The adoption of employability as a “universal measure of value” is forcing “the square peg” of higher education into “a round economic hole”, according to University of Oxford higher education researcher Simon Marginson.
Professor Marginson told a Melbourne symposium that public discussion about higher education overwhelmingly focused on its “extrinsic” role as a provider of occupational qualifications.
This overlooked its “intrinsic” purposes of educating students and disseminating knowledge – the “classical inner core” of higher education, which was about learning and knowledge for their “own sake”.
On the learning side, the primary functions were to help students become socialised, “self-realising” people. But government policy and media discourse focused on extrinsic functions such as preparing students for the professions.
