(http://www.rescue.org/refugees)

 The origin of this blog is in an encounter I had last week with an unlikely visitor – let us call him Jean for now (not his real name). Jean will be registering his final courses for a chemical engineering degree at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 2014. When Jean called me last week to set up an appointment, nothing could have prepared me for what followed. His introduction was simply – “Hello, this is Jean from Burundi.”

It turned out that Jean read an account I wrote about another student “John” in which I shared the amazing journey of a young Zimbabwean who completed his bachelor degree in accounting two years ago at Unisa (link here). Reading my account of the John’s journey, Jean wanted to meet to share his journey.  Here follows an abridged version of his journey…

Jean was born in 1991 of a Hutu father and a Tutsi mother in Cibitoke (Burundi), almost on the border with Rwanda to the North, Zaire to the North West and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the West and Tanzania to the East. In 1994 civil war erupted in Rwanda “resulting in the genocide of 800,000 Hutu and Tutsi at the hands of Hutu militia and the army” (Stearns, 2011, p. 8). The genocide killed a sixth of the population of Rwanda, sent another sixth into refugee camps and created “the conditions for another cataclysm in neighboring Congo” (Stearns, 2011, p. 13). The fates of Rwanda and Burundi are interlinked– both countries were Belgian colonies, both were inhabited by Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority (Stearns, 2011).  A year before the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Hutu president of Burundi was assassinated resulting in ethnic violence sending thousands of Hutu’s into the neighboring countries. Less than a year later the Rwandan genocide sent another million Hutus into refugee camps.

Jean found himself, with his father, mother, and two younger sisters in a refugee camp in the DRC, across the river Rusizi in 1991. Jean recounts that his father went back to Burundi to sell some cattle where “Tutsi soldiers and one man (X) from my mom’s family came … and killed my daddy because he has married a Tutsi girl who was my mom. And also wanting to kill me saying that I’m a Hutu.” After some time, Jean, his mother and two sisters moved back to Burundi. In 1994 the Rwandan genocide took place. With the huge influx of refugees from Rwanda and the genocide spilling over into Burundi, the family fled, once again to the DRC. War broke out in the DRC in 1998, and Jean, his mother and two sisters fled with some Congolese and Rwandan refugees across Lake Tanganyika to Tanzania, and found safety in a refugee camp at Kigoma till 2003. During this time Jean and his sisters became separated from their mother and he does not know whether she is still alive. A Tanzanian family temporarily ‘adopted’ Jean and his two sisters just before moving to Nampula in Mozambique. After this temporary host family immigrated to the United States, Jean and his two sisters were brought to South Africa in 2005 by a pastor and placed in an orphanage in Atteridgeville, close to Pretoria. Among the challenges Jean faced was the fact that neither he nor his sisters could speak English, and he was warned that he could only stay in the orphanage till he was 18, which was 3 years from then.

Jean found a French-English dictionary and taught himself a basic understanding of English. In 2006 Jean made a choice that changed his life. At that stage he had the equivalent of Grade 8. Knowing that he just had another 3 years left in the orphanage, he realized that he had to ‘skip’ Grade 9, in order to graduate from high school in 3 years’ time. The first day in class was a nightmare. Not being able to speak English, and the fact that the teachers taught in a mixture of English and local indigenous languages presented itself as a recipe for disaster. But Jean prevailed, studying day and night. He passed Grade 10.

It was then that Jean decided to change direction and choose scientific subjects. Despite the fact that he did not have any prior school experience in the sciences, his marks in mathematics were good and he was allowed to take physics and chemistry. He continued to pass Grades 11 and 12. Being 18, he then had to leave the orphanage, with nowhere to go.

Time does not allow me to share Jean’s journey from the time he left the orphanage to his first enrollment at Unisa in 2009. Allow me just to say that his journey reflects a mixture of tenacity, moments of serendipity, and the kindness of various strangers. Reflecting on this time in his life Jean says “I disciplined myself, I avoided doing wrong things. Above all I’m striving to be educated because I know through education there’s a good future. By doing so my dreams shall come true and [I will] fulfill my mission on this planet Earth. I want to see myself coming (sic) from zero to hero.”

If everything goes well, Jean will graduate with a chemical engineering degree from Unisa in 2014. He still has a temporary asylum seeker permit. This brings me to Zygmunt Bauman’s work “Wasted lives. Modernity and its outcasts” (2004).

In a world where citizenship of a nation state and the ability to participate as consumers are the norms for “belonging”, the unemployed, destitute, and refugees (like Jean and millions like him) are (permanently) excluded and “assigned to waste [where] there are no obvious return paths to fully fledged membership” (Bauman, 2004, p. 16). Bauman (2004) refers to Agamben’s notion of the homo sacer – a category of ancient Roman law that defines a certain category of humans as being without value – whether as citizen or even as sacrifice. “Killing a homo sacer is not a punishable offence, but neither can the life of a homo sacer be used in a religious sacrifice” (Bauman, 2004, p. 32). Humans classified as homines sacri are ‘useless’ and they have lost any intrinsic value they once had. They find themselves in permanent liminal spaces, outside the affordances of citizenship – no longer belonging in their original homelands or being accepted by their new hosts. “Refugees are human waste, with no useful function to play in the land of their arrival and temporary stay and no intention or realistic prospect of being assimilated and incorporated into the new social body; from their present place, the dumping site, there is no return and no road forward” (Bauman, 2004, p. 77).

Refugees and asylum seekers “can be oppressed and exterminated with impunity” (Bauman, 2004, p. 33). Bauman (2004) writes that modern society hosts homines sacri in isolated refugee camps or ‘places of safety’ which prevents them from feeding parasitically off legitimate citizens and consumers. They are seen as not only superfluous and redundant, but as “a cancerous growth gnawing at the healthy tissues of society and sworn enemies of ‘our way of life’ and ‘what we stand for’” (Bauman, 2004, p. 41). Asylum seekers are on a journey “that is never completed since its destination (arrival or return)remains forever unclear, while a place they could call ‘final’ remains forever inaccessible” (Bauman, 2004, p. 76).

