Without uni help, brilliant minds wither on the vine

AS A progressive person I find the LNP philosophy on life a very wasteful proposition.

The next genius, in the category of an Albert Einstein or a Stephen Hawking, could be born at any time in any country, and this person may be able to discover things we cannot possibly imagine. But here we are with the conservative proposition that if they are not born to a high income family they may well not be able to go on to university because of cost, thus consigning them to obscurity and society will be poorer for it.

To be quite frank, I don’t see why we can produce low cost public education in primary and secondary schools, but cease to support these children’s education into tertiary education. The child of a lowly paid council worker could have a brilliant mind but, stifled by their parent’s economic situation, may not have the opportunity to expand that mind in a university place.

Why don’t we cut some of the costs of government, for example the payments to university vice- chancellors of nearly a million dollars a year, and other wasteful spending, and instead send this money to tertiary education?

With basic unregulated capitalism now recognised as being very destruc- tive – as in the global financial crisis which the world remains in a dither about – we need a new way, a better way, a fairer way.

Communism is not that way, and perhaps democratic socialism could lead us in the right direction. The Nordic countries seem to have high living standards with this philosophy. SHAUN NEWMAN, Deeragun.