They say that there is a difference between being smart and intelligence. In our present day, we have (primarily young) people who can do almost anything with their cellular phones — except actually talk.
We used to talk about certain young ladies who could talk 30 words per minute with gusts up to 70.
Times have changed.
With the recent funding cuts announced by the provincial government, we now have a few ‘sky is falling’ panic scenarios about higher education. Anyone reading this undoubtably knows what I am talking about, so I won’t repeat them.
In many ways, I am in agreement with what the government is trying to accomplish. Our educational system has to be more in line with the needs of society and the world as a whole. Otherwise, we (figuratively) will be playing our fiddles as Rome burns.
It would seem that some in the academic community would argue that there should be an autonomy in higher education, or even a similar separation as in the church and state relationship. If this is the case, then funding should come from the same source.
Thusly, as government is acting as agent for the taxpaying public, it should have some direction in the final product.
That said, we do need to ensure that we are also educating the student rather than merely training them for a job.
Similar to the smarts vs. intelligence debate, we need to teach students how to think for themselves, rather than try to fill their heads with information. We need creative thinkers who can adapt to changing realities and obstacles and overcome problems with a common-sense approach.
Our present model of specialization only seems capable of solving one problem by creating three more. So, while we need more people with highly technical and specialized skills, we also need people who can see how their field relates to and ties in with the whole.
One such example was on a program I watched on the television a few days ago. The subject was about building “artificial trees” to capture carbon dioxide to pump underground into rock formations. Some sort of catalyst would cause the CO2 to form into crystals and remain underground forever. There was also some discussion about how it would change the geography of the area above. Does this not just typify what I have been discussing?
One thing I was incredulous about and glad that it didn’t come to pass was our government’s willingness to hand corporations a couple of billion dollars for just such a scheme. Would not an educated, common-sense mind simply propose that you plant a couple billion dollars worth of trees to process the carbon dioxide and produce good old oxygen?
As far as funding, should not those who directly benefit from the publicly-funded educational system also contribute to its well-being? Maybe some of those corporate dividends should instead be donated to benefit society as well as shareholders bottom line.
If you were to also take the view that higher education is also a product, should not that which is exported come at a higher cost to those purchasing that education?
A two-tier system may not seem fair, but neither is it fair that our children should be denied access to higher education based upon grade point average. After all, the goal is to educate our students, not create some academic elite.
A more business-oriented model of higher education would even look for opportunities to export our product to new markets — in other words, set up shop in other countries. That way, we would not have a glut of academics asking the question: “Do you want fries with that?”
Jeff Hanson
Red Deer County