Opinion

THE LAST WORD

The currency of knowledge

My experience with money is largely limited to earning small sums I hand over to pay for enough goods and services to keep me going for a few more weeks

A few years ago, I some­how came into a bit of extra cash. Ob­vi­ously, being me, my first thought was to blow it all a new mo­tor­bike. Yet, it seems that, fi­nally, a lit­tle bit of ma­tu­rity must have crept into my per­son­al­ity, and I de­cided the best thing would be to save the money. Tak­ing a shine to this new sen­si­ble, adult me, I then thought that ac­tu­ally the best thing of all might be to in­vest the money. After all, in­ter­est rates are mega-low and so any re­turn on sav­ing the cash would be neg­li­gi­ble, and any­way, leav­ing it un­touched in my ac­count is just a way of lend­ing it to the bank so they can in­vest it and make a profit on it. The prob­lem was, where to start?

My ex­pe­ri­ence with money in the past has largely been lim­ited to earn­ing rel­a­tively small sums that I then hand over to some­one else to pay for enough goods and ser­vices to keep me going for a few more weeks, dur­ing which time I en­deav­our to earn more cash to keep the ball rolling, rather like a dung bee­tle push­ing a huge ball of poo up­hill. It’s an ex­haust­ing dy­namic that most of us are all too fa­mil­iar with. So, seek­ing ad­vice about what to do in this un­usual sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing some extra funds seemed like a good idea. And I had my very own fi­nan­cial or­a­cle on hand to pro­vide all the an­swers I might need: Google.

If you type into Google some­thing like “what should I do with 10,000 dol­lars?”, you’ll get a va­ri­ety of an­swers, many of which seem sen­si­ble enough. From pay­ing down debts to buy­ing shares, from putting down a de­posit on new prop­erty to in­vest­ing in a start-up, there are plenty of ways to get the most out of your money. Yet, out of all the ad­vice, the most at­trac­tive to me was in­vest­ing in ed­u­ca­tion. For ex­am­ple, a de­gree doesn’t need paint­ing, in­curs no taxes, can’t be swept away in a hur­ri­cane or be stolen. Knowl­edge, par­tic­u­larly in today’s world, is its own cur­rency, and in­vest­ing in qual­i­fi­ca­tions is a good way of se­cur­ing the value of the orig­i­nal in­vest­ment, just as much as con­vert­ing money into pre­cious met­als. Ed­u­ca­tion pro­vides a way of im­prov­ing our­selves, gen­er­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and en­sur­ing per­sonal ful­fil­ment that is open to just about any­one. A glance at our focus on ed­u­ca­tion on pages 28-31 gives an idea of how im­por­tant ed­u­ca­tion is at all lev­els of so­ci­ety, for all ages and for peo­ple of all so­cial back­grounds. No in­vest­ment is fool­proof and risk is part of the in­vest­ment game, but I’d say that any re­sources – whether time or money – you can af­ford to put into your ed­u­ca­tion is never a waste .

Education for all Pages 28-31
September is a key month in Catalonia. Not only is it the end of summer, with all that implies for society and the economy, but it also marks the return to work and school. The latter is a very big moment in the year, as it affects all levels and ages. Nurseries, schools, colleges and universities, business and language schools, training centres and even gyms, all begin a new annual cycle. The start of the new academic year directly affects hundreds of thousands of pupils, students, teachers and administrators, and indirectly affects millions of parents, workers and bosses, public officials and civil servants. To mark this key moment, we provide an overview of the education system in Catalonia, along with an interview with the head of Girona’s Official Language School, who provides insight into how one of the largest needs of society is met: learning English, the global language and a pillar in the transformation of Catalonia into a fully-fledged 21st century country.
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