Sorry!
First, an apology -actually, two.
First, I haven’t posted in over a month, the principle cause being I’ve been fairly sick with gastro-entiritis, a extremely nasty abdomen bug of some variety that fully flattened me. The excellent news is that I’m now absolutely recovered, simply in time for the vacations.
The second apology is that I’ve not posted for even longer on the historical past of academic know-how as I’ve skilled it. It is because I’ve been specializing in one other completely unrelated facet of my life for my autobiography, on flying a small airplane. I’ve now accomplished that a part of my biography, and will probably be returning on this weblog to my time as an academic know-how advisor within the interval 2003 to 2010, which incorporates work in Spain, Mexico, Australia, Chile and Mongolia.
Greater training in disaster
Nonetheless, because it does, the world has moved on whereas I’ve been sick, and it has change into clear to me that public post-secondary training, not less than right here in North America and likewise to some extent in Europe, is going through an existential disaster. No-one needs to pay the prices of the present system.
I truly assume that in the long term, it is a good factor. We’ve postsecondary training programs that had been constructed for one more time and one other world. They had been constructed for a really small elite, to serve very totally different functions than as we speak’s universities and schools. We’ve moved from a pre-industrial age by an industrial age to a digital age, however universities and schools nonetheless seem like they did 250 years in the past, besides they’re much greater and far more expensive.
It’s not sufficient then for universities and schools to whine for more cash. It’s not coming. They should re-think, not a lot their function, however their entire modus operandi. Mainly, they must change into extra environment friendly: higher outputs for a similar or extra seemingly much less cash. In addition they must rethink who their key stakeholders are, and relate their funding to this new actuality.
A brand new weblog collection
Subsequently, within the new 12 months, I’ll have the nerve and the ambition to recommend how public post-secondary training must be re-designed to higher meet the wants of a digital age. It will take the type of a collection of weblog posts one thing alongside the next strains (not less than one weblog put up on every matter):
- the true nature of the issue;
- re-designing instructing, analysis and innovation actions to be less expensive, with a give attention to output in addition to enter, utilizing greatest tutorial design practices, digital studying, and larger use of AI;
- the necessity to change inside monetary apply away from funds-based (historic) allocation to activity-based costing;
- base allocation of prices on the 4 pillars of output: studying, analysis, innovation, and enhancing the world round us;
- re-identify the important thing stakeholders, and hyperlink funding to their pursuits (i.e. consumer pays);
- tips on how to implement these modifications (I’ll want quite a lot of assist with this!).
A collaborative effort is required
Certainly, I’ll want your assistance on all of this. It is a good sticky, advanced drawback. There will probably be nobody resolution. However we can’t go on as at current. The entire public post-secondary system is at risk of collapsing. Greater training is simply too necessary to depart soley to the personal or business sector. Their pursuits are usually not the identical as ours. So we have to attempt to repair the issue in a manner that society as an entire advantages. Are you as much as this? Watch this area within the new 12 months.
And naturally seasonal greetings
Within the meantime, get pleasure from time with household and mates, and calm down over the vacations – you’ve earned it, and I’ll discuss to you once more in January.