The evolving discourse of the purpose of higher educationthe rhetoric of higher education reform

This human capital discourse was dominant during the explosive expansion of higher education in the post-war era, but became subject to further refinement the early 1980s.. The Discourse

Chapter 21

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0672-0.ch021

ABSTRACT

A brief historical overview of the evolution of the public discourse of the purpose of higher education

is undertaken to provide context for current debates over investment in, and reform of, post-secondary education Four separate discourses are identified: higher education for enlightenment, to develop hu-man capital, as hu-manpower hu-management, and as consumerism The dominant discourse of the purpose of higher education is shown to have changed from learning for its own sake to an emphasis on manpower planning and consumerism The separate assumptions and implications of these distinct discourses are often confabulated with little apparent awareness of the contradictory nature of rhetoric drawn from more than one discourse at a time The authors provide a simple analytical framework to cut through the confusion.

INTRODUCTION

There is frequently a disconnect between research and public policy in the field of higher education (Hillman, Tandberg & Sponsler, 2015) Researchers need to ensure that their research is relevant to public policy, or risk speaking only to themselves By the same token, policy-makers need to ensure that decision-making is evidence-based or risk making costly mistakes based on faulty assumptions When addressing fundamental issues, both researchers and policy-makers start from the values and assump-tions implicit within the dominant discourse(s) of the purpose of higher education Understanding how this public discourse has changed over time is, then, fundamental to any analysis of either research or policy trends

The Evolving Discourse of the Purpose of Higher Education: The Rhetoric of Higher Education Reform

Mary Runté

University of Lethbridge Alberta, Canada

Robert Runté

University of Lethbridge Alberta, Canada

To be successful, educational leaders and administrators need to understand the assumptions that underlie the policies for which they are responsible This is surprisingly problematic because the argu-ments made to support investment in, or reform of, higher education often draw on four distinct (arguably contradictory) discourses As different discourses have historically appealed to different stakeholders, switching between discourses depending on the audience addressed is a sensible and workable strategy for administrators seeking support for their initiatives Problems arise, however, when these separate discourses become so confabulated that one is no longer able to disentangle them oneself

Understanding discourse also abets predictability of changes in actual university practice Sustainable adoption of online courses, for example, can only be successful if relevant audiences can be convinced that the platform fits within the discourse of higher education Those institutions best able to predict how shifts in discourse will impact program models and delivery mechanisms will be first to market and therefore best able to capitalize on the emerging technologies The emergence of online institutions, for example, could be accurately predicted 35 years ago (Runté, 1981) —before there even was an Inter-net—through a simple extrapolation of the then emergent trends in the dominant discourse

Therefore, it is impossible to understand shifts in government funding or public support for higher education without first understanding changes in the public discourse of the purpose of higher educa-tion This chapter traces the historical origins of the four competing discourses of the purpose of higher education to examine the fundamental assumptions that direct investment and reform

FOUR DISCOURSES OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The emergence of the modern university as a publicly funded institution was first predicated upon en-lightenment ideals A discourse of education as investment in human capital then developed in competi-tion to this ideal This human capital discourse was dominant during the explosive expansion of higher education in the post-war era, but became subject to further refinement the early 1980s The emergence

of these two new discourses was predicated on the assumption that only targeted investment based on

a measurable benefit to the economy justified expenditures from the public purse Categorized by their fundamental characteristics and presented in the order in which they became dominant, they are the

discourses of enlightenment, human capital, manpower and consumerism.

The Discourse of Enlightenment

The dominant discourse of the purpose of higher education initially was that any learning is of value

in and of itself A significant proponent of this view was Cardinal Newman (1852), founder of Dublin

University: “Knowledge is capable of being its own end Such is the constitution of the human mind that any kind of knowledge, if it really be such, is its own reward.” (p 130)

Higher education, in the discourse of enlightenment, is not a means to some economic end, such as the

attainment of professional qualifications or an assured supply of trained manpower, but an end in itself Opposed to this view was the insistence that education must be of some utility in the practical world Already in Newman’s time, these arguments were being expressed in terms almost indistinguishable from the present discourses of human capital and manpower planning To quote Cardinal Newman’s summary of the opposition:

What is the real worth in the market of the article called “a liberal education”, on the supposition that

it does not teach us definitely how to advance our manufactures, or to improve our lands, or to better our civil economy; or again, if it does not at once make this man a lawyer, that an engineer, and that a surgeon; or at least if it does not lead to discoveries in chemistry, astronomy, geology, magnetism, and science of every kind (pp.171-172)

