| leekit
|
3
|
 |
|
07-26-2002 11:21 AM ET (US)
|
|
Edited by author 07-26-2002 11:22 AM
What will the future role of university?
1) In the past, university is for the elite. With the lack of funding and commercialisation of eductation, university is offering degree to the mass.
2) In the past, one of the role of university is to classify people. If everyone has a degree, Master or Phd, what institution will take over such role?
|
| John Hibbs
|
4
|
|
|
07-26-2002 12:39 PM ET (US)
|
|
> >2) In the past, one of the role of university is to classify >people. If everyone has a degree, Master or Phd, what >institution will over such role? Who says university degrees will be of much value in the future? I have advocated a plan called Basket of Winners. For for more, please view < http://www.bfranklin.edu/champions/basket.htm>; John Hibbs hibbs@bfranklin.edu www.bfranklin.edu |
| Phil Rossomando
|
5
|
|
|
07-26-2002 01:00 PM ET (US)
|
|
Edited by author 07-26-2002 01:12 PM
Traditional education is today at bifurcation point. In one direction we find the total commercialization of education. Taking this path the law of supply and demand will take control and all that will be provided is instruction. Courses which are not profitable will be either dropped or placed on the back shelf to gather dust. Of course the role of the instructor will also change radically. From a producer of knowledge, he will become a producer of commidities for sale to the highest bidder. But of course, he will not own what he produces. Rather the corporate university will demand that he sign over his rights to any profits garnered from the sale of such knowledge commodities.
But than there will be fewer instructors as only those stars who look good on the screen will be needed to present the mass produced courses to be delived on-line. The rest will be placed in support roles or can look for new positions in industry. Even the traditional campus will be changed as most of us will no longer be able to receive on campus education as it will be priced beyond what most of us can pay. These gated communities will be populated by those able to pay the high tuitions and fees demanded. The rest of us will be expected to take our training on-line. yet, so far the pedagogy offered there is totally inappropriate to this context. There is more but for now let's see what sort of feedback is received. Than, I will investigate the other path that can be taken.
|
| John Hibbs
|
6
|
|
|
07-26-2002 01:30 PM ET (US)
|
|
What Phil mentions is the supposition that my seven year old grandson will be the same kind of student as was his mother, grandfather, and great grandmother. He won't be. He will have access to more
information, both of an "education" nature and of a "training"
nature. He probably will be more suspicious of institutions and more inclined to seek knowledge from people introduced to him by his peers or those very trustworthy. He might find that a course from Katmandu of far more interest than a course from General Motors, aka
University of Michigan. He will learn about just in time (job)
skills; and he will learn about things that was impossible to
affordably teach him pre-Net days. The technology will allow good professors to build very, very nice delivery systems at very, very, very low cost - they may or may not be hired away by the top
corporations or universities - that is a road they will have to learn to travel, as have sole practitioner attorneys, doctors, accountants, real estate agents - many of whom have formed their own associations or five man, ten man, 50 man, 100 man companies. If the value of the institutional degree "goes away", as I think it will, as as the need for the Rennaisance Man, supported by technical knowledge she can acquire as needed, grows, as I think it will, a whole new society of "learned" could develop. The physical campus as we now may see it could well be croweded with people in the 40's, 50's and 60's doing think tank work. The "kids" will have to prove their worth to get there. And more work will be done in elementary and high school to develop high self directed learners. Heck, there just won't be any money for anything else if government spending habits for military and boodoggles continue. What's the alternative?
|
