African Entrepreneurship Record

"Large-scale mechanization is the direction we envision for future agricultural development. Today's steam agricultural machinery is quite bulky and inefficient, but we can also see the importance of mechanization."

During Cade's narration, a steam tractor was demonstrating farming.

In the 1830s, some people began to study the use of steam vehicles to pull agricultural machinery for field operations. All countries have researched tractors, and East Africa is no exception. However, the track in East Africa is different from other countries.

But the steam engine traction vehicles that countries around the world have built so far are like small locomotives. Even if they don't get stuck in the fields, they will compact the soil very tightly.

The leader in the field of steam tractors is the United Kingdom. They have been able to make steam tractors relatively small, but the high cost makes such agricultural tools affordable only for large farms.

The Third State Farm in Mbeya City is a large farm. After all, as long as the word "state-owned" is added to many things, the scale will generally be small, and East Africa is no exception.

However, not all regions in East Africa are as wealthy as Mbeya City and can afford to buy such a big piece of iron. As one of the four largest cities in East Africa, Mbeya City is also a heavy industrial base in East Africa, so it is very interested in tractors. .

Ernst established the East African Tractor Research Institute in Mbeya City, and the tractor now in the Third State Farm is actually a product purchased by East Africa as a reference for tractor research and development.

However, the Tractor Research Institute in Mbeya City is more of a copycat, drawing on the tractor drawings studied by Hechingen Energy Power Company.

While Cade was explaining, the children around him had been chatting non-stop around the topic of tractors.

"Is this thing so amazing? Just like a locomotive. My home is not far from the Central Railway. I see that the structure of the locomotive is very similar to this thing called a tractor, but the train can pull so many things. This tractor is used for plowing. It should The ability is also very strong.”

"His big wheel is made entirely of steel! You see, there are two marks wherever the wheel passes."

"How many cows do you think his strength is comparable to?"

"This is not the key. The most important thing is that I think it is easier to take care of. After all, it is a machine. It can operate for a long time. There is no need to eat or sleep. It only needs to feed coal to the boiler."

Students at Practical Middle School also have to take physics classes, so it is not difficult to understand this kind of mechanical product, but the steam tractor can indeed bring great spiritual shock to people.

Especially the huge noise, the gears, crankshaft and boiler are crackling when they are operating, and the movements are not very fast, as if the old guy is about to fall apart at any time.

Ernst was not very interested in this kind of steampunk product, but the students in East Africa were very excited to see such a real thing up close.

"I will also become a tractor driver in the future. Driving this thing will definitely be quite impressive."

"Then you have to work hard and try to work in our state-owned farm in the future." Cade said with a smile.

After giving encouragement to the children, Capita changed the subject and said: "It is not easy for East Africa to drive a tractor. As far as I know, there are only twenty-three tractors in the country, and these twenty-three All tractors were purchased from various countries.”

"Our industrial strength in East Africa is very poor, so we do not have the ability to produce this kind of machinery. Of course, the same is true for most countries. This is the tragedy of agricultural countries."

Ernst did not agree with this. Ernst knew that there was an agricultural country in this era that was doing quite well, and that was Argentina. However, East Africa and Argentina took different routes. Argentine immigration was very slow, with only two million people now. Regarding scale, you must know that Argentina's cultivated land area is not small, so Argentina is truly vast and sparsely populated. With the population size of Argentina, Belgium is considered a powerful country for Argentina.

Cade continued: "So you should study hard and build your own tractors for East Africa in the future, so that this expensive and bulky thing can be made cheaper and smaller, and contribute to East Africa in the future."

"Ah! Uncle Cade, we are still good friends even if we don't discuss studies."

I can't blame the students of No. 2 Middle School for complaining. Although East Africa does not discriminate against practical middle schools, it has to be admitted that the source of students in practical middle schools is very poor, and most of them are leftovers from liberal arts middle schools.

The first middle school in Mbeya City is a liberal arts middle school. During the high school entrance examination, the last place admitted by the first middle school was higher than that of the second middle school.

The gap between the two sides is also reflected in the college entrance examination admission rate. Practical middle schools can also take the college entrance examination, but the admission quota is only about one-tenth.

Of course, the East African College Entrance Examination is not the only way out. There is also a recommendation examination in East Africa, where each school recommends outstanding students to take special examinations. But in the final analysis, it still depends on the results, which is a bit like various competitions in previous lives.

Therefore, the students of No. 2 Middle School can be sure that they will be at the middle level in elementary school. By middle school, in line with the education level in East Africa, only a few will have good learning ability.

As for why it is at the middle level, it is because there is a third middle school at the bottom. The third middle school is a practical middle school like the second middle school, but its teaching staff is far inferior to that of the second middle school, and it cannot be compared with the first middle school. In this regard, if It is easy to understand by simply understanding practical high schools as technical secondary schools in the previous life. However, in Ernst's previous life, there were more high schools than technical secondary schools, while in East Africa, there were more practical secondary schools than liberal arts schools.

However, even for liberal arts middle schools, it is not easy to go to university. The number of East African universities is extremely small, which does not match the number of East African middle schools. After all, East African middle schools have been included in the compulsory education category, which means that students in East Africa have the opportunity and obligation to attend. High school, but not college.

But Ernst is not worried about this at all. The high school level is enough for East African students to make their own way in the world after graduation. After all, in this era, a high school degree is regarded as a highly educated person.

Ernst even thinks that in a few years, the excess number of people with secondary school education in East Africa (relative to other countries) is likely to spill over to Germany and Austria, just like how students from the Far Eastern Empire spilled over to European and American countries in the previous generation.

As the saying goes, knowledge is power. Especially in Germany, where the second industrial revolution is booming, the demand for talents is also very strong.

East African middle school students will definitely have an advantage if they participate in the recruitment of German factories. Although the overall teaching quality in East Africa is very poor due to the popularization of middle school education, the employment situation of those who have attended middle school is much better than those who have attended elementary school.

It just depends on students’ psychological expectations for employment after graduation. Middle school students can work as managers in German factories.

Therefore, the education system in East Africa is out of touch with the rest of the world. Maybe the higher education level in Europe and the United States far exceeds that in East Africa, and the primary education in East Africa cannot catch up with the level of Germany and Austria. However, in the secondary education, East Africa can definitely win by quantity.

The consequence of this is that there was a surplus of secondary education in East Africa in the early stage. After all, the upward path is narrow, and very few can go to college. After graduating from high school, they may work in the same job as their parents, and they may not even have the opportunity to work in a factory to make screws, and they can only work in farming. , because East Africa is just an agricultural country.

At the same time, East Africa will have to bear huge educational expenditures in the early stage, which is why Ernst is not in a hurry to send the black people away. Ernst needs the black people to bear this part of the cost for East Africa.

The benefits will be reflected in the future. First of all, the overall quality of East African citizens will definitely far exceed that of other countries in the future. East African middle school students are definitely high-level talents in the Far Eastern Empire where illiteracy is common in this era, and they are not bad in Europe and the United States.

Secondly, the industry in East Africa will definitely grow explosively in the future. After all, talents have begun to accumulate. As the industry develops, the academic requirements have also greatly increased. Now a primary school degree can meet the needs of the times, but one day a primary school degree will depreciate.

Ernst believed that the universalization of compulsory education in Germany made Germany develop so dazzlingly. Later, the Soviet Union also followed this path, so East Africa only went one step further based on the development experience of these countries.