Christopher Scanlon's Views on Educating Creative Thinkers. (January 5, 2008)

In today's Business Spectator Christopher Scanlon, a research associate with RMIT University’s Globalism Institute points out some home truths which ought to be self-evident

 to our political masters but haven't been for some years.

Eschewing subtleties to make a point Dr Scanlon refers his readers to two views of the utility of the university as expressed by "David Lodge in his satirical novel Nice Work":

• Universities should be about training people in practical skills that have immediate application to industry. 'Give the people polytechnics, with no frills. Not imitation Oxford colleges'. If education doesn’t have an immediate economic benefit, then it’s an elitist luxury we can ill afford.

• University education should be a creative and critical enterprise with many diverse applications. Considerations of the economic value of knowledge are irrelevant to the business of university teaching.

And Dr Scanlon opines: "it doesn’t take a genius to work out which view of education has held sway in Canberra these past eleven-plus years."

Furthermore, the current social climate is such that: "Enrolling in a degree program that costs an arm and a leg and doesn’t seem to have a defined career path — philosophy or physics for instance — would strike many students as economic folly. Vocationally-oriented courses, whether it’s law or leisure and tourism management, are safer bets for students about to be lumbered with a higher education debt."

Certainly skilled professionals are in short supply as the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, emphasised, and are necessary for an advanced economy like Australia.

But "an emphasis on the training aspects of education shouldn’t come to the detriment of the creative and critical aspects of education. In an era where knowledge and information are traded as commodities, and where complex problems — from climate change to disease outbreaks to the threat of terrorism — confound easy solutions, open-ended forms of research and teaching are as vital as ever... [yet] the university’s place in the production of critical and creative knowledge is under threat as never before."

Dr Scanlon points to several firms that have programs which are in effect undertaking strategic research, suggesting they are to some extent moving into areas thought to be the province of universities. He does, however, point out that those individuals occupied in such efforts are in fact university trained, but follows with the caveat that "from my experience in the higher education [sector], many of Australia’s universities seem to be caught somewhere in an incoherent middle, excelling at neither the training imperative nor the creative and critical view of education".

Then striking an optimistic note: "There are some indications that the Rudd Labor government is moving to correct this, putting creative and critical thinking at the centre of education." Unfortunately, to date the messages that have been put out are sufficiently ambiguous to allow plenty of wiggle room, e.g.: "In a recent statement, Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr committed the government to restoring 'public benefit as a fundamental objective' of the higher education system."

As to remedial action, Dr Scanlon points to a few initiatives simple and complex as examples:

Easy

• End the mindless obsession with meaningless global university rankings,

• free academic and administrative university staff from the administration and audits that accompany these exercises would be a good start.

Hard

• Offer fee assistance to students for taking up pure degrees in areas without a clear career path.

And the bottom line? "Vocational training ought to be supported through a well-resourced TAFE system, while universities should be supported to focus on open-ended and experimental research where the outcomes are unclear."

In Dr Scanlon's view to go down this road will be politically courageous but taking the long term view: "Universities must be supported to engage in imaginative, innovative and open-ended research and teaching to secure our future economic prosperity and our cultural wealth."