Against this view of the practical end of education, the proponents of enlightenment argue that higher education—as opposed to mere training—was to develop the well-rounded individual, the ‘cul-tured gentleman’ In addition to a cultivated intellect, a disciplined and logical mind, the graduate was expected to possess a discerning taste, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of his life, a sense

of responsibility to his society and civilization (Newman, p 144), and other attributes of what would today be termed the ‘self-actualized’ individual Higher education that was narrowly vocational could not provide this: Society itself requires some other contribution from each individual, besides the particular duties of his profession (Dr Copleston, quoted by Newman, p 184)

And again:

As a friend, as a companion, as a citizen at large; in the connections of domestic life; in the improvement and embellishment of his leisure, he has a sphere of action, revolving, if you please, with the sphere of his profession, but not clashing with it; in which if he can show none of the advantages of an improved understanding, whatever may be his skill or proficiency in the other, he is no more than an ill-educated man (Davidson, quoted by Newman, p 186)

Thus, higher education in the discourse of enlightenment was not simply for professional training, but was expected to produce the intellectual, cultural, and ruling elite of the nation Of course, in this period universities were elite institutions, even when there was some provision made for the more promising sons of the ‘lower orders’ through scholarships and sponsored mobility A liberal education reflects the educational priorities of a landed aristocracy, where the accumulation of cultural capital was how one identified oneself as a member of the elite

Higher education in the discourse of enlightenment was also necessarily perceived as representing

consumption As an end in itself, education was by definition incapable of providing a direct economic

return Professional and vocational training that had a demonstrable economic usefulness were on that account not considered part of liberal education Consequently, liberal studies undertaken for their own sake must necessarily represent consumption And since education was largely the preserve of the elite,

it was a form of conspicuous consumption for the upper classes: one went to (private) universities be-cause it was expected of gentlemen, not bebe-cause it was required for economic advantage or determined one’s social status The benefits accruing from the establishment of universities were thought to be of

a cultural rather than economic nature Universities, like opera houses and art galleries, were the result

of economic growth and prosperity, not the cause

The Discourse of Human Capital

By the late 1950’s, however, this view of university as consumption was almost completely displaced by

the discourse of human capital, which held that expenditures on education were an investment in human

capital and the nation’s economic progress To quote Nobel laureate Theodore Schultz, best known of

human capital’s modern proponents, speaking on the benefits of education as an investment: “Much of what we call consumption constitutes investment in human capital Direct expenditures on education, health, and internal migration to take advantage of better job opportunities are clear examples (1977, p 313).” Viewed in this light, investment in education was as vital—and often a precondition for—invest-ment in industry Investfor—invest-ment in human capital, as with any other investfor—invest-ment, could be expected to yield measurable economic return, and was no longer seen as simply personal consumption

Human capital could be considered from two perspectives: that of the individual, and that of the state For the state, investment in human capital was a necessary prerequisite for economic progress and

successful competition with other industrial nations For example, the first issue of University Affairs

(October, 1959) published by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (now, Universities Canada), quoted Cyril James:

The U.S.S.R is putting a tremendous amount of money and effort into education because it realizes that trained men—not natural resources—are the foundation of national prosperity and essential for continuing economic growth

In the world in which we live more people with a good education are required for national progress, and if we in Canada want to maintain our prosperity and our welfare we too must find ways to see that the brightest of our youngsters are encouraged and enabled to get all of the education of which they are capable.

Similarly, it was often argued, throughout this period, that Third World nations were underdeveloped primarily due to widespread illiteracy and a disastrous lack of graduates Post-war Europe, for example, was said to have had fewer intact capital resources than many African nations, but the recovery of the European economies proceeded at a much more rapid pace than did the development of the African states The differences in human capital, particularly in terms of education, seemed to account for this Thus, the discourse of human capital was adopted by such agencies as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, and was exported throughout the world as the basis for most of the development strategies and policies of the 1950s and 1960s (Schultz, p 322; and Karabel & Halsey, pp 13-15)