So what impact can higher education possibly have on the lives of the 42 million that are classified as homines sacri (Bauman, 2004)?

I am not sure I have the answer. I wish I could say that having an education or even a degree would make a difference in their lives. Many foreigners and asylum seekers may find and actually do find that once classified as a homo sacer you are never welcome – no matter what your qualification or educational background. There is no redemption from being classified as homo sacer.

Higher education curricula further prepare students to successfully participate and compete in an increasingly complex game of survival of the fittest. Graduates who do find employment, can’t wait to assume their rightful role as consumers in the malls of life, and while shopping they will do their best to protect their interests and forget the possibility that awaits us all, of being found “flawed” and classified as homo sacer.

For higher education to make a difference, in whatever small ways, we need curricula that empower students to question the grand narratives of the day, graduates who are willing to disrupt neoliberal schemas dictating the rules of belonging and worth. We need a different type of graduate – graduates who are deeply aware of the injustices of current social, economic, legal, technical and political dispensations and who are willing to speak out, live differently and make a difference.

In order for us to have different types of graduates, we therefore need a different type of faculty…

References

Bauman, Z. (2004). Wasted lives. Modernity and its outcasts. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Stearns, J.K. (2011). Dancing in the glory of monsters. The collapse of the Congo and the great war of Africa. New York: PublicAffairs.

Reblogged from Posthegemony:

Yesterday I watched the video of Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, speaking at UBC a couple of weeks ago. After her presentation, three UBC professors who have taught or are currently teaching a Coursera MOOC contributed to a panel discussion.

In many ways, neither the talk nor the discussion were particularly illuminating. Koller gave a talk that, I understand, she has been giving for some time.

Read more… 611 more words

There are various responses to the above. Entrepreneurial skills and curricula have become a religion where converts are promised a life of self-employment and riches, employers and regulatory bodies increasingly demand input in curricula threatening to de-accredit institutions and faculties who do not comply, and many corporations start their own universities and training programmes. As funding for public universities continue to decline, higher education institutions have very little choice but to sell out to the highest bidder, the market. Giroux (2013) writes – “Increasingly, even curricula are organized to reflect the sound of the cash register, hawking products for students to buy and promoting the interests of corporations that celebrate fossil fuels as an energy source, sugar-filled drinks, and a Disney-like view of the world.”

According to The Economist (April 27^th – May 3^rd) “26 million 15-25 year olds in developed countries are not in employment, education or training” (p. 9), a rise of 30% since 2007. The World Bank estimates that about 262 million young people in emerging markets are “economically inactive” resulting in an “arc of unemployment.” Interestingly, the same issue of The Economist questions the belief that economic growth will be the solution – it is now mooted as a “partial solution” (p. 9). Disturbingly, “In North Africa university graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as non-graduates” (p. 9).

Henry A Giroux is one of the most vocal scholars today questioning the role of higher education’s impact on the lives of millions permanently disenfranchised. Giroux (2013) launches a scathing attack against “predatory capitalism [that] spreads its gospel of power, greed, commodification, gentrification and inequality.” Public education is sold to the “apostles of a market-driven ideology” resulting in many public institutions being closed or privatized (Giroux 2013). Those public higher education institutions that do survive, seem to promise students that a degree will allow them to join the ranks of the ‘haves’ and socially mobile middle and upper classes living in gated secure communities. The reality is, however, that an increasingly small number of graduates do join these ranks and the rest are doomed to join the ranks of those who have “ad hoc, temporary, insecure and part-time jobs” (Bauman, 2012). “Nothing has prepared them for the arrival of the hard, uninviting and inhospitable new world of the downgrading of grades, the devaluation of earned merits, locked doors, the volatility of jobs and the stubbornness of joblessness, the transience of prospects and the durability of defeats; of a new world of stillborn projects and frustrated hopes and of chances ever more conspicuous by the their absence” (Bauman, 2012, p. 47).

While the above picture is indeed dismal, even more concerning are the thousands of youth, often from already marginalized communities, who are not in employment and not in education, the so-called Ni-Ni generation (Bauman, 2012) – who are regarded as “human waste to be relegated to the zones of terminal exclusion”(Giroux, 2013).

Despite the fact that there are many in government and higher education that seem to be quite comfortable with the above scenario, many of us are not.

So how do we break the stranglehold of “predatory capitalism” (Giroux, 2013) on education and prepare students to critically engage with and disrupt the make-belief and fickle world of consumerism? How do we break cycles of poverty, hopelessness and permanent despair? How do we prevent the start of new cycles of “downward mobility” (Bauman, 2012, p. 46) and offer hope to those who “inhabit zones of hardship, suffering and terminal exclusion” (Giroux, 2013)?

The answers to these questions are not simple. A good place to start would be to consider the following:

1. We cannot (and should not) isolate education and educational programmes from broader social, economic, political, technological, environmental and legal environments and forces. Higher education cannot, on its own, bring about change in reversing established legacies of marginalization where forces outside of education maintain, perpetuate and benefit from these legacies.
2. While higher education can (and should) critically engage with their curricula, their assessment practices and pedagogies, higher education is often (mostly?) on the receiving end of neoliberal funding regimes, legislation and regulatory frameworks. Higher education institutions and individual faculty are therefore, to some extent, held captive by policy, regulatory and legal frameworks preventing more nimble and critical approaches.
3. The direct relationship between higher education and the employability of our graduates should therefore be interrogated and redefined. While the inclusion of entrepreneurial skills in curricula is definitely not the sole solution, it may be part of a broadening of the skills set our graduates have. Not every graduate will become an entrepreneur, but at least an increasing number will. There is, however, a caveat…
4. I would plead for a critical entrepreneurship aiming at engaging with “zones of hardship, suffering and terminal exclusion” (Giroux, 2013), making a sustainable difference in environmentally sustainable and equitable ways. Should our entrepreneurship programmes just aim to increase the number of acolytes to “predatory capitalism,” we will not break and prevent cycles of hopeless and disenfranchisement.
5. We need to design curricula and learning journeys that critically engage with and disrupt the mantra of neoliberal ideologies and rampant consumerism that deny the “massive inequality, social disparities, [and] the irresponsible concentration of power in relatively few hands” (Giroux, 2013). We need to reject curricula and pedagogies that are sterile templates aimed at skills and improving test scores. Our curricula should question and illuminate how past and current relationships of authority, knowledge and power shaped and continue to shape life on earth. “The role of a critical education is not to train students solely for jobs, but also to educate them to question critically the institutions, policies and values that shape their lives, relationships to others, and myriad connections to the larger world” (Giroux, 2013).
6. Students also have to accept the responsibility to ensure that their choices of programmes and courses increase their skill set for an increasingly uncertain and fluid world. There is no longer space for claims of entitlement. There are so many free, open and affordable online opportunities available that there is almost no excuse anymore for those who have reasonable access to the Internet. I realize that making use of these online offerings depends on connectivity and the cost and sustainability of connectivity – therefore these offerings will not necessarily be the educational revolution that we need.
7. Lastly, no stakeholder can address the immense inequality and “combined forces of a market driven ideology, policy and mode of governance” (Giroux, 2013) on their own. Higher education, NGOs, governments, the corporate sector and alumni need to form oppositional, community-based alliances of hope that strategically dismantle legacies of disenfranchisement and prevent new cycles of poverty and despair.

