should not expect too much from educational reforms, yet it seems churlish not to attempt them. (I should remind you that, to great international acclaim, Uruguay made sure that every child had a computer. I was proud to hear that. It was proposed in 2006, implemented in 2009, (cost £120 million) and there is no evidence from PISA scores (essentially a plateau) that it boosted scholastic attinments. However, it may have boosted computer skills.

Indeed, most countries with above $16,000 per capita GDP probably cannot improve educational outcomes, not even at university levels. Not with present educational policies, anyway. Some schools are experimenting: with bilingual English/Spanish tuition, access to artificial intelligence, and projects based on engineering technology. One simple approach would be to concentrate on teaching English, the language of commerce and science; teaching mathematics including simple statistics, and giving everyone employable skills in Excel spreadsheet use.

Either we should try far more radical approaches, or we should accept that the scope for improvement is limited. It is the innate ability of students which plays the largest part in their eventual attainments.