Skills versus knowledge: Column

“Perhaps the biggest trend we’ve seen is a move away from strict theory-based study towards a more hybrid approach that provides students with theory but then offers them the opportunity to apply it to real-world skills. We call this ‘experiential learning’ and we expect this to accelerate as universities attempt to gain an employment edge over their counterparts.”
I think this is an unjustified assertion of University education which has always been experiential and adaptive and certainly always focused on critical thinking within the larger institutions. Whilst there are certainly specific flaws in the system that reflect more individualistic interpretations, particularly in courses and the role of cliques, the general thesis that Universities have never been associated with practicalities and by extension employment is simply incorrect. In the past, industry linkages were arguably stronger because industry, particularly larger industry, was stronger and more engaged as well as more diversified in its its R&D outlook than it presently is (perhaps focused on bottom line shareholder value as driver which has come at the expense of diversification). The reduction of advanced workshop capabilities as a response to government cutbacks and the like was a contributing factor to a decline of larger industry interactions with the Universities and the subsequent push rely more on smaller businesses. These smaller businesses are often the ones complaining loudest about university education because they often don’t have the money to provide adequate on the job training. To complicate matters there is now the over-reliance on a startup solution to deeper problems than are being acknowledged. So its somewhat ironic the subsequent comments talk about critical thinking more than ever being important, the very skills small businesses have in part contributed to removing from University teaching in order to provide job specific skills to address their complaints (and I note at the expense of TAFE it seems). Whilst technologies are changing, the fact is experiential learning has been part of university teaching since my own student days – both on campus and off campus when working for companies during breaks. I think this “gobbly-gook” re-invention needs more careful assessment on the long term effects on Australia and Australian education – for example, the fact that some institutions have to rely on providing visas as an incentive to get international students into courses that increasingly fund research, to a large extent the very foundation of critical thinking, is a sure indication something is not right and it has little to do with opinions on whether experiential learning is suddenly a new thing.