Why employers should not decide what is taught in Universities

There is a very interesting Guardian article on this subject, which was published way back in May 2007:-

Why employers should not decide what is taught in Universities

This is one of the government's ideas, having been encouraged by Lord Leitch, that somehow the curriculum of the Universities should be driven by what employers want and indeed there are rumours coming out of this particular government that funding should be a co-operative venture between employers and universities.

So far, so bad. Except that the government does not seem to be taking into account that students learn on a broad canvas in University and indeed are taught and teach themselves to learn. This is quite different from the kind of tick box approach that is required in vocational training and/or the modern workplace.

I am getting very worried that we are trying desparately to prepare a nation of roberts (with apologies to "Not the Nine O'Clock News") rather than a nation of people who have been through higher education and can think for themselves.

University and higher education is where people learn to think for themselves; the dangers of co-funding are that employers will co-fund only those projects where students can parrott for themselves. That is why the government's plans on co-funding and the withdrawal of HEFCE grant aid for lifelong learning must be resisted, otherwise we shall have no universities left and some kind of "Westworld" supplanted instead.

Westworld for those of you who dont know, is a science fiction film by Michael Crichton about robots who started to grow feelings and would not take orders anymore from humans. There are strange parallels between this film and what is happening in higher education; I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Westworld