Dialogue: Being educated is a lot more than just knowing things

By ANDREW CODLING and JACQUELINE ROWARTH*

The much-promoted knowledge economy has somehow transmuted into a desire to become a knowledge society. Knowledge is certainly desirable because it has currency incorporating both value and the condition of being current.

But, as Professor Kerry Howe, of Massey University, has pointed out, currency also means that knowledge is interpreted within the current context and may well have a use-by date.

Perhaps we should be working towards being an educated society instead. And now, with the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission soon to report on this issue, is an appropriate time for opening the discussion.

To talk of being educated generally implies more than simply knowing things. Being educated also means knowing what to do with what we know; with having a sense of context within which to apply our knowledge.

It means being able to think. It also means knowing about things that help us to understand the world in which we live. Being educated, therefore, also implies an ability to adapt to a rapidly changing and increasingly global environment, and to prosper in this environment.

It is, therefore, hard to argue against the value of being educated, not only as an individual, but also as a society.

Business leaders have suggested that New Zealand should be viewed as a company in which every New Zealander is a shareholder. They bemoan the absence of a clearly articulated vision to guide this company. Such a conceptualisation is a valuable way of understanding how New Zealand could (or is it should?) flourish as part of a global economy.

Also useful, however, might be the notion of New Zealand as an organism in which every New Zealander is a contributing cell. An essential attribute for this national organism to survive in a highly competitive global eco-system is that it is educated and can, therefore, adjust to - and at times lead - change. This conceptualisation might help us to understand how we might survive in a global society.

An educated society would then be seen from the perspective of the educated individual. Each constituent cell of the organism that is New Zealand must be educated if the organism itself is to be educated and, therefore, assert its place in an increasingly international world.

So we need educated individuals to sustain an educated society. How do we achieve this?

New Zealand education has moved inexorably down a path of increasing specialisation. Not only has this become normal (with rare exceptions) at tertiary level, it is becoming more prevalent at secondary and even primary level.

The result is that we are producing a nation of individuals who know more and more about less and less. Our graduates may well be highly skilled, even highly knowledgeable, within their fields of expertise. They may be attractive to employers with short-term productivity objectives.

But are they educated? Do they have a real range of transferable skills that equip them to cope with change and perhaps even lead change? Do they have the ability to converse beyond their specialisation?

We talk about being innovative and creative. Creation and innovation occur at the margins of established knowledge, at the unexpected intersections of ideas. With our increasing focus on specialisation, we are unintentionally preventing these intersections from occurring.

Our graduates are trained to work in a compartmentalised world narrowly delineated by their specialised knowledge. It is questionable whether they are really educated.

This is not unique to New Zealand. It is a global phenomenon. But perhaps New Zealand could do something about it.

The Tertiary Education Advisory Commission is considering the shape and structure of our tertiary education. It has the opportunity to make a fundamental change in direction, a change that might move us towards becoming an educated society, one capable of holding its own in the world rather than being swallowed by it.

One part of this change is philosophical - promoting the belief that being educated is an essential personal and societal attribute to sustain New Zealand's competitive advantage. The other part is functional - building a tertiary education system that will promote a better balance between specialised and general (dare we say liberal) education.

Perhaps we need a new national undergraduate curriculum or at least a set of national undergraduate outcomes. These would attempt to ensure that our graduates attained the specialised skills and knowledge to make an immediate contribution, and a general education to equip them with the transferable skills and understanding to become thinking, adaptable and proactive individuals able to contribute to our long-term economic and social development.

In fact, when one considers that within five years, 60 per cent of the students in tertiary education today will be employed in jobs that don't yet exist, general education assumes paramount importance. How can one train somebody for a job which hasn't yet been invented?

A survey on future work requirements done by Unitec last year revealed that willingness to learn ranked No 1 in what employers wanted in staff. This was followed by initiative, focus on achievement and customer service. Flexibility and ability to cooperate in teams was also ranked highly. What sort of education will give our students these abilities?

A return to some of the basic disciplines is required, but perhaps with a changed angle. Teaching mathematics and physics from a problem base, founded on real-life examples (appropriate for a range of ethnic backgrounds) could help with relevance.

Creating mixed-ability teams to work on inter-disciplinary problems so that cross-disciplinary approaches are attempted could help with open-mindedness, flexibility and solution-thinking. And a return to a grading system could help with motivation and achievement. Ranking also helps the development of judgment.

As Andrew Gonczi, adjunct professor at Unitec, said recently, knowledge is currency, but it isn't sufficient. We must create an environment in which judgment and wisdom can also be acquired.

It is to be hoped that the commission's recommendations take account of the concern about the narrow base of learning that our students have.

A revamping of our system, founded on the basic disciplines with inter-disciplinary, problem-based teaching, would give our students a broad education. This would allow us to promote our graduates and eventually our country to the world as an educated one, with all that that implies.

* Andrew Codling is vice-president, academic, and Jacqueline Rowarth is the associate dean of the graduate school at Unitec.

Herald Online feature: The jobs challenge

We invite your responses to a series of questions such as: what key policies would make it easier for unemployed people to move into and generate jobs?