The field of education gives unlimited opportunities to dream.
And why would they or should they remain as dreams will take us
into an analytical mode.
Instead, it could be fun (sadness in the form of) to dream about
possibilities.
Sorry for repetitions:
Education or learning without degrees is a world to look forward
to.
Degrees
have boiled down to efficient but meaningless signals for higher-level courses
and employers, meaningless because they do not mean one is educated.
What
are the reasons why it happened so?
The
notion that you require a common yardstick to measure what you are
intellectually could be the foremost reason. Hence, you have Universities
controlling affiliated colleges to ensure that they follow a common curriculum
and also that their students are examined by a common yardstick.
Very
few attempts were made through examination reforms to measure conceptual
understanding, ability to use concepts to understand reality and change
reality, creativity, ability to hold individualistic perspectives with one’s
own logic, etc. Attempts to bring in these to enhance validity of examinations
would have lead to unending discussions amongst academics, and academics would
not have easily agreed on what and how some of these could be measured. Such
disagreements are valid, as academics like to have independent thinking and
also be proud of it. Interestingly, it is this privilege that they like to deny
to students.
In case you just offer courses in-class or on-line and claim only the behavioural learning outcomes; the only stakeholder who gets affected will be the employer as it would lack an easy proxy by which to select students. Either the employers will have to go for matching learning outcomes with their needs using a software or will have to collectively evolve common yardsticks similar to degrees and marks. If the latter happens, it will just mean that the employers have taken over the educationally meaningless task of examinations and degrees from Universities. Universities would then use these common yardsticks to prepare students and the whole system will be back to its meaningless present. Then the options for the policy makers will be either to ban common yardstick examinations or have a robust system that smuggles in learning into a common yardstick system.
In case you just offer courses in-class or on-line and claim only the behavioural learning outcomes; the only stakeholder who gets affected will be the employer as it would lack an easy proxy by which to select students. Either the employers will have to go for matching learning outcomes with their needs using a software or will have to collectively evolve common yardsticks similar to degrees and marks. If the latter happens, it will just mean that the employers have taken over the educationally meaningless task of examinations and degrees from Universities. Universities would then use these common yardsticks to prepare students and the whole system will be back to its meaningless present. Then the options for the policy makers will be either to ban common yardstick examinations or have a robust system that smuggles in learning into a common yardstick system.
