Professor Steve Keen -The Commodification of Education
Summary
The video argues that the privatization of education has been counterproductive. By forcing students to pay upfront or through debt, education is commodified, shifting the focus from learning to qualification purchase. This customer relationship pressures academics to pass students, decreasing engagement and academic caliber. Bureaucratic controls like the National Student Survey distort university behavior, diverting resources from teaching to marketing and scoring. Moreover, commercialization stifles genuine intellectual inquiry by prioritizing manufactured, predictable research over exploratory, potentially groundbreaking work, ultimately degrading the quality of education for all.
Key Insights
Focus shifts from learning to debt repayment, reducing academic engagement.
Students become more preoccupied with repaying accumulated educational debt than with the process of learning. Consequently, the caliber of their engagement and focus diminishes significantly.
Effort shifts from teaching and research to marketing and performance scoring.
A significant amount of effort formerly dedicated to delivering education and conducting research is now channeled into marketing the university and optimizing performance on various external assessment measures. This shift compromises the quality of educational output.
Prioritizing manufactured success prevents genuine research and innovation.
When universities attempt to manufacture and decide beforehand what constitutes successful research based on potential profitability, it ceases to be genuine research. True research involves uncertainty and the exploration of unknown possibilities, which this system undermines.
Sections
Commodification of Education
Students paying for education view it as a purchased product, not an educational pursuit.
When students are forced to pay the upfront costs or incur debt for their education, they tend to perceive it as a product they have bought. This shifts their motivation from seeking genuine education to acquiring a qualification, altering the fundamental nature of their engagement with the institution.
Customer-teacher relationship replaces the educational one due to payment for services.
The financial investment by students transforms the ideal teacher-taught relationship into a customer-supplier dynamic. This creates pressure on educators to pass students who have paid for their degrees, leading to a commodification of the educational content itself.
Focus shifts from learning to debt repayment, reducing academic engagement.
Students become more preoccupied with repaying accumulated educational debt than with the process of learning. Consequently, the caliber of their engagement and focus diminishes significantly.
Bureaucratic Controls and Distorted Priorities
Market-like pressures create excessive checking and controlling mechanisms.
The attempt to treat universities as a marketplace, rather than an academic institution, has resulted in an proliferation of bureaucratic checking and controlling systems. This is driven by the need to manage performance within a perverted market environment.
Focus on scoring well in metrics like NSS diverts resources from teaching.
Measures like the National Student Survey (NSS) distort university behavior, causing them to prioritize achieving high scores. Resources that should be allocated to frontline teaching are redirected towards activities aimed at improving these external performance metrics.
Effort shifts from teaching and research to marketing and performance scoring.
A significant amount of effort formerly dedicated to delivering education and conducting research is now channeled into marketing the university and optimizing performance on various external assessment measures. This shift compromises the quality of educational output.
Impact on Intellectual Inquiry and Research
Commercialization stifles risky exploration vital for genuine intellectual progress.
The premise of intellectual pursuit is to learn, extend knowledge, and explore avenues that may not succeed. Commercialization imposes monitoring systems that prioritize predictable success, discouraging the free time needed for speculative exploration.
Prioritizing manufactured success prevents genuine research and innovation.
When universities attempt to manufacture and decide beforehand what constitutes successful research based on potential profitability, it ceases to be genuine research. True research involves uncertainty and the exploration of unknown possibilities, which this system undermines.
Privatization's focus on efficiency degrades the educational product overall.
Instead of improving university education, privatization driven by a false vision of efficiency has degraded the entire product. This false efficiency comes at the cost of genuine academic and intellectual quality, impacting the community as a whole.
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