In closing:

If our age is an age of “excess, redundancy, waste and waste disposal” (Bauman, 2013, p. 21) with “spectacular spaces of consumption” (Giroux, 2013) on the one hand, and vast numbers of people who are permanently disenfranchised caught in cycles of employment and despair on the other, we can neither plead ignorance, nor have lone-ranger approaches. We need alliances, alliances of hope.

 References

Bauman, Z. (2012). On education. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Giroux, H. (2013, May 20). Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s neoliberal savagery. Retrieved from http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16478-marching-in-chicago-resisting-rahm-emanuels-neoliberal-savagery

The Economist (April 27^th – May 3^rd). Generation jobless. The global rise of youth unemployment.

During my December break, I read Nate Silver’s “The signal and the noise. The art and science of prediction” (2012). As someone who is numerically challenged (another disclaimer), but someone who is embedded in making sense of the claims and predictions in higher and distance education, I thought the book would introduce me to the limits and potential of predictions and forecasts in higher education. Though the book did introduce me to the discourses and complexities surrounding modelling and predictions, I found huge parts of the book difficult reading due to the book’s assumptions that everyone has a working knowledge of American baseball, American politics and poker… Despite these drawbacks, the book provided me with glimpses of the need to distinguish between noise and signals in higher education. Silver (2012) states that most of the information produced today is “just noise, and the noise is increasing faster than the signal” (p. 13).  So how does one go about in making sense of all the claims and counter claims in higher and distance education? How does one recognize (and predict) patterns and signals?

The matter is, however, not so simple (maybe it never was?). Audrey Watters, in her blog “Why I’m Not Making Ed-Tech Predictions for 2013”, makes a personal case for not attempting to predict trends in educational technology in 2013, while Tony Bates in his first blog of 2013, “Why predicting online learning developments is risky but necessary” claims that, despite the issues raised by Watters, he feels that, not only is he in a position to make predictions, but also that it is necessary. In a follow-up blog “Outlook for online learning in 2013: online learning comes of age” Bates then continues to make a number of predictions such as

• that online learning will “come of age” in 2013 and move from the periphery to the centre
• there will be an increase in hybrid learning that will necessitate “the re-design of courses to integrate the best of online and campus-based teaching”
• online learning will become an integral part of institutional strategic plans
• outsourcing will increase, such as, inter alia, 24/7 technical support, learning management systems, learner support/tutoring, and course design
• the evolution of massive open online courses (MOOCs) will continue
• open textbooks will become the norm
• the use of tablets will transform pedagogy
• flexible course design will become a necessity
• Mexico and Asia needs to be watched in the international domain.

Bates’ last prediction namely “expect the unexpected” includes “monsters lurking in the shadows” such as the privatization of post-secondary education in the USA, Apple, Google, Facebook or Amazon entering higher education offering educational opportunities at a profit, with accreditation by elite universities and a possible backlash against the open educational resources (OER) movement with the tightening of copyright legislation. Also see Steve Wheeler’s series of posts on the future of education.

Many of the challenges facing international higher and distance education in 2013 such as the increasing convergence between traditional face-to-face higher education and distance education and e-learning, changing funding regimes, the impact of neoliberalism, the economic downturn and technology,  also impact on higher and distance education on the African continent. These international trends in higher and distance education do and will continue to shape higher and distance education on the African continent and in South Africa. Castells (2009) warns that while not everyone is included in a global networked society, everyone is affected – “exclusion from these networks, often in a cumulative process of exclusion, is tantamount to structural marginalization in the global network society” (p. 25). This process “overwhelms the local – unless the local becomes connected to the global as a node in alternative global networks constructed by social movements” (p.26).  Many of the challenges facing higher education on the African continent are embedded in the nexus of local versus global, alternative epistemologies and changes in international and local geopolitical alliances and networks.

In the rest of the blog I therefore try to make sense of the changes and challenges facing higher education with specific reference to higher and distance education in South Africa and on the African continent.

1. The link between higher education and (un)employment. With an unofficial unemployment rate of close to 40%, and many graduates joining the queues of the desperate-for-work, we need to re-examine and possibly redefine many of our assumptions about higher education. Except for the growth in the NiNi (Not-in-employment, not-in-education) generation, we also have to consider the huge number of students in higher distance education who drop out before their second year, or take longer than 8 years to complete their qualification. We have to seriously reconsider, inter alia,

