No, read enough of it to grasp the complaint:
So remembered Joseph Greenwood, a cloth cutter in a West Yorkshire mill, about how, in 1860, he helped set up Culloden College, one of hundreds of working-class mutual improvement societies in 19th-century Britain. “We had no men of position or education connected with us,” he added, “but several of the students who had made special study of some particular subject were appointed teachers, so that the teacher of one class might be a pupil in another.”
Greenwood’s story is one of many told by Jonathan Rose in his classic The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, a magnificent history of the struggles of working people to educate themselves, from early autodidactism to the Workers’ Educational Association. For those within this tradition the significance of education was not simply in providing the means to a better job but in allowing for new ways of thinking.
“Books to me became symbols of social revolution,” observed James Clunie, a house painter who became the Labour MP for Dunfermline in the 1950s. “The miner was no longer the ‘hewer of wood and the drawer of water’ but became… a leader in his own right, advocate, writer, the equal of men.” By the time that Rose published his book in 2001, that tradition had largely ebbed away. And, in the two decades since, so has the sense of education as a means of expanding one’s mind.
Last week, Roehampton University, in south-west London, confirmed that it is going to fire and rehire half its academic workforce and sack at least 65. Nineteen courses, including classics and anthropology, are likely to be closed. It wants to concentrate more on “career-focused” learning.
It is the latest in a series of cuts to the humanities made by British universities, from history and languages at Aston to English literature at Sheffield Hallam. These cuts mark a transformation in the role of universities that is rooted in three trends: the introduction of the market into higher education; a view of students as consumers; and an instrumental attitude to knowledge.
D’ye see the problem here? Back when education was a proper free market – no restrictions upon market entry – it was better than when it became institutionalised, largely taken over by the state. Therefore it’s wrong that education should become more free market.
But then of course people who can think don’t write for The Observer, do they?
It rather looks as though former polytechnics are abandoning academic courses in order to concentrate on providing practical skills which was their proper role. The danger with “career-focused” learning in this day and age is the range of “careers” which themselves need to be culled.
“D’ye see the problem here? Back when education was a proper free market – no restrictions upon market entry – it was better than when it became institutionalised, largely taken over by the state. Therefore it’s wrong that education should become more free market.”
I think that “proper free market” still exists, but distribution of knowledge is now a factory process. Books are much, much cheaper in real terms than in 1903 so it makes more sense to buy them than to have kind volunteers taking trips out to mining villages. Then there’s TV, radio, internet.
Roehampton is a particularly good case. It used to be a training college, famous for nursing. The associated hospital was likewise known for its specialist work eg prosthetics. Becoming a general university was an utterly pointless move.
See this here internet thingy, might it not have a role in a free market of education? Might your average university be a waste of time and money?
Rhoda
Five years ago I did a MA at my local uni. It was indeed a waste of time and money. But I was doing it for fun and because for once I had the time and the cash available simultaneously. I felt pretty sorry for the youngsters who thought that they needed this very crap qualification.
But its not really an argument. The criticism is implied i.e. left to the beholder.
“introduction of the market” – yeah, so?
“view of students as consumers” – better that than as mugs.
“an instrumental attitude to knowledge” How very working class of them.
rhoda,
“See this here internet thingy, might it not have a role in a free market of education? Might your average university be a waste of time and money?”
I think there’s some value where the subject has a lot of university research, and then, links between university research and industry. Like, the people teaching my daughter biomed are also advancing the science. And a lot of drugs are the result of fundamental research.
But other subjects? Most of the people teaching computer science never left university, or did industry for a few years. They can teach to the book, and not much else.
Some years ago I tried to do a Masters course because I wanted access to their equipment, and fancied having a bit of paper showing I knew what I’d been doing for 40 years. But they told me I’d previously been to university too long ago and would have to do an ordinary degree again, which would be three years of my brain turning to cheese.
Also, with the government continuously screaming at me that they want “people like YOUUUUUUUUU” to go into teaching, I also applied for a teaching conversion course, only to be told, yes, it was too long since I last went to uni, I would need a brand new degree before they’d consider me. Yet, they still scream about the shortage of teachers.
They seem to argue that Roehampton, Sheffield Hallam etc are closing courses out of spite.
Isn’t it at least possible that they are closing the courses because of lack of demand, as students focus on courses with definable career objectives. Or that the quality of applicants is low.
In other words, a response to changing market conditions.
I once threatened my colleagues that I’d retire early and then rejoin the lab as a research student.
I did enjoy the look of horror on their faces.
It is partially that, philip, but it is also a case of “low hanging fruit”. I saw this is in the 80s in my college. Humanities subjects are easy to cull, because they are just sacking the lecturers. There is no investment in infrastructure and realtively simple to redesign a course or reassign the students.
If primary school and the early years of secondary school were taught properly you could send most pupils out into the world at 14. After all, most people aren’t cut out for any more schooling than that.
Cull again at 16 and 18. Let 5% go to university and sling plenty of them out when they show they’re not up to snuff.
“Roehampton is a particularly good case. It used to be a training college, famous for nursing. The associated hospital was likewise known for its specialist work eg prosthetics. Becoming a general university was an utterly pointless move.”
On the contrary, I bet the people at the top of the organisation making the decision did very nicely out of the deal. Running a university undoubtedly pays better than running a training college…………pay rises (and pensions) all round!
dearieme,
“If primary school and the early years of secondary school were taught properly you could send most pupils out into the world at 14. After all, most people aren’t cut out for any more schooling than that.
Cull again at 16 and 18. Let 5% go to university and sling plenty of them out when they show they’re not up to snuff.”
The more I look at it the more I think it’s a dreadful thing to do to kids. Most kids don’t need to do GCSE maths. They’ll never solve a quadratic equation ever again. “Oh, but it’s to measure general ability”. No. You can give kids a maths test at 12 and work that out. The kids who are in the top 10% at 12 will roughly speaking be in the top 10% at GCSE. The only reason for teaching kids trig is that you need people who can do trig in adult life, which most people don’t.
I think it makes a lot of kids lack purpose. The kids who like learning enjoy it but to everyone else it’s a pointless institution. Maybe they have a lark, getting into fights, but they’d probably find their lives happier and more rewarding (and not just financially) going and doing some work or even just pursuing a hobby that interests them. The assumption is always that if kids aren’t at school they’ll be trouble makers, but really that’s more about kids bunking off from school or doing things after school.
Dearime,
My late stepfather’s school, back when he was a headmaster, had (in the mid-1970s) what was called the “ROSLA Lounge” – a hastily-built extension to cope with the Raising Of School Leaving Age in 1972.
Having had this well-meaning step dropped on them, the problem of what to do with a cohort of disaffected teenagers who’d been about to leave and now had to hang around for an extra year arose. At a secondary modern school with what would now be termed a “challenging” intake, about the best that could be done was to warehouse them until they were legally allowed to leave; the option was there to work further on some subjects, but many of the pupils just wanted to get out of school and into jobs.
After all, what sanctions were available? Suspend or expel pupils who are eager to get out anyway? “Oh, no, B’rer Fox, please don’t you throw me in that there briar patch!”