From the individual’s point of view, staying in high school, working one’s way through college (or other forms of post-secondary training) represented an investment in the individual’s own earning ca-pacities A medical student, for example, would be prepared to undertake a long and costly course of studies only in anticipation of realizing substantial return on this investment upon entering the medical profession Even here, however, the state may expect to receive an indirect benefit in that the higher wages realized by the trained worker imply higher tax revenues as well Karabel and Halsey also make the interesting observation that:

what must be further remarked about the theory of human capital is the direct appeal to pro-capitalist ideological sentiment that resides in its insistence that the worker is a holder of capital—(as embodied

in his skills and knowledge) and that he has the capacity to invest (in himself) Thus in a single bold conceptual stroke, the wage earner, who holds no property and controls neither the process nor the product of his labour, is transformed into a capitalist (p 13)

In any event, the discourse of human capital was generally thought to account for the obvious correla-tion between years of educacorrela-tion and salaries, and students were encouraged to continue their educacorrela-tion

as an investment in their future, and to regard a university degree as the key to all opportunity Thus the discourse encouraged the demand for high school completion and university on the part of students (and their parents) at the same time that it urged governments to meet this demand

In Canada, for example, the precepts of human capital theory were popularized by the Economic Council of Canada, which tended to emphasize the need to expand public schooling, higher education and university-based research to catch up with the United States which had demonstrated higher comple-tion rates of high school and university: “In Canada relatively more resources have been put into capital facilities, while in the United States relatively more resources have been put into the development of

a more highly educated labour force and into the development and application of new technology…” (ECC, 1966, p 13) As a result of this perceived failure to keep pace with the United States, the Council concluded that “ the shortage of skilled and trained technical, professional and managerial manpower

is even more critical than the problem of enlarging the physical facilities required for output” (p 13) and recommended “tremendous expansion” of enrollment rates and creation of infrastructure at univer-sity and technical school to create a “sharply accelerating flow of professional and other highly skilled manpower (p 13).”

The following year John Deutsch of the Economic Council of Canada announced that:

In its studies the Council has found the rate of return from investment in education, both to the individual and the economy as a whole, is at least as large, and probably larger than, almost any other form of investment This has led us to recommend that the advancement of education and training at all levels

in Canada be given a very high place in the public policy and that investment in education be accorded first place in the scale of priorities.

Naturally enough, Canadian educators were not slow to adopt a discourse of human capital them-selves, given the immediate benefit to their universities in terms of funding and prioritization The

highly influential Bladen Commission’s report on Financing Higher Education In Canada (1967) said

reinforced the Economic Council’s conclusion and charged government with creating the demand to fulfill this mandate: “The people demand it; our economic growth requires it; our governments must take the action necessary to implement it (p.1).” The human capital discourse thus became the theoreti-cal basis upon which the explosive expansion of public schooling and higher education in Canada and elsewhere was justified

This discourse remained practically unchallenged throughout the 1960s, with its only opposition coming from a few traditionalists who reacted against what they perceived as the dehumanizing human capital approach and argued the enlightenment discourse’s view that the university’s mission was intel-lectual and cultural, not economic Steacie (1960), for example, stated that:

Education should be considered as a Canadian problem and not as a race with anyone Most em-phatically, Canadian university graduates should not be considered mere units of military armament

In fact it cannot be emphasized too strongly that the whole manpower concept is quite foreign to the real purpose of a university (p.5)

Most educators, however, argued that the emphasis on the economic benefits of this expansion was

in no way inconsistent with the university’s intellectual and cultural functions: “The assumption—and I think it is a fair one—is simply that to fulfill its social and cultural functions a system of education must first of all be economically efficient (Aird, 1967, p.6).”

By the early 1970s, however, the theory of human capital was under attack in terms both of its basic assumptions and its specific policy recommendations Writers such as Lester Thurow and Barry Bluestone questioned the discourse’s contention that employment status and wage rates could be explained simply

on the basis of variations in human capital Bluestone contends that the correlation between education and income, such as the contrast in salaries between physician and janitor, was on the surface reasonable This correlation, however was extrapolated to all labour research and ultimately was used to support the contention that one’s economic situation was a matter of personal choice: “Those who invested more in themselves would (almost automatically) find employment more often, reap higher wages, and benefit from greater economic security (1977, p.337).” Government response to social issues, such as poverty, were directed towards educational programs almost exclusively as “a technical exercise of finding the right combination of manpower programs or human-resource development schemes to lift each individual from personal disadvantage (p 338)” whilst ignoring crises such as systemic discrimination as a root cause:

But many of those who suffer from low wages and unemployment have a considerable amount of human capital They fail to find jobs that pay a living wage because of racism, sexism, economic depression, and uneven development of industries and regions Compared with some workers who have found steady employment in high-wage industries, these workers have, in many cases, even more human capital, but happen to be the wrong color or sex, to be too young or too old, or to live on the wrong side of town or

in the wrong part of the country The inadequacy of the economic system is a more important cause of poverty than the inadequacy of people (p.338)

The failure of the American “War on Poverty”, which was premised largely on a discourse of human capital, would seem to support Bluestone’s contention that “ the human-capital school has attempted

to immunize the patient when it should have been eradicating the disease (p 338).”