• The structure of our qualifications. In the South African higher education context, should students not complete their qualifications and “exit” at an earlier stage, this leaves them with just an uncompleted qualification. The earlier regime of “exit-level qualifications” were discarded a number of years ago. I realise there were (most probably) sound reasons for the change (e.g. issues of subsidization, etc.), but I sincerely think that the new regime leaves students who exit their qualifications earlier than planned, poorer in a number of ways.
• Our belief that tertiary education is necessarily appropriate or necessary for everyone. After decades of excluding prospective students on racial grounds, and a non-functioning Further Education and Training (FET) sector, tertiary education is seen (and marketed) as a basic ‘right’, and your ticket to employment and the ‘good life.’ For many years South Africa’s primary and secondary school education did not (and still do not…) allow learners to discover and realize their potential. Any attempt to withhold this ‘right’ through admission requirements, capping of registration numbers and bridging courses are seen as dehumanizing and perpetuating the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. We need to critically question and engage with our assumptions, claims and counter-claims regarding the role and composition of post-secondary school education in the 21^st century.
• Not only are most students totally under-prepared for higher and distance education, the institutions themselves are equally under-prepared to deal with these students’ specific needs, unrealized potential and the daunting reality that their dream for a better future will be (once again) deferred. When square pegs don’t fit round holes, we usually blame the pegs, and we never question the shape of the hole…

 2.       Going digital and mobile. For years the debates on the impact of technologies on African higher education were shaped by the constructs such as the ‘digital divide’, and ‘digital natives’/ ‘digital immigrants.’ These constructs have been deconstructed and discredited as neither being based on empirical evidence nor sufficiently nuanced (see for example, Czerniewicz & Brown, 2010; Bennet & Maton, 2010)  Mobile technologies (e.g. smart phones and tablets) offer huge potential for African higher education. The challenge is however how to harness this potential for teaching and learning. While the cost of smartphones have decreased and is forecasted to decrease even further, the cost and sustainability of connectivity are continuing concerns in our efforts to optimize the potential of mobile technologies. With students having access to a wide range of devices, institutions are faced with the possibilities and challenges of offering device-independent teaching and learning with implications for formats, readability, content-generation or use, etc.

3.       Going massive and open. While there is a lot of hype regarding the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to include those not currently in higher education, recent research show that current enrolments in MOOCs are limited to those already in higher education or employment (see Beyond the MOOC Hype: Answers to the Five Biggest MOOC Questions, Part 1). Though these initiatives do offer potential for those not formally enrolled in higher education, we have not touched the immense need to open education for those who have never completed their primary and secondary school education. While the massification of higher education is embedded in the discourses and practices of addressing the legacies of apartheid, we cannot ignore the bigger questions regarding the role of higher education (see point 1), accreditation, the need for sustainable business models for massive (and open) higher education, and addressing the needs of the millions outside the epistemologies of privilege currently germane in higher education.

4.       Out with the old, in with the new (or not?) While present day fashion has made ‘old’ and ‘worn’ fashionable (you cannot buy a pair of jeans without it being torn in several places and with some permanent and carefully placed dirt marks), education seems mesmerized by the ‘new’ and the ‘latest.’ While I don’t contest that some of the latest advances in technology do offer interesting educational opportunities, this does not mean (necessarily) that we need to (always and immediately) discard the ‘old.’ Surely there is a way to embrace the potential of the ‘new’ while (still) nurturing and supporting the best of the ‘old’? We seem to have sold out to thinking in binary terms (where ‘old’ is bad and ‘new’ is good) instead of embracing the fluidity of continuums where ‘old’ and ‘new’ can function interchangeably and appropriately dependent on the context.

 5.       Can anything good come from Africa?  Africa and Africans have, for years, been defined (and are still defined) by North-Atlantic discourses and knowledge regimes as being backward, dark, second-best and in need of sympathy (not to mention development aid).  The implications of ‘being defined’ by these discourses and knowledge regimes, include, but are not limited to the following:

• For years we internalized the superiority of North-Atlantic knowledge regimes and imported curricula and text books. While there is an urgent need to acknowledge that indigenous knowledge systems and ways of seeing the world are equally worthy for inclusion in our curricula and assessment practices, we should also be wary to romanticize, essentialize and even invent the past and the local. All knowledge is ideological – whether produced in the North-Atlantic or whether local. Just because local knowledge is indigenous does not make it neutral.
• Many African scholars and researchers can testify how difficult it is to be acknowledged as an equal in the research, publishing and conference regimes in North-Atlantic contexts.  Our African addresses seem to exclude us from many international conferences and publishing regimes. Many African scholars’ attempts to be accepted by North-Atlantic journals are met with rejection because the research was ‘too African’, parochial and not suited for an international (read North-Atlantic) audience, and/or that the article/paper does not contribute to the discourse (framed by North-Atlantic assumptions and epistemologies). Don’t get me wrong. As a researcher I don’t want to be included in a conference proceeding or journal just on the basis of my address. African scholars and researchers can also not expect that our research can be less rigorous or meet different criteria just because we are from a developing world context.
• While many graduates produced in North-Atlantic contexts have very little understanding of the impact of imperialism and colonialism on world and specifically African history, African graduates cannot afford to be ignorant regarding world history and the major events that shaped Africa and the world. I spoke to two graduates this week, an engineer and an accountant, who had no idea of the history of slavery (past and present), the genocides that shaped and still shape African and world history, and a general historical frame of reference of how geopolitical power relations changed over the last 100 years. Has higher education so sold out to neoliberal market ideologies that we continue to produce employable graduates with no critical sense of location?

 In conclusion: Higher and distance education on the African continent are shaped, in many direct and indirect ways, by international trends and developments. Our responses to these trends and challenges are, however, also shaped by broader geopolitical, economic and environmental trends – many of which are embedded in the legacies of colonialism and an on-going realignment of geopolitical networks and alliances. The list of challenges I shared in this blog is anything but complete or comprehensive – but it may provide readers with glimpses of some of the issues African higher and distance education face in 2013…

Postscript: In my previous blog, I shared my personal approach to blogging. I may have created the (incorrect) impression that blogging comes ‘naturally’ and ‘easy’.  This week’s blog was one of the most difficult blogs I ever wrote. I pondered, phrased and rephrased, deleted, and started over.  This blog was difficult to write due to a number of factors, including the amount of ‘noise’ in higher and distance education and the way my personal identity and insight (or lack thereof) are shaped by my habitus, cultural capital and context. This blog is therefore not an African perspective on 2013 – but one African’s attempt to find patterns and make sense of the world of higher and distance education.

