Would ‘Good’ Values Yield Good ‘Value’? Positioning Higher Education in an Emerging Knowledge Economy
Lucienne Abrahams
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Patrick FitzGerald
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P. FitzGerald University of the Witwatersrand
, Private Bag 3, Wits, Johannesburg 2050,
South Africa
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) LINK Centre, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand
, PO Box 601, Wits, Johannesburg 2050,
South Africa
The values and the value of higher education are equally contested issues in contemporary South Africa. The affirmation of the 'utility' or 'market value' of higher education (Etzkowitz 2002), especially in the context of an emerging network knowledge economy (Castells 1996), is sometimes seen as threatening to traditional higher education values of 'reason and culture' (Barnett 2000). These values are considered to be a bulwark against trends of instrumentalism, populism, managerialism and performativity, currently influencing calls for the re-positioning of higher education. This paper poses the question: Would good values advance the value of higher education in facilitating social and economic progress, beyond instrumentalism, in the context of an emerging knowledge economy? Good values or 'intellectual virtues' (Aristotle) are seen on a continuum from civic-mindedness to institutional self-interest in the spheres of university leadership and governance. The value of higher education is considered in relation to 'the object of life' (Aristotle), which is presented in South African terms. The theoretical framework is informed by selected perspectives on universities in the knowledge economy context, including issues pertaining to national systems of innovation, the triple helix of university-government-industry and theory on the role of universities in development. The subject of the study is a research-active university in an emerging economy. It is argued that the value of higher education in a knowledge economy is not by definition antithetical to traditional values, but may be developed and derived from them in either an evolutionary or revolutionary way. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Society for Research on Higher Education (SRHE) conference, Liverpool, UK, December 2008.
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Introductory Problematic and Perspective
The values and the value of higher education are equally contested issues in
contemporary South Africa. The affirmation of the utility or market value of higher
education [14], especially in the context of an emerging network knowledge economy
[6], is sometimes seen as threatening to traditional higher education values of reason
and culture [5]. These values of reason and culture are considered by many
guardians of university values to be a bulwark against trends of instrumentalism,
populism, managerialism, performativity and state capture, currently influential in the
repositioning of higher education. This paper poses the heuristic question: Would good
values realize the value of higher education in facilitating social and economic
progress, beyond instrumentalism, in the context of an emerging knowledge
economy? To explore this question, three case studies are investigated in a single university
setting.
The value of the particular contribution of universities to South African challenges
of economic and social development is the subject of some, albeit limited, debate.
Badat, a South African vice-chancellor and notable guardian of university values,
states An instrumental approach to higher education which reduces its value to its
efficacy for economic growth, and calls that higher education should comprise of
largely professional, vocational and career-focused qualifications and programmes
is to denude it of its considerably wider social value and functions ([3], p. 13) and
later The rise of an economy in which knowledge increasingly plays a critical role
and is prized for the economic advantage that it can confer on businesses and
countries means that knowledge production and the development and application of
knowledge takes on a new significance. Universities clearly take on great
importance in this context ([2], p. 8). Thus, Badat poses for us both sides of the debate.
South Africa is a recently democratic (1994), middle-income country with
challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. It is also a country in which the
economy is increasingly based on the infusion of ever greater knowledge intensity in
production, in services and in societal design. The higher education system is a
significant contributor to the growing knowledge intensity. However, there is no
general agreement, or even consistent discourse, on the nature of the interconnections
between universities and the broader economy and society. The received values
associated with higher education are classical, pre-knowledge economy values
and are generally not conceived of in terms of their articulation to value in a
knowledge economy paradigm.
The authors have been participantobservers in the debate on higher education for
the past decade. The discussion in the university sector regarding the appropriate
level of engagement (...truncated)