Education in general and higher education in particular are investments people make with the expectation of better employment and higher wages. But educators and educational institutes claim that the purpose of education is to ‘equip people with the knowledge they need to make free and independent decisions’ to live the life they think they had planned for themselves.
The fact that there is an economic basis underpinning those individual choices makes them very much dependent on various factors such as political climate, the economy and the social and cultural norms of their living environment.
Since higher education cannot be seen as detached from the lower levels, most of these factors and concepts would have some, if not all, of their tentacles wrapped in the whole system of formal education.
Even though educational policy dynamics can vary across countries and their political landscape one would find a great deal of commonalities, especially, within the context of globalisation.
The debate on the purpose of higher education has become the most important component at discussions conducted by policymakers, in the framework of market-driven economies. Social scientists have been highlighting the increase of social inequalities despite efforts to increase participation in higher education.
Labour market driven higher education policies have increased the competition among the recipients and the Degrees have become assets that can be converted to a labour market value.
Education is no longer considered as a necessity for human development other than as an instrument for economic progress. Educational institutions have become almost like automated Degree producing factories in their efforts to make the process as customer friendly as possible to attract better clientele.
Student-centered learning
These same institutes use phrases such as ‘student-centered learning’ and ‘opportunities for individualised programs’ that are contradictory to the assembly-line like process of issuing Degrees.
The world has accepted this concept of using children as raw material for these education factories in the process of manufacturing adults the market needs to sustain the economic progress.
The advancement of the ICT has made it much easier even to reach thousands of customers the world over at any given time.
The University of Bologna, known as the first established university in Europe, introduced the concept of ‘academic freedom’ as the root of its culture.
In the past the religious concepts were shared as knowledge until the development of science started challenging the theological explanations of the universal phenomena. Subsequently, some of the universities evolved into institutes where research was the ultimate goal of scholarship.
The introduction of liberal arts traditions transformed the universities into what most of the world experiences today as institutes of higher education. Even though these liberal arts traditions have evolved into a process of interdisciplinary education in social sciences, the original concept was to liberate the mind of the student from the habits of bondage, customs and dogmas, for them to function as sensitive and alert citizens.
With the industrial revolutions the capitalistic economic model transformed some of the others into technical institutes, based on the idea that industrial skills should be acquired through formal education.
At present we see a combination of these models in most of the universities around the world. Another aspect of higher education was, and still is to some extent, the affordability. One form of higher education caters to the elite in preparing the youngsters of the dominant class of society.
The other form equips the masses with the knowledge and skills needed for their roles in the labour market. The rest is to adapt the general population to the rapid technological and social changes.
Though there are some educators and stakeholders in the industry who think that higher education should cater to the labour market others believe it should be independent from the market economy. Most of the institutes around the world have shown that a hybrid of the two concepts is the key to achieve a sustainable outcome as a knowledge producing and disseminating entity.
It is evident that the labour market is looking for people who can adapt themselves to rapid changes and learn the new concepts quickly. Therefore, learning how to learn has become the most important part of higher education. In the past such adaptability was needed during war times.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of adaptability, the flexibility to learn new skills and new ways of doing things. Recent studies show that most of the employers list problem-solving, collaboration, communication, adaptability, empathy, resilience, integrity, leadership and emotional quotient as most valued skills.
In this digital age where artificial intelligence is the common medium of interactions candidates who can perform tasks that machines cannot are becoming more and more valuable in the job market. The world Economic Forum in its 2016 report, The Future of Jobs, states that 65 percent of children entering primary school today will be employed in jobs that do not exist yet.
Employment will not be something one seeks after education but the two will be switching back and forth depending on the changes happening in the knowledge economy.
Success in the future will not be defined by a Degree, but by the ability to stay in the loop of learn, apply, adapt and then unlearn, relearn, apply and adapt.
In any case, the education system of a country should be considered as the most important process of shaping its citizens to be productive not only in improving the economy but also in improving the ethical and moral values of society while continuing the learning process throughout their life.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea if policy makers do a bit of brainstorming to figure out a proper balancing act walking on the high wire between the knowledge-based-economy and the economy-based-knowledge factories.
The ultimate goal of an education system should be to help the recipient to develop the ability to understand the world and the purpose of his/her existence to make a better world.
Finland is one country that has approached education through such a framework where the student-centered learning has been introduced in the truest sense of that phrase and it is no surprise that the Finish education system is considered as the best in the world.
(The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic for over twenty years in the USA and thirteen years in Sri Lanka and can be contacted at [email protected])