Among the concerns was an intense self-doubt whether I really had something original to say compared to educational bloggers like Audrey Watters, Tony Bates, Steve Wheeler and George Siemens. Each of these bloggers had (and still has) an international reputation in the field of higher education and educational technologies, and their blogs were informative, well-written and often, profound. I also was concerned that, in finding my own voice and style, my blogs would not amount to anything more than truisms and pseudo-intellectual bricolage.

In his “Letters to a young poet”, Rilke (1929, trans. 2011) responds to a young man, Xaver Kappus, who asked Rilke for advice and comments on his poems. Rilke, in his first letter to Kappus, responds fairly abruptly by advising Kappus not to compare his poems with those of others, or take editors who turn down his work too seriously. “No one can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied to write. This above all: ask yourself in your night’s quietest hour: must I write?” (p. 7). Only if Kappus could answer this question in the affirmative “with a loud and simple ‘I must’”, Rilke encouraged Kappus to “construct your life according to this necessity; your life right into its inconsequential and slightest hour must become a sign and witness of this urge” (p. 8).

Having dealt with the crux of being a writer, Rilke then continues to advise Kappus to be authentic in his topics – to stay clear of love poems and “those forms that are too familiar and habitual”, but to take “refuge in those offered by your own day-to-day life. … If you everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches, for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place” (p. 8). When and only if Kappus could submerge himself in his own world, “there come verses, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good ones” (p. 9).

Rilke concludes his first letter to Kappus by encouraging Kappus to “assume this fate and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking after the rewards that may come from the outside. For he who creates must be a world of his own and find everything within himself and in the natural world that he has elected to follow” (pp. 9-10).

I discovered Rilke’s “Letters to a young poet” only mid-2012, but somehow his advice to Kappus became a guiding beacon in my journey as a blogger. I confess that during my early days as a blogger I was obsessed with the number of ‘hits’ my blog would receive. I would sulk if a ‘profound’ blog would go unnoticed. I would celebrate if the number of hits reaches a new high. During those early days I prayed for one of the greats in the field of educational blogging to notice my blog and sound the bugle.

I am relieved that those early, obsessive days have, somehow, passed. Not that I have become careless about my digital voice/footprint. I believe that digital scholarship and the digital presence of scholars will increasingly become important – despite our research rankings and performance appraisal systems trailing behind. [See a very informative guidelines developed by Sarah Goodier and Laura Czerniewicz on academics’ online presence]. My digital scholarship has become part of who I am – for better or for worse.

I also had to overcome a lot of self-doubt, born from (amongst other things), an intense awareness of how my personal history, gender, health status, academic background and race situate me in institutional and broader societal discourses.  I cannot (and will not) negate the fact that these discourses and contexts shape who I am as a blogger. I also blog from the southern part of a continent described as “dark”, where the massification of higher education is seen as the panacea for addressing the deep inequalities of the past and where underprepared learners and underprepared institutions are often paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges that face us.

In conclusion: Despite my initial apprehension regarding blogging in an open environment where peer review is a given, and where comparison with established bloggers is natural, I realize now more than ever before that I need to blog. Rilke advises Kappus that some things “cannot be measured by time, a year has no meaning, and ten years are nothing. To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales not fearing that no summer may follow. It will come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are simply there in their vast, quiet tranquillity, as if eternity lies before them” (pp. 18-19).

So, why do I blog? The answer is fairly simple – I must.

References

Rilke, R.M. (1929, trans. 2011). Letters to a young poet. Translated by Lewis Hyde. London, UK: Penguin.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

In this blog, I explore some of the thoughts of Foucault (1980) who seemed to imply that when reflecting on “sudden takeoffs” and changes in discourses, we need to examine changes in the hidden and embedded epistemologies and power relations underpinning these changes. In exploring some of this proposal of Foucault, I would like to use as backdrop the ghost island of Hashima, recently used as backdrop in the latest James Bond movie, “Skyfall.” The scenes from the movie show the dilapidated remains of what once was a densely populated island becoming desolate in a question of hours. Coffee cups were left on the tables of a coffee shop, bicycles were left standing against walls, windows with billowing curtains were left open. The changes that overcame Hashima were sudden, devastating and permanent. Hashima was a modernist dream of reclaiming land from the sea through the building of a wall, designing a densely populated island in the heyday of the coal industry in Japan. No one could have foreseen that the coal bubble would burst. It did and the island was dramatically depopulated within a short period of time.

The rapidness and extent of the changes that overtook higher and distance education in 2012 reminds me of the questions posed by Foucault (1980) reflecting on the raptures and sudden changes which sometimes occur in knowledge production, and the structures of disciplines. These disruptive changes cannot be explained by biological images of “progressive maturation” (Foucault, 1980, p. 112), but calls for a deeper analysis. Foucault writes: “How is it that at certain moments, and in certain orders of knowledge, there are these sudden take-offs, these hastenings of evolution, these transformations which fail to correspond to the calm, continuist image that is normally accredited?” (1980, p. 112). He continues to say that though the suddenness of such instances is peculiar, these changes are “are only the sign of something else: a modification in the rules of formation of statements which are accepted as scientifically true” (p. 112).

Thinking about the inherent and historically shaped traditional rules in higher education sustained by regimes, networks and mechanics of power, we therefore need to ask ‘what changed in these inherent regimes of Truth that made these exponential changes possible?” If higher education is comparable to Foucault’s analysis of the State as “superstructural in relation to a whole series of power networks that invest the body, sexuality, the family, kinship, knowledge, technology and so forth,” then higher education as “meta-power… can only take hold and secure its footing where it is rooted in a whole series of multiple and indefinite power relations” that forms the necessary basis for its existence (Foucault, 1980, p. 122). What changed in the “multiple and indefinite power relations” which form the foundation of higher education that provided a fertile ground for the changes and the accompanying hype that swept over the higher education landscape? This reminds me of the fact that the assumptions and epistemologies as regimes of power on which Hashima was built, became obsolete overnight, leaving a deserted island.

