The End of Higher Ed.?

New Left Project | Articles | Higher Education and the New Philistines.

It’s easy to denounce this as simple ignorance or crass commercialism, but there is more going on here. In the name of ‘economic impact’, ‘skills’, ‘employability’ and ‘productivity,’ what is ultimately being attacked is any form of teaching or learning that might turn out citizens with a real sense of their history, capable of independent thought or critical analysis.

It's probably the end of higher education.  We don't produce educated citizens.  When students in my classes find out that they are going to be required to do more than merely regurgitate or reproduce what they've been told, they often freak out.  In other words, they are unnerved by the prospect of having to think for themselves in a logical or well-reasoned manner.  Obviously, teaching philosophy does not boil down to regurgitation since it's not merely about learning what other people have said or thought, but about cultivating one's own abilities to think critically and logically.  You cannot put that on a multiple choice test.