Once it was demonstrated that investment in human capital was not sufficient to ensure either personal advancement or the eradication of poverty, the increasing investment in public schools, the creation of community colleges (which were explicitly the agency for educational investment in the lower classes and minority groups), and the expansion of the university system ceased to be seen as a panacea for all

of society’s ills

The major reaction against the discourse of human capital, however, came as a result of increasing graduate unemployment (or underemployment), decreasing enrolments, and spiraling costs, all of which seemed to indicate that the limits of expansion had been reached, especially in the post-secondary system Although the model had postulated that investment in human capital inevitably resulted in economic growth—probably equal to or even in excess of the scale of the investment—this was not, in fact, happen-ing The Canadian economy, for example, was experiencing recession, high unemployment, and inflation Instead of the predicted phenomenon of an expanding economy absorbing an expanding graduate class, the economy was being over-supplied with expensive, over-trained manpower

This in turn led to a falling off of enrolments as the public realized that personal investment in higher education, both in terms of the direct costs and in foregone earnings, might not provide an adequate return (From time to time the trend has reversed, as those who cannot find suitable employment seek refuge

from unfavourable labour markets by enrolling in further education Although most of these individuals retain some hope that the additional skills gained may increase their marketability, further schooling has generally been seen as viable only in contrast to the bleak hopes of finding wage employment during periods of high unemployment.)

The increasing public disillusionment with undergraduate education especially was also reflected

in a growing resentment for the rising cost of university education to the taxpayer, and a subsequent reordering of priorities by governments The unlimited investment in higher education that had been premised on a discourse of human capital came to an abrupt end

Some writers, such as Alexander Lockhart, concluded that the discourse of human capital had never been appropriate, arguing that distinctions between Canada and the US economic systems and industrial priorities made the importation of the discourse to Canadian soil both unsuccessful and undesirable:

At the time (1965), the principle areas of human capital shortage in the US economy were in the aero-space, electronic components, and other industries dependent upon public contract and subsidy which

in turn were part of the function of America’s role as a world power

Clearly, Canada has no such potential, as illustrated by the Government’s foreclosure of the ‘Arrow’, all-Canadian fighter aircraft, and the subsequent collapse of the Canadian aircraft industry To have imported uncritically a theoretical discourse designed to meet the manpower goals reflected the American reality would thus seem illogical in the extreme (p 252)

Lockhart provided a convincing analysis of the errors of the Economic Council of Canada’s

assump-tion throughout the 1960s that the demand for highly trained manpower in Canada was outstripping

supply, and he also questioned the presumed economic benefits of university expansion in Canada on the scale experienced in the United States He pointed out that Sweden had achieved a higher level of industrialization and a slightly better standard of living than had Canada during the 1960s, but with only half the number of graduates

The Economic Council of Canada was itself expressing reservations about the costs of unrestrained investment and expansion of higher education as early as 1970 The focus of its reports showed a shift away from the discourse of human capital and the concomitant emphasis on the necessity for investment

in education to one on the need for greater efficiency, cost effectiveness, co-ordination to reduce

duplica-tion, and a general need to reduce costs The Council’s 1971 publicaduplica-tion, Canadian Higher Education In

The Seventies, for example, included a series of articles re-stressing the consumption view of education,

particularly for purposes of predicting future enrolments Educators and administrators who had come to expect the unqualified support of economists in their bid for a larger share of the GNP, suddenly found their former allies urging accountability and even cutbacks To quote J F Leddy, then President of the University of Windsor:

Yet, in spite of this swing in the pendulum, Canadian Universities have not changed during the last five years in their performance and in their genuine importance to Canada All that has happened is that those who begin and end their superficial case for the university with economic and materialistic con-siderations only, now find that, if they can ride smoothly upward with favourable arguments provided

by the Economic Council of Canada in a given year, they must be prepared to plunge on down the slope

of the roller coaster a few years later in a time of depression (1971, p.5)