If the changes we faced in 2012 “are only the sign of something else: a modification in the rules of formation of statements which are accepted as scientifically true” (Foucault, 1980, p. 112), what rules changed? The following is anything but a definite list, but points to some of the rules that have changed (for now):

• No matter how permanent the changes are, the MOOCification and Pearsonification of knowledge production and accreditation questioned and disrupted the traditional role of higher education as the only legitimate producers and evaluators of knowledge claims. The primacy of higher education as knowledge producers have changed, possibly permanently. Why did this happen? Is it because higher education rested on its laurels thinking that their pedagogies and four-year degrees are the only way to a fulfilled and good life?
• The idea that higher education’s main value proposition is the generation of content has been disrupted, permanently. Higher education was caught with their pants down oblivious to the fact that content (albeit of varying quality, like the quality found in higher education…) has gone viral. For years distance education treasured and rewarded faculty for the development of content (however un-original). We protected our ‘content’ with claiming Intellectual Property (IP) rights on content that was as original as opening up another burger outlet…
• The historically embedded roles of faculty (meticulously documented in detailed job descriptions and performance assessments) remind me of stuffed dodos in museums. The workers on Hashima went looking for jobs after the coal industry went bust.
• The traditional assumptions and links between Bildung, graduation and employment have been jettisoned for just-in-time, competency-based curriculum development, assessment and accreditation.
• Curriculum development, teaching, assessment and accreditation have become unbundled, and re-bundled (Watters, 2012).
• The traditional monopoly of distance education providers to reach out to the unreached has changed forever. The convergence between traditional face-to-face and distance education is irreversible. How this will unfold will be one of the interesting trends to watch in 2013.
• The traditional sponsorship provided by national governments have irrevocably changed, leaving many higher education institutions looking for new masters who will, in return, shape curricula and assessment, at a price (as always). The commercialization of higher education will increase with venture capitalists moving in like hyenas to capitalize (literally) on the confusion and paralysis in the higher education sector.

In closing: The changes higher and distance education saw in 2012 are but the visible changes of deeper changes in the power and truth regimes on which higher and distance education was built. While I agree with Audrey Watters (2012) that many of these new movements may turn out to resemble a depopulated Hashima in future, I have no doubt that these changes are symbolic of deeper epistemological and even ontological changes in the DNA of higher education. Despite the hype, lies, convoluted promises and claims, higher education as we have come to know it, may become another Hashima, with coffee cups left on tables in empty staff rooms…

References

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge. Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. Edited by Colin Gordon. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Watters, A. (2012, December 3). Top Ed-Tech trends of 2012: MOOCs [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/12/03/top-ed-tech-trends-of-2012-moocs/

Machine translation may soon, under certain conditions, make concerns about the role of language in online learning and MOOCs obsolete (e.g., Google’s ‘Babel fish’ heralds future of translation). Though this will solve the issue of translation, it will still not solve the fact that language, like culture and learning, are culturally embedded phenomena and not mere tools of communication. “… technologies are not a culturally neutral phenomenon; rather, they are cultural-specific ventures that are grounded and provided in a specific cultural context” (Masoumi & Lindström, 2012, p. 394). Unless we assume, (in my view, incorrectly), that online learning and MOOCs take place in a cultural hotchpotch of glocalized culture, then it may be time to reflect upon the role and impact of culture and specifically the language of tuition…

The role of language and culture in online learning has been well-researched (e.g., Chen, Hsu, & Caropreso, 2006; Henderson, 1996; Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot, 2010; Rogers & Wang, n.d.). As higher and distance education institutions increasingly offer internationalized offerings (e.g., MOOCs), it necessitates a critical reflection on the issue of language and culture. Or do individuals, institutions and alliances just assume that those who participate willingly in a MOOC accept, per se, that they will participate in English and in all probability encounter (and be assessed against) the hegemony of North Atlantic epistemologies and ways of seeing the world? Recent MOOCs  encouraged participants to self-organize into any collaborative environment that would suit their preferences, e.g.  language groups. Though the ‘official’ language of the MOOC and its resources were in English, participants were invited to self-organize if they had the need to communicate in another language.

While participation in MOOCs are voluntary, the issue regarding language in official, institutional online courses is more challenging. Most institutions have language policies and offer tuition in one or at most two official languages.  In the South African context with our eleven official languages, there are increasing demands to address the issue of multilingualism in our online offerings. How should we respond?

How do we design online learning experiences in increasingly international and intercultural contexts where the hegemony of English and Western cultures and epistemologies are contested and disrupted? How do we choose an online language of tuition in the context of a resurgence of ethnic and cultural pride and claims of entitlement (Wilmsen& McAllister 1996)? How do we respond when an institution choses English as sole language of tuition in its online environments and where other languages then opt to play the “politics of marginality” as “basis for mobilization and collective assertion” (Wilmsen, 1996, p. 5)?

Though the above are ideological questions, there are also very practical questions such as “how practical, cost-effective and sustainable is it to offer tuition on demand in a specific language preference?” “What are the implications for quality assurance and assessment?”

While the previous questions are important, there is also the pragmatic consideration regarding the impact on graduates’ employability outside of the confines of their original contexts, should an institution embrace multilingualism in its online offerings. Can these students compete in a global employment market where their indigenous languages will (most probably) not be known or acknowledged?

I don’t claim to have the answer to the above questions, on the contrary. The more I reflect on these questions, the more questions arise.  I do think, however, that there are a number of pointers that can serve as guidelines when designing intercultural and global learning experiences such as MOOCs.

