13 days ago @AlexEdneyBrowne (twitter) asked for my thoughts on Stephen Joyce’s comments regarding engineering enrolments
at the University of Auckland (apologies for my belated response). I refrained from writing too soon, because I had a few questions that I didn’t have answers to. I still don’t have those answers, but my views are little more reasoned (but only a little). This post reflects on Joyce’s comments, but not
in the way that you might have thought.
According to Stephen Joyce, education is about meeting the demand of the
market and the market currently demands that prospective University Students
undertake engineering degrees because there is a shortage of engineers in NZ
and if an institution does not comply, then the government can go in and force
compliance.
"If they want us to be more directive, I'm more than willing," he said. "I'm watching them really closely to make sure they do respond to what the market wants, and if they don't, I can go and tell them how many they should enrol for each department."
See: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10848413
Legality aside, the Minister’s comments reflect the state of our
education system. This is the system Labour and National have determined for
our country. A system where market conditions are emulated within education
institutions to privilege a few through the appearance of catering to the many.
Recently, I was directed to a George
Orwell quote:
"The further society drifts form the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it"
In my view, this applies to the Minister’s comments.
I’m not saying that I agree with what he said, only that what he said reflects the
reality of education in our country.Our education system is more about meeting the skills shortages in the
job market and less about enlightenment. The rest of this post considers
education in general but randomly refers back to the Minister’s views.
I watched a snippet of a lecture by Noam Chomsky ‘Education: for whom
and for what?’ see: http://keentalks.com/education-for-whom-and-for-what/
Chomsky distinguished between two groups: those who consider that education
is for the privileged, i.e. the intelligent minority who occupy decision-making
roles in society and those who consider that education is for everyone. I have
no idea how Chomsky concluded his lecture but my argument is this:
Our governments propagate that education is for everyone but it (the education system) operates to maintain the intelligent minority. Arguably, a public education system indicates education is for everyone; however, requiring a criterion for entrance acts as a restriction on the proposition that education is for everyone.
Education is for everyone – only in the sense that we have a public
education system. It’s an illusion to silence the masses in order to retain
minorities in specific areas.
Education is for the privileged – in the sense that those who perform
better receive advantages as a result of their performance.
An argument against this is the argument from equality. Equality in the
sense that everyone has the same access so there is no privilege and those who
outperform their peers deserve the benefits for their work. I agree in part with this statement. It takes considerable effort to
attain grades of excellence (in the A range). So institutions should reward those
who manage to attain those grades accordingly, right? Here I take issue. University
grades are awarded through various types of assessment, predominantly
examination. Some people are just good at taking exams, while others are not.
The system privileges those who are good exam takers.
I disagree with the argument from equality in the sense that not
everyone has the same starting point. I have discussed this in various past
posts, but I will briefly discuss it here. A persons ability to attain grades
of excellence at University is not just dependent on the work they put in at
University. There are pre-existing factors that will affect a students
performance. For instance, the school you attend prior to University, the
subjects available at that school, relationships with teachers, relationships with
family, time available to complete the work required or to understand the
material…the list is endless. We have created an education system that does not take into account morally
arbitrary differences in a students life.
Here is what I want to say about grades. There are limits on how many
grades of excellence are awarded. You will not find a class where every student
achieves an A grade. Our system moderates work so that only a certain number of
students achieve A’s. Presumably, the argument is it increases competition and
forces students to study harder to reach their full potential. This is not
about full potential, for the teacher it may be, but for the institution its about
ensuring that only a few students fill the spots of the intelligent minority. You
must attain grades that the institution sets in order to complete at a
post-graduate level e.g. Honours and Masters degrees. Even the language used to
define post-graduate qualifications reflect the truth of the ‘intelligent minority’
thesis.
The limitation on the number of excellence grades awarded is akin to the
way in which money is kept scarce. It controls what people can and cannot do.
If you don’t meet the requisite grades for post graduate study, then you are
precluded from undertaking those courses, just like if you don’t have the money
to pay a debt, you remain indebted. Scarcity forces the status quo to privilege
a few. High grades are essentially academic capital. The more academic capital
you have, the more academic capital you have access to.*
Chomsky points to David Hume to make a
similar point:
"NOTHING appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers"
How does all
this relate to the Ministers comments? It does so by looking at the influence of
the market on education. It is in effect a form of slavery. Let me attempt to qualify
this. If the market demands what subjects or courses students take in order to meet
those demands (and the government work to enforce those demands) then education is about state commodification of students for use by
corporations. It is slavery because we are subject to whatever conditions the
market determines for us. Here is the question I am struggling to answer: Do we freely chose our
course of study or are we simply conditioned to think that we are freely
choosing to pursue that path?
*This is not a criticism of those whom have
achieved high grades. Its a criticism of the system.
