Accountants have always borne the brunt of ridicule, namely as timid souls kicking for touch in life’s journey. So be it if that’s what they seek.
Earlier this month I reported one of the big four, namely PWC’s New Zealand boss’s wokest outburst when he announced his firm’s intention, “in the interest of diversity “of increasing his maori and Pasifika staff. No mention of Asians who number the same as maori but then again, Asians stand on their own feet without the need of special treatment. The Asian immigration of the last quarter century is the best thing ever to happen to New Zealand.
That said this wokest accountant absurdity seems to be catching. Now another of the big four, namely KPMG in Britain, has announced that by 2030, 29% of its partners and directors must hail from working class backgrounds.
First, why 29%? Why not 27.5%, or 32%? This was not explained.
I’m a state house graduate. Both my parents left school at 12. But I never found that background a handicap to do whatever I wanted, here and abroad.
John Key was brought up by a solo mother in a state house. He mapped out the life he wanted and took the steps to achieve it.
In some respects my working class generation were advantaged.
My hordes of children have all gone to the top private schools in Australia and New Zealand. I can say adamantly that the expensive education they’ve received is a joke compared with the great one I enjoyed at then rough as guts 1950s Naenae College. I was the first to go to university (part-time) and had to make new friends. They were middle-class kids from private schools with a standout characteristic of timidity, at least compared with the milieu I was familiar with.
Coming from a working class background is arguably an advantage for an ambitious kid, in providing a broader background about life’s realities. The KPMG British boss may mean well but is simply patronising and foolish.
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Safe spaces are now the fashion for this timidity enhanced by increased female participation culminating in Jacinda worship.
The ability to censor everywhere trumps ability to win a debate on merit. This can’t be heading anywhere good.
The engineering and architecture sectors in New Zealand are running down the same path. Have a look at their diversity agenda. https://www.diversityagenda.org/
The Tertiary Education Commission has similarly announced that colleges and polytechs have 10 years to end pass rate disparities across groups or they will be fined.
I will give a perspective on this ridicules move to force racial, or any other, employment or qualification on skin colour or suburb of birth. An aged friend recently in hospital was treated by a Maori doctor, the result was he had a second opinion upon discharge. When pressed on this action his answer was ” if he got his university degree by being in a quota based on race, not on ability, how do I know I have diagnosed accurately ?” Not all my view, but I wonder is this the future?
Four words, racial discrimination, class distinction.
Find myself agreeing. I learned more from a year doing odd (rough) jobs than most of my classes.
On the subject of expensive and not very useful education, I rather like the Simpsons take on it all.
I concur Sir Bob. I hail from a working class family and had to battle my way through Waitaki Boys to be the first in my family to ultimately graduate from university. I could have had no better education than watching my parents struggle to make ends meet as small business folk. I’ve gone on to found several successful businesses. Patronising nonsense
The problem here is that diversity seems to have been universally accepted as self evidently good and organisations now need to be seen to be actively embracing this, in order to avoid being regarded as suspect..
Work ethnic and initiative trumps higher education, and most of that comes from your upbringing…
Some people have work ethnic, and few have initiative. Sadly, its harder to climb up the ladder now, given its so much higher, and you need financial nous to do that now….
Degrees only indicate you can see things through to the end…
Private schools are not so much about education, but making the right connections. As they say its not what you know but who you know.
Watch this space, corporate New Zealand is jumping on the diversity bandwagon like lemmings off a cliff. Check out the media release of financial results for some of NZ biggest companies and you will find this diversity garbage infiltrates many of them