1. We cannot (and should not) ignore the role of language (and culture) in tuition and in online teaching environments. Teaching and learning are culturally embedded activities resulting from and perpetuating cultural norms, perceptions and ways of seeing the world. I personally don’t believe that it is always possible (or feasible for that matter…) to design learning experiences from multicultural perspectives. More viable is the possibility that individuals, institutions and alliances acknowledge that their chosen languages of tuition are cultural constructs impact on perceptions of participation, respect for authority, etc. When assessment criteria are designed, it is therefore crucial to allow room for cultural-specific differences and epistemologies within the broader context of envisaged capabilities and competencies. Of particular concern is how we assess online participation or non-participation, critical reasoning and contestation – as there is ample research evidence that these are culturally determined.
2. Many of the current MOOC offerings originate in the predominantly English-speaking North Atlantic world. Nothing prevents an individual, institution or alliance from the global South to offer MOOC in a different language than English. I would like to go further to say that if MOOCs really want to fulfil its potential to democratize education, we need to offer support and funding for MOOCs to be offered in other languages. Instead of complaining about the hegemony of North Atlantic epistemologies and English as language of tuition, those who feel passionate about their own languages can offer MOOCs in their language…
3. Another option is to allow for adjacent discussion forums outside the main discussion forum where participants of a particular language group can interact in the language of their choice. There is however the danger that this may impact negatively on the richness and diversity of the main discussion forum, or conversely impoverish these side discussions. Should there be a commitment from these language-specific, side-discussion forums to bring back to the main forum the main ideas and questions and to continuously visit as many as possible forums, then the negative impact of such an arrangement can be curtailed. For providing these language-specific, side-discussions, it is however important for the participants to these forums to realize that teaching presence will depend on the language proficiency of the educator, or capacity of the institution to provide language-specific cognitive and teaching presence.
4. The above ‘solution’ is however prone to be abused in situations where language functions as a proxy for racism and cultural intolerance. A case in point would be where participants of a particular cultural group prefer to be tutored in their own language and where language serves as a marker of difference, of a politics of marginality” (Wilmsen, 1996, p. 5). In the South African context, this is (possibly) more of a concern as we continue to deal with the legacies of colonialism, apartheid and the way language was used to oppress and dis-empower.
5. Another option is to either translate the key resources into more than one language or to look for resources that are already available in more than one language. While translation may be a lesser problem (in future) for general conversations and discussion forums, the technical or scientific terminologies of disciplines will rely on the existence of comparative terminologies in other languages.  In the case of South Africa with its eleven official languages, there is a huge challenge as many of the indigenous languages do not have the necessary technical or scientific vocabulary (see Nzimande, 2012).

While governmental funding regimes may not necessarily impact on the offering of MOOCs, many national institutions of higher learning do receive funding from national governments and there is therefore a reasonable expectation of these funders that institutions of higher learning should serve diverse populations as best as possible. In the South African context, language and culture were integral aspects of colonialism and apartheid, as well as the struggle against both. Language and culture are also central to addressing the legacies of the past. Language is therefore a very emotional and politically laden issue.

I personally feel that for our graduates have to compete in an international and increasingly global context, and proficiency in an international language used in cultural and commercial exchange, is an essential characteristic of being a graduate in the 21^st century. I simply cannot foresee students studying in a particular context in their home language and then flourishing in a globalized world where their proficiency in the dominant languages of the day is a sine qua non. At this stage, whether we like it or not, English is, to a large extent, the lingua franca in educational, economic and political contexts. I simply cannot foresee this to change within the next 10-15 years. For any institution who wants to ensure that their graduates are relevant in the 21^st century, the choice of a language of online tuition has long-term impact.

In closing:  I realise that other elements of culture such as religion, customs, etc., may play even bigger roles in collaborative online learning, whether in an institution’s virtual learning environment or in MOOCs. In this blog I have just looked at our choices of languages in online offerings. Despite the above attempts to address the negative impacts of language and culture on collaborative learning; it is clear that the above attempts may never satisfy those for whom (higher) education in a home language is a basic human right that should be asserted no matter what the cost and implications. There is, however, much more at stake than just winning a battle in the resurgence of ethnic and cultural pride and claims of entitlement.

References

Chen, S-J., Hsu, C-L., & Caropreso, E.J. (2006).Cross-cultural collaborative online learning: When the west meets the east. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 2(1), 17-35. Retrieved from http://www.sicet.org/journals/ijttl/issue0601/Chenetal%20Vol1%20Iss1_17_35.pdf

Henderson, L. (1996). Instructional design of interactive multimedia.A cultural critique.Educational Technology Research & Development (ETRD&D), 44(4), 85-104.

Masoumi, D., & Lindström, B. (2012).E-learning as a cultural artefact. In M. Strano, H. Hrachovec, F. Sudweeks and C. Ess (eds). Proceedings Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication, Murdoch University, Australia, 393-409. Retrieved from http://sammelpunkt.philo.at:8080/2171/1/393-409_Session%25206a%2520-%2520Masoumi%252C%2520Lindstr%25C3%25B6m_f.pdf

Nzimande, B. (2012, November, 22). African language development slow. Retrieved from http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/African-language-development-slow-20121122

Parrish, P., & Linder-VanBerschot, J.A. (2010). Cultural dimensions of learning: addressing the challenges of multicultural instruction. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL), 11(2), 1-19. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/809

Pieterse, J.N. (1996). Varieties of ethnic politics and ethnicity discourse, in The politics of difference: ethnic premises in a world power, edited by E.N. Wilmsen,& P. McAllister (pp. 25-44). London, UK: University of Chicago Press.

Wilmsen, E.N., & McAllister, P. (Eds). 1996. The politics of difference:ethnic premises in a world of power. London, UK: University of Chicago Press.

Wilmsen, E.N. 1996. Introduction: premises of power in ethnic politics. In The politics of difference: ethnic premises in a world of power, edited by E.N. Wilmsen,& P. McAllister (pp. 1-14). London, UK: University of Chicago Press.

While the current debates and discourses surrounding higher and distance education are focused (if not obsessed) with MOOCs  (Massive Open Online Courses), there are also other “M”s to reflect upon. No, I am not talking about the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service in James Bond movies, referred to as “M”. In the field of higher and distance education there are also Massification, Mobile Learning, and … Managerialism. There is however (possibly) an uncanny resemblence between managerialism and Judy Dench as “M” as “the evil queen of numbers.”

Current discussions on the future of higher and distance education are seemingly obsessed with how technology shapes access, assessment, content, and accreditation. Most of these discussions place “technology at the centre of both educational development and institutional strategy for change” (Reid, 2003, para. 10). I must confess that the discourses and hype around the MOOCification of higher and distance education is, at times, overbearing. There are the massive MOOCs, the small MOOCs, the accredited and non-accredited MOOCs, and there seems to a MOOC for every possible occasion, taste and need. There is also a surge of claims and even “inexorable pressure” (Reid, 2003, para. 10) to embrace online technologies. Looking back at 2012 we may rightfully say that “we’ve been MOOCed.”