Similarly, in the United States there were a series of reports throughout the 1980s—for example, A

Nation At Risk, Action for Excellence, Making the Grade and Educating Americans for the 21st Cen-tury—attacking the schools for their failure to deliver on their promises of economic and social returns

on investment America was losing its competitive standing in the world, it was claimed, because Soviet school children took four years of science and two of calculus, whereas 50% of Americans had no sci-ence or math past grade 10 To quote Governor James B Hunt (Chair of the Task Force on Education for Economic Growth), “We Americans want to insure that we can continue to compete in the world economy We want our economic productivity increased, our technological capability enhanced and our standing in the world restored” (1984, p 539) These reports therefore called for greater corporate input into increasingly standardized curriculum, increasing math and science requirements, tightening graduation standards, and eliminating ‘unnecessary frills’—i.e., the seemingly non-vocational liberal arts Art, music and drama classes became obvious targets as the emphasis was increasingly placed on job training, which in the view of these reports meant a greater emphasis on math and science The business sector came in for criticism for not being sufficiently involved in determining curriculum: “We must tell the business community that, if it wants better employees and higher profits, it must be involved in what the schools teach and how they teach it (Hunt, 1984, p 540).”

None of these reports offered any concrete evidence that their recommended changes would in fact improve economic performance; it was simply assumed Critics like Joel Spring (1984) quickly pointed out that lower American productivity was unrelated to schooling, but the result of the questionable short-term strategies of American business leaders who had opted to exploit the worker surplus created

by the babyboom to employ cheap labour, rather than invest in expensive machinery As babyboomers flooded the American labour market in the 1960s and 1970s, entry-level salaries sharply decreased, making hiring cheap labour the attractive alternative to investment in infrastructure; and government became obsessed with vocational training in the (largely mistaken) belief that youth unemployment was caused by a lack of skills (rather than simple babyboom demographics) As cheap, trained labour

became increasingly available, productivity necessarily went down, because productivity is defined as

output per worker hour In contrast, labour-starved post-war Japan became the world leader in robot-ics because it was the only possible response to that nation’s labour shortages Japanese productivity went up because there were relatively fewer workers available/required to supervise their increasingly mechanized factories, while American productivity went down because their factories relied instead on armies of babyboomers Thus, the higher productivity of Japanese workers related to the higher degree

of mechanization of Japanese production compared to American business, and was largely unrelated to the trumpeted differences in their educational systems

As the babyboom petered out in the West, the oversupply of entry-level labour correspondingly dried up, threatening to drive up salaries; as employed babyboomers aged, so did their expectation for higher wages to reflect their lengthening seniority As workers thus became significantly more expen-sive, American business leaders abruptly became preoccupied with worker productivity and blamed the schools (rather than their own short-sightedness) for the economy’s shortcomings (Spring, 1984) The calls for educational reform therefore shifted to a focus on the need for higher standards, more science and math, and greater technological literacy in the hopes that these now more expensive workers could be made correspondingly more productive The continued calls for expansion of skills training at every level, and for greater efforts to ensure the schooling of marginalized populations (women, minorities, etc.) may have resonated with the public, but the more cynical may notice that such measures also had the effect of shoring up the then dwindling numbers of entry level workers By replacing babyboomers

with formerly excluded or marginalized populations, the continued expansion of skill training had the effect of increasing the reserve army of the un- and under-employed, thereby driving wages back down Spring and others therefore pointed out that responding to the short term interests of the business sec-tor may not be in the best public interest, as these policies would result in lower wages, not the higher incomes promised by the discourse of human capital; that in effect, the education system was being used

to exploit workers (Spring, 1984)

The Discourse of Manpower

Nevertheless, there was no returning to the enlightenment discourse Criticism of the human capital

dis-course was generally directed at specific details and recommendations, rather than to the basic premise

that expenditure in higher education represents investment For example, Lockhart’s critique focused on the applicability of a particular recommendation, that of the development of Ph.D programs in science,

to the particular Canadian context Although he succeeded in demonstrating the illogic of that policy being adopted in Canada—and by extension, the discourse’s contention that economic growth inevitably follows any investment in human capital—he did not question that people represent an economic resource that requires investment, or that the function of education is primarily vocational In other words, rather than a complete rejection of the discourse of human capital in favour of a discourse of enlightenment, all that happened was that investment in human capital was demoted from a ‘necessary and sufficient’ factor for economic growth to a ‘necessary but not sufficient’ factor Similarly, certain other assumptions, such as the assertion that the labour market is freely competitive, were dropped or refined; but these changes represent the emergence of a new discourse, rather than a return to a discourse of enlightenment

