Text 3 When education fails to keep pace with technology,the result is inequality.Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive,workers suffer-and if enough of them fall belund,society starts to fall apart.That fundamental insight seized reformers in the IndusLrial Revolution,promoting state-funded universal schooling.Later,automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in coUege graduates.The combination of education and innovation,spread over decades,led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution.This time,how-ever,working lives are so lengthy and so fast-chanf;ing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough.People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.Unfortunately,as our special report in Lhis issue sets out,the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it.If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass,policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens leam while they earn.So far,their ambition has fallen pitifully short.The classic model of education-a burst aL the start and top-ups through company training-is breaking down.One reason is the need for new,and constantly updated,skdls.Manufacturing in~creasingly calls for brain work raLher than physical work.The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5%t0 21%between 1996 and 2015.The single,stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.Pushinf;people into ever-hit;her levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.Just 16qo of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job.Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire,those with specialtized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than山ose with general educaUon-perhaps because they are less adaptable.At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking.In Amenca and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades.Self-employment is spreading,leaving more people to take responsi-bility for their own skills.Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualirication is an option,but it costs money and most coUeges are geared towards youngsters.
The author's attitude towards on-the-job training is____
A.objective
B.favorable
C.pessimistic
D.contradictory