Once Portuguese employees are always wanted everywhere in the world, I only can think that the root of our problems is the lack of good "bosses".
In Portugal, "bosses" are less educated than employees. 71,3% have a maximum of 9 years of school! http://economia.publico.pt/Noticia/qualificacao-media-dos-pa... (portuguese language, sorry)
How can these people invest in something they don't understand? They understand about carrying bricks and painting walls, that's why we have thousands of empty houses in Portugal and Spain. There is no place for VC and marketable innovation.
We come from a time where we needed to be rich to study. Salazar regime didn't want people to study and emancipate. Now the old regime is over but mentality is still there, people are too used to obbey and are full of preconcepts.
2 wrong things my parents generation did bad because of their ignorance:
a) made children to only focus on studies (cause they never had that chance). People get completely out of the market till they are 23-24. Then of course there are no available positions for high skilled employees. We have no companies with that demand. They were never created! New companies were created by the uneducated bullies. If their families have no capital and they are having first contact with money and market at middle 20's they have no money to risk. 2 solutions appear: unemployment or emmigration.
b) strong left wing (as bare reaction to Salazar right wing regime, without any thinking and ponderation): For example somebody lower than 16 years old caught working is considered crime in Portugal. If these kids are not making it to provide for their families or skipping school I see no problem with this.
Education is not the problem, it's the solution. Even though there's a lot of brouhaha about educated unemployment, education really pays off in Portugal, compared to countries like Germany and Austria. Studies repeatedly show that the more educated you are (at least below Phd level), the better your life outcomes are, both in terms of years employed and of lifelong earnings.
I agree however that we made the educational mistake of putting all eggs in one basket by declaring university education as the universal goal. Perhaps a dual education model such as the German one would help in that respect.
I agree with you, before I just wanted to say that people were/are still educated in a anti-capitalistic education system while we still live in a capitalist country/world. This is very typical from south european contries and the root of their problems probably as escape to past right wing regimes mentality.
I don't think your bosses education level is deterministic enough of his abilities or skills to manage you and whether or not he has the smarts.
Managers should manage and should be effective at that.
As a software developer working in UK, I am managed by someone who has already been a developer in the past and he does not involve himself into any of the technical aspects of my job. He is caring after the larger picture, where I am only one of a group of players that he oversees. It's just like an orchestra, you don't expect the maestro to play all the instruments, but you _do_ expect him to know how to drive all the musicians. Having a manager that isn't smart (or whose education level + smarts doesn't meet the threshold of "can do more than just the mechanical aspects of the job" is a problem, however.) And as I've never been a developer in Portugal, because, education-wise, I don't qualify to work anywhere in Portugal, I cannot speak specifically how the landscape looks for software developers which during my 10 year stint was one area where a degree was an absolute must. However, as someone above said, there seems to be a lot of business leaders and while this is critically essential, it's unfortunately only a part of the much larger landscape and this is where it needs addressing.
You should read and maybe learn something on Salazar's education policies. The dictatorship was bad for many reasons, but as for education goes, you got it all wrong.
The regime built thousands of primary schools across the country, and made 4th class mandatory for all kids, girls and boys. Before Salazar, our country had a 19th century mentality, derived from monarchy, whereas girls weren't supposed to need school and only "doctors" would be put through it. The vast majority of the population was not educated in any sense. For all its faults, Salazar's regime managed to change that and raise Portugal to close to the european education standards. That change took decades, it's not something you can do in 5 years.
Just as a side note, the some goes for general infrastructures in Portugal. It was a dictatorship, yes, will all the crap that entails, but, after monarchy and the corrupt governments of the 10s and 20s that bankrupted Portugal, it was his regime that raised the bar here in Portugal, until we got fed up with the lack of liberty to express ourselves.
Go learn something, buy a book.
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estado_Novo_(Portugal)
Yes, He wanted people to have 4(!) years of school..
During these times big percentage of Polish people were going to college. For example I said to a friend from Poland than 2 of my grandparesnts couldn't read at all. He thought I was making fun..
If I didn't explain good because I should have said that historically education was very bad in Portugal, not only with Salazar regime (that besides everything made a good job on this issue but still didn't manage to get European standards) I only can agree with you; but sentences like:"Go learn something, buy a book" just present an argumentum ad hominem, that is not relevant neither to the other readers neither to me. Please do not weaken this commmunity and consider to change your behaviour taking aknowledgment of existent high standards that you don't find easily in the web.
In Portugal, "bosses" are less educated than employees. 71,3% have a maximum of 9 years of school! http://economia.publico.pt/Noticia/qualificacao-media-dos-pa... (portuguese language, sorry) How can these people invest in something they don't understand? They understand about carrying bricks and painting walls, that's why we have thousands of empty houses in Portugal and Spain. There is no place for VC and marketable innovation.
We come from a time where we needed to be rich to study. Salazar regime didn't want people to study and emancipate. Now the old regime is over but mentality is still there, people are too used to obbey and are full of preconcepts.
2 wrong things my parents generation did bad because of their ignorance:
a) made children to only focus on studies (cause they never had that chance). People get completely out of the market till they are 23-24. Then of course there are no available positions for high skilled employees. We have no companies with that demand. They were never created! New companies were created by the uneducated bullies. If their families have no capital and they are having first contact with money and market at middle 20's they have no money to risk. 2 solutions appear: unemployment or emmigration.
b) strong left wing (as bare reaction to Salazar right wing regime, without any thinking and ponderation): For example somebody lower than 16 years old caught working is considered crime in Portugal. If these kids are not making it to provide for their families or skipping school I see no problem with this.