GoogleTranslate Service


Factories, cities, enterprises – what do we want of our universities

November 26th, 2008 by Graham Attwell

In this multitasking twitter and hash tags and live blogging world we live in I was following the Jisc CETIS conference on Technology for Learning, Teaching and the Instiution yeserday (as aside not Andy Powell provides wonderful live blogging from the conference circuit).

There was a keynote speech by Professor Andrew Feenberg. His conclusion appeared to be that we needed new metaphor for education – to move away form the model of a factory to the idea of city. Now I see the appeal in terms of modernism. And that is interesting since the connectivism strand of think appears to go far closer to post modernism in its approach. The city, I suppose, could be said to be multi cultural and socially enriching in terms of interaction. I still remain unconvinced but anything which moves education beyond the present factory modals has to be a good thing.

And then my eye fell upon an article by Mike Baker in the Guardian newpaper extolling the virtues of US universities, where his daughter had recently studied, as opposed to the practice of universities in the UK. Mike Baker points to the greater flexibility of US universities in terms saying “the libraries were open 24 hours a day, seven days a week…. my daughter’s fellow students could pack in extra credits if they wished to get through their degree more quickly or, if they needed a part-time job, they could take fewer credits and stretch out their studies. Equally, they could stay on for an extra summer semester if they wished. ….Many of her fellow American undergraduates arrived at the university from community college, transferring in their course credits……Our universities also seem reluctant to change admissions.”

All good points I suppose. But is this not really just ramping up the Taylorist education factory production system to make it more effcient and flexible to churn out yet more students. I am at one with Andrew Feenberg in wanting to examine the purpose and worth of our university system. It is the enterprise approach to teaching and learning which has done so much harm to attempts to develop new pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for learning. More enterprising enterprises is not going to help.

Please follow and like us:

4 Responses to “Factories, cities, enterprises – what do we want of our universities”

  1. Martin Owen says:

    I seem to remember Univdrsity as a bloody good social club…. ah the sixties

  2. James Durkan says:

    I’d like to use the term ‘Centre of Excellence’ but it’s been hi-jacked by vacuous spin-doctors. So I’m not going to say that it should be a place where excellent people excel.

    Can I get away with ‘it should be a place where potentially excellent people develop their potential’? That’s a significant pedagogic shift; no more spoon feeding, no more dumbing down, no more remedial courses. I’m involved in this never-ending debate with my fellow Instructional Designers; any good coach knows you play to your strengths and not your weaknesses.

    Don’t for a moment think I’m callous enough to abandon those of greatest need – but University is not the place for them until they can handle it. It might feel obliged to provide off-campus facilities or an outreach program to accommodate those in need of make up classes but the intellectually gifted should have one haven in their life where they can just get on with achieving their potential.

    Mention a sports academy or an apprenticeship for a promising athlete or a modeling school for a pretty girl (‘or boy’, the 21st century man interjects) and there’s no problem with that. Mention a similarly exclusive environment for the gifted individual and just try to ride out the cries of ‘Elitist!’.

    And yes, I can hear Davina McCall banging on the door demanding I accept her view that everyone is equally excellent.

  3. James Durkan says:

    OK, here’s the short version of the lengthy comment your spam-filter flushed. It is not elitist to suggest that universities should be the province of gifted people; sports academies and modeling schools are not expected to accept everyone who walks in off the street. Let there be Burger College and Hairdressing Academy to provide vocational qualifications.

  4. Graham Attwell says:

    Hi James – could you or anyone else having difficulties with the comment function send me a short email describing this – spam filter should not be able to stop comments in that way.

    Onto the substance – I do not agree with you that the role of universities should be to educate gifted people (however that is defined). No surpise there. But I do agree that we need a broader debate over the role of universities in society today. And I agree that vocational education should hot primariliy be the task of universities – personally I would like to see an expansion of apprenticeship programmmes. Univerisities should have a major role in the development of knowledge within the community – and that includes an extended and distributed community. But that means also re-examining how we fund universities as well as curricula and pedagogic approaches.

  • Search Pontydysgu.org

    Social Media




    News Bites

    Cyborg patented?

    Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.

    Please follow and like us:


    Racial bias in algorithms

    From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter

    This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.

    Please follow and like us:


    Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years

    Via The Canary.

    The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).

    Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.

    The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.

    Please follow and like us:


    Quality Training

    From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.

    Please follow and like us:


    Other Pontydysgu Spaces

    • Pontydysgu on the Web

      pbwiki
      Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
      Sounds of the Bazaar Radio LIVE
      Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.

      We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.

      Please follow and like us:
  • Twitter

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Meta

  • Categories