(Note 1: I have changed the discourse question, slightly, for clarity. Empirically, higher education IS treated like a free market. That’s how educational policy is currently set up. The proper question is if we SHOULD regulate higher education that way.)

(Note 2: be sure to note that this debate isn’t about universities in particular, but post-secondary education in general. Universities have a clear public role: the pursuit of truth, knowledge and understanding free from external (political, economic) pressure. Universities are part of the larger debate, but controversy in higher education reform is about all post-school institutions including colleges and trades.)

(Note 3: Yes, I am one of the authors in this pairing. For those new to graduate courses, note that it is a common (and often expected) practice in research-focused institutions at UBC for professors to share research in development. I’m currently working on the following project. I have no personal ego-investment in the paper. Feel free to agree or disagree with White or Martin as you like, on the basis of good reasons of course! Thinking through objections/critiques of arguments is beneficial for the professoriate and students alike.)

Now that that’s all done…

Pinpointing the value of higher education in a democracy is no easy task. After all, while universities and similar institutions have been around for a long time they have only recently been viewed as part of the fabric of a free and equal society. It was not until the post-WW2 boom that higher education seriously expanded beyond traditional elites, welcoming citizens from different social and economic backgrounds.

However, the moral and political significance of this expansion remains unclear. For example, if I say that higher education should be accessible to all do I mean that higher education is a really smart economic investment, an important opportunity that everyone should have an equal chance at competing for? Or do I mean that higher education is so important that everyone should receive it regardless of a person’s competitiveness or potential for economic gain?

The former seems to be what the current model represents. It goes something like this: a higher education is a very efficient way to improve your economic lot in life. It’s not essential for living well, but you’ll certainly be more employable and you’re likely to earn more over a lifetime. And we know that employability and earning power will help you live well in other branches of life. Yet we shouldn’t restrict such opportunities to the elites of a society. Equality is an important value in a democracy. And elites already have lots of money and opportunities. So we must expand higher education. Higher education should work to make sure that more of the less well off have a better chance at improving their economic fortunes, should they wish to do so. Those that don’t have the means to pay up front, for example, should be able to pay once they experience the economic gains that come with access. Borrow now; pay later. By making higher education an easier choice to make, student loans work in the interest of a just society.

But one can take issue with this line of thinking and claim that higher education provision should to be aiming for something like the latter: everyone should get a higher education because it is crucial for living a good life. For example, one might claim that higher education has become so desired and widespread in society that it is now in the same class of welfare goods commonly recognized as “public” such as health care and basic schooling. Citizens have a social right to a higher education. However, many advocates asserting that higher education is a social right lack a justification – a clear set of reasons why we should see higher education this way (McCowan, 2012). After all, many goods and services that were once restricted to elites have now expanded across the population due to market demand. Coffee, golf and air travel all come to mind, here. We wouldn’t seriously entertain these as welfare goods. Is there anything about higher education that requires us to recognize it as valuable in the same way that we value goods such as health care and basic schooling?

The readings in this discourse are just a sample of a much larger debate about the public financing, sociology, philosophy and policies of higher education.

Again, I think we have enough of handle on things that you can jump straight into commenting on both readings. White’s paper, while complex, makes a very basic but important point: adults attend higher education institutions, not children. And so he thinks that a number of implications follow from this fact about how we should think about higher education policy and practice. Namely, adults students should be free to choose for themselves what they learn and why (as well as taking responsibility for those choices). Martin concedes the point, but argues that this does not mean that higher education does not have a basic educational goal or responsibility and applies this argument to the student loan debate. To the question above, Martin attempts to argue that we SHOULD see higher education as having the same basic value as health care or schooling.

Further reading:

Brighouse, Harry, and Paula McAvoy. “Privilege, Well-being, and Participation in Higher Education.” Philosophy of Education in the Era of Globalization (2009): 165.

Collini, Stefan. What are universities for?. Penguin UK, 2012.

McCowan, Tristan. “Should universities promote employability?.” Theory and Research in Education 13, no. 3 (2015): 267-285.

Should teachers be educated, or should they be trained?

The question, on the surface, may not seem very controversial. However, the question of the ‘training’ versus ‘education’ of teachers impacts on many areas of educational policy, practice and research. It defines the nature and scope of the knowledge-base of the profession, for example. In fact, it partly determines if teaching IS a profession. If teachers are best ‘trained’ it follows that their professional knowledge-base reflects a narrow and limited (though important) set of skills. If teachers are best ‘educated’ it suggests that their professional knowledge-base is made up of a wider engagement in various forms of knowledge and understanding, reflecting a particular and distinctive body of expertise. Interestingly, this bumps up, yet again, with the debate over knowledge vs. competencies, but this time in the domain of professional and higher education (as opposed to schooling).

(By the way, if you agreed with Sarup that all knowledge is hierarchical/oppressive and that knowledge and understanding is socially constructed without any truth-value, as a matter of consistency Sarup’s argument must also apply to the notion that teachers are professionals by virtue of their particular expertise/knowledge and understanding. If Sarup IS right, what might this mean for the view that teaching is a profession?)

The question also impacts on what counts as educational research. Education is a field of inquiry that is situated in universities. Educational researchers can engage in very basic research questions without that engagement ever having anything direct to say about schooling. (Consider that in medical schools researchers study anatomy or cell biology but their findings may have no direct impact on the medical school resident). However, the question of training versus teaching will impact on the extent to which, and ways in which, teachers should be put into contact with educational research and related expertise. Historically, the preparation of teachers was restricted to training colleges. But one of the reasons for moving teaching into the university was to provide teacher candidates opportunities to receive an education in education. If such an education is not required for teaching, much of this rationale evaporates.

The question also has stakes for professional education more generally. When we prepare doctors, lawyers, nurses and social workers to carry out the work of their profession what exactly is it that we are aiming to do?

In any case, the Lawlor and Orchard readings represent clear positions on some important features of this issue. Lawlor argues that teacher candidates should be “protected from the educationalists” and that teacher recruitment should focus on those with rigorous subject expertise. Orchard and Winch rebut this argument in some respects, claiming that to the extent that teaching is a profession, and not a craft, a university-based education is essential.

For this pair of readings I suggest that we can have a go at jumping into both readings at the same time. Lawlor’s paper is fairly policy-heavy but keeps coming back to the same (important) central points. We can quickly get a sense of the debate, then. So, comment on what you see fit. I may suggest some questions if the conversation lulls.

Further readings:

Chinnery, Ann, et al. “Teaching philosophy of education: The value of questions.” Interchange 38.2 (2007): 99-118.

Winch, Christopher, Alis Oancea, and Janet Orchard. “The contribution of educational research to teachers’ professional learning: philosophical understandings.” Oxford Review of Education 41.2 (2015): 202-216.

Carr, Wilfred. “Education without theory.” British Journal of Educational Studies 54.2 (2006): 136-159.