This new version of the human capital model may be seen as a discourse of manpower planning

This manpower-based discourse is similar to the human capital model with this essential difference:

whereas the discourse of human capital viewed the development of any level of schooling as investment

in economic growth through the creation of new human capital, the manpower discourse is more narrowly interpreted to recommend investment in only those programs for which there is a demonstrable demand for its graduates in the labour market In other words, investment based on a discourse of manpower training is determined by the specific manpower requirements of the economy, rather than premised on the development of the economy through a general rise in the population’s level of education Whereas the discourse of human capital viewed public education as a prerequisite for the development of the

nation’s industries, the more refined discourse of manpower considers schools and universities as a

national industry, where investment can be made on the basis of such criteria as the usefulness of the product (both in terms of graduates and research), efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and so on, just like any other public corporation

In some ways, the emergence of a discourse of manpower needs represents a further movement away from the discourse of enlightenment The enlightenment discourse emphasized that any learning was worthwhile for its own sake; the human capital discourse similarly accepted that any learning was

an investment in human capital; but the manpower discourse rejects any learning in favour of specific, vocationally and economically useful learning Thus, for example, the enlightenment discourse favoured

a liberal arts program as the best approach to general intellectual development; and the human capital discourse accepted liberal studies as a useful investment in generalized skills; but proponents of the discourse of manpower needs regard liberal studies with great skepticism, as its direct economic and

vocational relevance is difficult to demonstrate Under a manpower-centered discourse, then, one would expect a trend towards an even greater vocationalization of higher education than with a discourse of human capital

This was certainly the case elsewhere To take Singapore as just one example, Ashton and Sung (1997) noted that the government directly manipulated the education system to ensure that graduates closely matched projected manpower needs

to make Singapore a regional center for certain of the knowledge-based industries, the government decided that it requires not just a significant portion of the population to move through higher education but, crucially, that the system must produce the requisite number of scientists and engineers to provide the level of research and development required to sustain such industries In this situation education can never be allowed the kind of autonomy it has experienced in the West, but will always need to be subordinated to the needs of nation-building and especially of economic development (p.217)

Western governments could shift the dominant discourse towards one of manpower planning, but were unprepared to be seen to be limiting educational opportunity for voters’ children, or too blatantly assaulting university autonomy Governments could therefore only manipulate universities indirectly through pairing general cutbacks with specific financial incentives In Alberta, for example, funding for higher education was divided into ‘base funding’ (ongoing grants) and ‘funding envelopes’ which made additional funding available for specific programs favoured by the government’s economic planners Coping with generalized cutbacks (or just the failure to keep up with inflation, capital costs, and so on)

on the one hand, and significant grants for targeted programs on the other, post-secondary institutions generally allowed themselves to be shaped by government economic policies, without the need for direct government edict

Similarly, since government investment in education is premised upon the manpower needs of the economy, there is a strong desire on the part of government to assess students for the cost of that por-tion of their educapor-tion which is of private benefit; that is, which represents individual consumppor-tion For example, in a report prepared by John Buttrick for the Ontario Economic Council (February 1978), the recommendation was made that university tuition fees be allowed to rise to the point where they covered nearly the full cost of teaching: “I find the case for subsidization of post-secondary education to be very weak, except for research and public service components p 10).”

The manpower model of education remains a dominant discourse In India, for example, Delhi

University recently shifted to a four-year undergraduate model, arguing that they were “not turning out

employable graduates…We have not touched the knowledge component but added other values such as

communication, applied language, information technology, basic mathematics and other skills that each

graduate must have to be employable (emphasis added, Vice-chancellor Professor Singh, as quoted by

Mishra, 2014).”

The relationship between these first three discourses may be seen in Table 1 Movement from left

to right represents four associated trends: (1) a shift from an emphasis on the needs of the individual

to the needs of the economy; (2) a shift in the cost burden from the individual to the society; (3) a shift

in control from the universities to governments; and (4) a transition in scale from elite to mass institu-tions Each of these parallel developments is interdependent, as it is unlikely that any of them could have emerged without the others