How long are we going to sit on our hands?

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Early winter 1933, Kyograd Royal Palce. Yet another Rada meeting called by the Queen. She has been working tirelessly around the clock for several months now to uplift Ashinara to modern standards. Her previous decree, unfortunately, didn't achieve as much as it was hoped to by now. While the Royal Academy of Progress was a sight to behold, that's all it was for now - a sight. Ashinara simply did not have the experts to teach new generations of Ashinaran kids the skills that the nation would need them to have. If the country can't educate electricians, what use of the power stations imported from overseas? If there is nowhere mechanics can learn to service automobiles, if no one in the nation knows how to set up and operate fuel stations, what use is the brand new Gaelian Studebaker factory, if all it's cars would end up being oversized paper weights because no one can service them? What use is the new aircraft carrier UKUG is going to provide if Ashinara would be barely afford to run and maintain it? What does Ashinara even have to offer the world besides it's rubber? 

"If this continues, we'll always remain an agrarian backwater serving only to feed raw resources into developed nations, without developing ourselves!" The Queen shouted slamming her fist on the desk in front of her, loosing her temper at the Ministers trying to argue something about breaking from traditions. "What good our traditions will be, when eventually we'll remain one of the few countries that can't effectively produce it's own medicine?!" 

No one had a reply. She was right, and they didn't have an answer to that. 

"Alright," the Minister of Internal Affairs, te Sahno finally broke the silence that ensued. "What do you propose? Another 'Old New World'? You do realize that eventually our coffers will bleed dry, especially if these initiatives aren't going anywhere."

The Queen sat there, hands folded under her chin, thinking. Or perhaps waiting for someone to come up with an idea and voice it.

Minister of Education, te Dubynia, was the one who did. "What if we create scholarships for our students study abroad? If we can't bring the teachers here to the students, bring the students to the teachers?"

The Queen looked up at him, one of her ministers finally giving her something. After a little bit more deliberation, it's been decided. 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs would meet with Gaelian officials to work out a deal to send Ashinaran students en-masse to study in UKUG, and once a deal is reached, scholarships will be offered to the Ashinaran youth. Now they just needed to think of an incentive for the youth to accept these scholarships. 

[aimway921]

What is higher education even? A continuation of elementary education. And how can a nation hope to build a base of higher education, if it has no base of elementary education? That was the next issue that the former Princess - now Queen - aimed to rectify.

A large of Ashinara's rural population was barely literate, if literate at all. Many of them were stuck working on farms, in mineshafts, some more skillful in foundries. This was an untapped potential of intelligence. Who knows how many genius minds who could go on to become scientists, engineers or doctors, are unable to explore their potential because there's simply no one there to teach them how to read and write.

While a great number of nobles are perfectly happy with this status quo, keeping the population content and in their places, the Queen understood that Ashinara is stuck in the past, and without educating the masses, will never be able to move forward - no matter how much money they throw at Gaelian machinery or Lusatian guns.

Elementary education centers would start rolling out gradually. First would be weekend schools for adults to teach them the basics of literacy. These adults would then be able to teach their children. This alone, the Queen and the officials at the Ministry of Education were hoping, would give a boost to the next steps needed.

After convening also with the Minister of Finance, it was decided that this, the First Step in Educating the Masses, would be paid in part from the personal coffers of the nobility who long have benefited from this status quo.

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A second step in rolling out Education of the Masses envisioned starting the mass building of state-run schools. To save money, it was decided to combine the institutions of Elementary School, Middle School and High School into a single entity - the General Education School. They would, in effect, run the same as if they were separate - Elementary School consisting of grades 1 through 4, Middle - 5 through 9 and High School - grades 10 and 11. However, they will all be housed in the same building and have a unified administration.

The recently created Ministry of Education shall work with the invited Gaelian educators to create a nation-wide school curriculum.

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A semester has passed since the first state-funded General Education Schools were opened and began educating the parts of the population that never had access to formal education before. Even more time has passed since the opening of Weekend Adult Schools to teach basic literacy to the adults who never had the chance to attend school when they were kids. Their implementation has seen enormous success, as a comparison was made between workplaces in the exact same industry, but where the workers were literate vs where they weren't - and it was noted that productivity in the facility staffed by literate workers higher by such a magnitude, it was foolish to even consider weighing the pros and cons of educating the masses.

Starting the third stage of rolling out the Education of the Masses, the Ministry of Education was tasked with fully accommodate the student capacity in every large city. This was estimated to be approximately 400-500 schools per city. With 20 large cities in Ashinara, that meant that between 8,000 and 10,000 schools would be built. As this was seen as the most important issue in Ashinara right now, all available Construction Factories would be committed to the project to roll it out as fast as possible.

Further more, tax break incentives were offered to the wealthy nobles and clergy who would help fund the effort through any means - be it helping secure land for the schools, funding the construction, funding the staffing needs once the school is built and starts to operate - with the biggest tax breaks offered to those who would commit to funding all of the above for a period of at least 10 years.

The pressure of popular opinion would also be applied on the wealthiest of the nobles to participate in the funding of mass education, as Queen Yuzura toured the country giving multiple public speeches raising support and awareness among the masses about the benefits of sending their children to school, as well as donating a large sum enough to buy land for and build over 100 schools from her personal Royal Family treasury.