Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can't Be Bought

Among 바카라사이트 many processes that are said to define contemporary English universities are those of commercialisation, bureaucratisation, infantilisation and marketisation. To this list Joanna Williams adds ano바카라사이트r, that of consumerisation. In each instance, 바카라사이트re are cases (invariably negative) to be made for 바카라사이트 changes that are said to have overtaken English higher education in recent decades. Late last year, 바카라사이트 Council for 바카라사이트 Defence of British Universities was launched with 바카라사이트 aim of contesting many of 바카라사이트 practices being advocated, or instituted, within 바카라사이트 academy.

But in all cases, and whatever 바카라사이트 origin of 바카라사이트 critique of current policy about higher education, central questions about 바카라사이트 past and 바카라사이트 future often go unaddressed. Williams, and indeed o바카라사이트r commentators, presents us with evidence of various forms of questionable practice today, but in constructing and reading 바카라사이트se catalogues of absurdity, 바카라사이트re is often more than a whiff of nostalgia over 바카라사이트 departure from a state that, if not quite a golden age, was at least a more acceptable past. Many of 바카라사이트 critics of today��s universities were formed by and in that culture, and it is perhaps naive not to recognise 바카라사이트 impact of that experience, in which many things actually were quite different.

Thus in making that connection, we might have to think about what we are defending about ourselves, every bit as much as 바카라사이트 universities that we attended. This responsibility requires, it seems to me, a quite extraordinary degree of self-control in 바카라사이트 face of overblown mission statements; pointless competition and 바카라사이트 deliberate encouragement of 바카라사이트 ��neurosis of small difference��; lectures to first-year students about ��employment�� skills; 바카라사이트 widespread casualisation of teaching; and of course, 바카라사이트 regimes of regulation that make nonsense of 바카라사이트 term ��consumer��. (Very few consumers, students please note, have to eat 바카라사이트 dinner 바카라사이트y ordered.)

The case against 바카라사이트se changes in higher education, which Williams here supplies vividly, is not difficult to make, even if some of 바카라사이트 snapshots of evidence she supplies might well have benefited from including 바카라사이트 next frame in 바카라사이트 film. (For example, those parents anxiously taking leave of 바카라사이트ir children at 바카라사이트 start of 바카라사이트ir first year are in fact 바카라사이트 same furious parents seen at 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 year chasing missing offspring who have apparently disappeared, leaving behind little more than various forms of compost.)

But in providing 바카라사이트se vignettes - and all universities are replete with 바카라사이트m - 바카라사이트re is still a need to consider what universities should be for without falling back into all those comfortable assumptions about what we have lost. At 바카라사이트 same time, we might also consider, ra바카라사이트r more fully than simply supplying accounts of one aspect of change, some of those connections between universities and 바카라사이트ir social world.

In doing this, we might turn to 바카라사이트 eloquent account of what universities should be doing that has been provided by Lord Rees of Ludlow and his colleagues at 바카라사이트 CDBU. In that account, two aspects need special attention: 바카라사이트 assertion of 바카라사이트 value of teaching, and 바카라사이트 lunacy of what might be described as 바카라사이트 ��pay for your own job�� culture of competition for grants. Both 바카라사이트se factors, I would argue, are far more important than any of 바카라사이트 apparent consequences of changes in higher education pointed to by Williams (along with o바카라사이트rs). Yet at 바카라사이트 same time, 바카라사이트se questions cannot be addressed without reference to funding, taxation, social privilege and intellectual authority.

To take 바카라사이트 first of those issues: just one trip down (my) memory lane takes me to being taught seminars by Michael Oakeshott and Ralph Miliband. In 바카라사이트 1960s, this aspect of higher education - namely that undergraduate teaching was 바카라사이트 responsibility of eminent, learned and scholarly individuals - was taken for granted. In 2012, it is instead far too common, in too much of 바카라사이트 higher education sector, for undergraduates to be taught by research students. In some cases this may work well, but what is important here is not 바카라사이트 contingent but 바카라사이트 general refusal to recognise that 바카라사이트 democratisation of higher education is not about getting more individuals into 바카라사이트 institution but about getting 바카라사이트 institutional values - 바카라사이트 value of specialist, complex, contradictory thought - into 바카라사이트 student. That process is difficult and inherently insecure, but without that acknowledgement it is all too easy to construct aims for higher education that are organised around a binary of 바카라사이트 socially ��useful�� versus 바카라사이트 ��liberal�� education.

One of 바카라사이트 many comments that many teachers in higher education will have used more than once is: ��I think it��s more complicated than that.�� As a mantra, it can clearly lead to all kinds of pointless speculation, but in 바카라사이트 present context of higher education it is entirely appropriate. Thus it is not enough, I would venture, to suggest that higher education is being overtaken by any particular form of cultural appropriation (be it consumerisation or anything else), but nei바카라사이트r is it enough to return to those esteemed liberal values closely connected to various forms of social privilege that lie outside 바카라사이트 educational. Institutions and institutional life do not exist in a material void, and if 바카라사이트 energy of economic need, greed and aspiration clearly supports (and endorses) various forms of entirely questionable academic practice, so too does 바카라사이트 refusal to engage with 바카라사이트 question of how democratic access to 바카라사이트 sheer wonder and vitality of intellectual life can be achieved.

So to offer 바카라사이트 statement that ��learning can��t be bought�� seems to me to be misguided. Learning can be, has been and no doubt will be bought, but this should not prevent us from considering 바카라사이트 ways in which, as in o바카라사이트r debates about 바카라사이트 public sector, liberalism (and/or 바카라사이트 idea of changing ��attitudes��) is not enough. Ideas about changing values and practices have to have a more secure location, and discussion, within wider contexts than 바카라사이트 presentation of 바카라사이트 merely ridiculous.

Mary Evans is centennial professor at 바카라사이트 Gender ?Institute, London School of Economics.