A new purpose to education

What is left that is even scholarly about a university education anymore? Working from textbooks that increasingly recycle ideas, discussing the same tedious essay topics as part of a subject discourse and asking the same questions, then rewind and repeat. What has happened to the inquisitive nature of a student body who now seem to show so much apathy towards the intrinsic value of university education, and instead, find value in matter-of-fact, rather than for a greater understanding of the purposes of knowing? 

In recent years we have seen a new conceptualisation of what being a student is. Numbers have increased dramatically, as an objective of Labour’s aims to draw in half of school leavers into university. Almost blinded by notions of a more educated population, nobody so much as batters an eyelid at the prospect of a toxic effect of too many, and instead, focus on the monetary “value” by turning university education into a social ‘right’.

University education has almost lost grips on the old, somewhat romantic purposes of individual emancipation, of scholarship and academic merit, and has found itself in the cold, mechanical grips of a financially-driven employment machine. This change is partly natural of course, with an ever growing population comes increased demand and competition; employers begin asking for higher qualifications to differentiate – an arguable lapse of logic, subject to an effect of diminishing returns; as more and more students present degrees in job application, it eventually transpires as another arbitrary layer of education, which is what a-levels are increasingly becoming. Thus, a degree is almost a requirement for many post-18, and the current, pervasive viewpoint that a degree is now a means to an end, and for most, nothing more is substantiating itself thoroughly.  A system slowly being drained of virtue.

The NUS may proclaim, somewhat blindly I feel, a charismatic and passionate attitude towards the notion that an ‘education is a right’ and quite honestly, I do agree. What I do not agree with is that this right belongs at university level education. Examine this from the point of view of research and development – the principal goals of a University: What higher attainment or academic merit is to be gained by educational institutions, if the ideological purpose of university is to give students their “right” for a further education? This models university into an economical graduate producer.

It is the responsibility of education authorities to keep standards high, and while herding sheep numbers of students through their doors may provide financial suit,  it ignores the detrimental side effects of changing the purpose, and dare I say it, virtues of university education. 

Slowly the very fabric is being eaten at with a distasteful monetary policy, and we ignore this effect by suggesting greater financial liberation by virtue of a greater number.

Tags: education, scholarship