Monday, January 26, 1998
Who is leading educational change
EDUCATION Technological companies switching to higher, lifelong
learning
By Allison Beauregard Lew
Consider the rapid rate of global change. As the information
economy spreads, will public education be able to provide the
learning opportunities necessary to fuel American economic growth?
What institutions will lead the educational change most relevant to
our economy – educational institutions or business?
Educational institutions often change at a glacial rate compared
to successful businesses whose very survival depends on timely
responses to change. Already, business is charting a new course in
learning content and delivery through the merging of
communications, entertainment and technology.
Technology companies are moving into the political/educational
policy arena as evidenced by the formation of a bipartisan
political advocacy group, the Technology Network, in Palo Alto.
Stan Davis, author of "The Monster Under the Bed," feels that the
pace of technological change and the necessity of lifelong learning
will thrust business into the role of society’s major educational
institution with people spending two decades as student learners
and four decades of learning as workers.
Lewis Perelman, executive editor of Knowledge Inc., a newsletter
covering trends in learning and intellectual capital management
(www.knowledgeinc.com) and author of School’s Out, also believes,
"The most important leadership for education will come from the
business community." The manner in which we view learning
opportunities is rapidly changed by technology, scientific advances
and the changing nature of work.
Forces guiding American education in the past were first based
in family and religious influences, then government and political
influences dominated American education. Perelman states that
American education is basically a socialist system in which "over
90 percent of the U.S. education economy is owned, controlled,
funded, subsidized or regulated by government." Just as the free
market and democracy are redefining values and operations in former
communist and socialist governments, businesses’ response to the
pace of technological change and innovation are leading efforts to
redefine our basic educational values and methods of delivery.
Economic forces are slowly overtaking political forces guiding
education, with new emphasis on lifelong learning, competition,
service, delivery time and evaluation of effectiveness.
To meet economic demands and compete globally, American
businesses have largely been pushed into educational roles
previously dominated by educators and educational institutions. And
American businesses, in dealing with a diverse marketplace and
workforce, are also among those in the forefront developing
practices to successfully bridge America’s ongoing demographic
transformation.
Higher education is not an island in the maelstrom. If
businesses and economics are seen as largely driving educational
change, what are businesses doing in their educational efforts?
What can we, in higher education, learn from their values, goals
and methods? How can higher education collaborate and cooperate
with corporations to maximize overlapping efforts and outcomes?
I have been pursuing a wide array of paths seeking answers to
these questions. One path included attendance at the Corporate
University Xchange symposium for corporate colleges and university
practitioners (www.corpu.com) on the evolving role of corporate
universities in the 21st century. Corporate educational efforts
presented were extremely impressive, ranging from literacy programs
and business-specific curricula for employees, suppliers and
customers at one end of the spectrum to the research, development
and implementation of customized curricula tailored to the
individual and accelerated learning at the other end of the
spectrum.
Unlike many higher education institutions, corporate
universities utilize technological advances extensively in the
access and the cost-effectiveness of their efforts. Most impressive
was Hughes Training which utilizes Reactive Acquisition of
Vocabulary Elements (RAVE) in many of their customized, corporate
university courses. RAVE was originally developed by Hughes for
individuals with severe language learning difficulties; however, it
has also proved effective in English as a second language and
foreign language acquisition. Students using RAVE were able to
attain three to four grade levels of new language ability (reading,
writing and speaking) in one year. Imagine the dramatic improvement
in native and foreign language fluency if RAVE, or other similar
accelerated-learning programs, were made available in K-12 and
higher education.
As businesses become more seasoned and fluid players in the game
of rapid change, do corporate universities represent a threat to
higher education institutions? Adam Eisenstat, director of research
and communications at the New York-based Corporate University
Xchange, feels that "the threat to traditional universities is
their complacency; the threat is internal. However, in our surveys
we found that corporate universities and educational institutions
do not, generally, view each other as a threat because they are
both trying to adapt, and often work together, in meeting the
challenges of the new economy and utilizing technological
innovations."
Jeanne Meister, author of "Corporate Quality Universities:
Lessons in Building a World-Class Work Force" and president and
founder of Corporate University Xchange, notes that "the
relationship between corporate universities and institutions of
higher learning needs to be market-driven and customer-focused,
with traditional universities providing more customized executive
education programs to meet their partners’ business needs." Meister
feels that "it will take aggressive use of myriad technological
vehicles to accelerate learning. These range from electronic
performance support systems on the desktop to satellite and
teleconference capabilities."
Throughout my mingling with corporate university educators, I
kept coming across the issue of status and accreditation in
educational marketing. Theresa Watts, the state coordinator for
American Council for Education (ACE) College Credit Recommendation
Service which services the GED and other adult programs, feels that
"a college degree is still very valuable. However, a common
complaint from businesses is that colleges are not teaching some of
the things that employees need to know. As a result, there is a
huge push towards focusing on learning outcomes – where people will
have to demonstrate what they can do or know. ACE College Credit
Recommendation does not get tied up with the bells and whistles of
delivery issues, but stays focused on what is important. It’s not
just what institutions are putting into the equation, but what
competencies their students are walking away with." With the
further development of distance education and wider recognition of
learning outside of classrooms, now everyone is having to pay
attention to performance-based learning outcomes. Educators and
educational systems simply can not afford to conduct business as
usual. Global change and competition will not wait for us to
catch-up. Businesses understand this and are much more experienced
with quickly tailoring their research, products, services and
delivery systems to meet their customers’ needs.
Britton Manasco, editor and publisher of Knowledge Inc., feels
that "as consumers gain power, they are less dependent." Manasco
interprets the pattern of educational change as being analogous to
the pattern of change in the health and nutrition business – "the
medical community is now having to make all these accommodations to
holistic approaches that they would not have had to before."
Business will dramatically change the way people learn and "we will
see entrepreneurs in higher education, and then entrepreneurs will
find ways to direct learning to the homes. Professors are going to
do an end run (go around the intermediary) and go straight to the
audience. Once the precedent is set, then we will see some
innovation and you will see people demanding it."
In higher education we talk endlessly about access, especially
in relation to opportunities to learn, affirmative action and
diversity. We find ways to attack and defend the parceling out of
opportunities to learning such as GPAs, standardized tests,
affirmative action, skyrocketing costs, limited space and shrinking
resources. Consider how very different the educational landscape
would look if learning became as plentiful – and as cool and
delightful – as your favorite frozen yogurt on a hot summer day?
What if tests simply served as diagnostic tools to help you master
the material instead of narrowing the fields of opportunity? Can
you imagine how differently you would feel about learning under
those circumstances? And what about the costs of education and the
incredible economic burden that many students of American higher
education currently face. Since lifelong learning is now necessary
for economic survival, the very nature of academic credentialism is
slowly being called into question. Efforts to accelerate learning
could save hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the academic
paper chase.
Prolonging the scarcity of learning opportunities – and
arguments over who should get access to the higher educational
resources – is a misuse of energy and human potential. Learning is
learning – and should never be equated with elitism and
exclusivity, the egotistical song of the sirens that sometimes get
intertwined with the business of learning that we call
education.