I don’t contest the fact that MOOCs in their various forms and the determined move towards online learning force us to review some of our traditional assumptions and claims about the purpose of and access to higher education, the ‘preciousness’ of content, assessment, collaboration and accreditation. The present debates and news flashes are however relatively silent on the possibility that the current hype is mainly concerned with the “prestige and competitiveness of the university as an end in itself” (Marginson, 2012, in Reid, 2003).

In this blog I would like to reflect on another game-changer in higher and distance education namely managerialism. How does the MOOCification of higher education relate to and impact on managerialism, if at all? Does the opening up of academic expertise, assessment and accreditation significantly contradict claims that higher education has become the “handmaiden” of corporations in an “age of money and profit, [where] academic disciplines gain stature almost exclusively through their exchange value on the market, and students now rush to take courses and receive professional credentials that provide them with the cache they need to sell themselves to the higher bidder” (Giroux, 2003, p. 182)? How do these recent changes in the higher and distance education landscape challenge Blackmore’s (2001) exposition of “academic capitalism” where academics “sell their expertise to the highest bidder, research collaboratively, and teaching on/off line, locally and internationally” (p.353)? Will the opening up of education and scholarship challenge the hegemony of performativity, and the “creeping vocalisation and the subordination of learning to the dictates of the market [which] has become an open, and defining, principle of education at all levels of learning” (Giroux 2003, p.185)?

I recently came upon a book and an article addressing the issue of managerialism in higher education – Locke and Spender’s (2011) book, “Confronting managerialism. How the business elite and their schools threw our lives out of balance” and Christine Teelken’s (2012) article on how academics respond to managerialism.  I will briefly refer to Locke and Spender (2011) before spending more time on Teelken (2012).

Locke (2009, in Locke and Spender, 2011, p. xi) defines managerialism as follows:

What occurs when a special group, called management, ensconces itself systematically in an organization and deprives owners and employees of their decision-making powers… and justifies that takeover on the grounds of the managing group’s education and exclusive possession of the codified bodies of knowledge and know-how necessary to the efficient running of the organization.

Locke and Spender (2011) further refer to the “obsessive preoccupation with numbers” that implies “objectivity and accuracy” resulting in the thinking that “decisions based on numbers would be independent of the observer and of mere opinion” (p. xiii). The real value in using numbers in management is in realizing the limitations of numbers (Locke & Spender, 2011).

Teelken (2012) defines managerialism as “both the ideologies about the application as well as the actual use of techniques, values and practices that are derived from the private sector” (p. 272). Higher education’s values, practices and norms are therefore shaped by entrepreneurial models and the business-speak of the private sector. Some of the effects of managerialism on higher education are

• “the simplifying tendencies of the quantification of outputs” (Trow, 1994 in Teelken, 2012, p. 272)
• “increased accountability for time and resources” (Hackett, 1990, in Teelken, 2012, p. 273)
• a “disproportionate growth of the administrative component with the attendant adoption of managerial standards and principles” (Hackett, 1990, in Teelken, 2012, p. 273)
• an obsession with efficiency, effectiveness and excellence (Deem, 1998, in Teelken, 2012, p. 273)
• an instrumentalist perspective on the functioning of higher education organizations (Barnetson & Cutright, 2000, in Teelken, 2012, pp. 272-274).

Teelken (2012) used organizational theory to “explain the inertia shown by higher education organizations, and more particularly, by the (professional) employees against the managerial measures imposed upon them” (pp. 276-277). Managerialism results in “ceremonial assessment criteria” and processes that are more determined by “conformation to institutional rules than with the actual quality of teaching” (p. 277). Teelken’s (2012) research found that academics in three different contexts (the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) respond in three different ways to managerialism. She coined these responses – symbolic compliance, professional pragmatism and formal instrumentality.

“Symbolic compliance implies the pretension of enthusiasm, while remaining vague creates scope for autonomy or performing in your own way” (Teelken, 2012, p. 278). Adaptation to enforced changes is at most superficial or cosmetic especially where “traditional values are deeply embedded” and consists of  “a combination of acquiescence and avoidance” (p. 278). Professional pragmatism takes these developments as a given and deal with the enforced changes and compliance “in a critical but serious manner” (p. 278). Formal instrumentality involves the reliance on formal arrangements and instruments… without a critical perspective “ (p. 278).

Teelken (2012) explores these three different modes of dealing with managerialism in the contexts of assessment of research and the assessment of teaching.  Assessment in research increasingly involves an emphasis on the number of publications, the success in obtaining external funding and the “increased bureaucracy involved in such numbers” (p. 279).  It is not only the number of publications that are counted, but there is the added pressure to publish in high ranking, especially American ISI-rated journals  Teelken (2012) found that not performing as required in research, result in the reduction of allowed research time, increased teaching loads and fewer chances for promotion.

The respondents in the research indicated that there are also increasing measurements and criteria to assess the quality of teaching from regulatory and professional bodies, governments and institutional stakeholders who, often, are located outside faculty (see also Reid, 2003). Teelken’s (2012) research confirms Reid’s (2003) points that the quality discourse has moved from “one promoting and encouraging quality, through grants to universities for innovations and investigations, to one of assuring quality through institutional ‘benchmarking’ and audits by external bodies” (Reid, 2003, para. 10). These procedures “aims to provide guarantees, not of quality per se, but of the carrying out of the atomized processes by which particular products are claimed to be produced” (Reid, 2003, para. 11).

Teelken (2012) concludes that she found it interesting how academics coped with the obligations imposed upon them. Academics often “found ways to work around these stressful obligations and survived by maintaining their autonomy and academic freedom through demonstrating symbolic compliant or pragmatic behaviour” (p. 287).

Conclusion: Though much of the attention in higher and distance education discourses are currently focused on MOOCs  and the Medusian gaze of technology, we also (and possibly urgently) need to reflect on the shape and future of managerialism in higher and distance education. Managerialism is not going to disappear, on the contrary. While openness and flexibility in higher and distance education  offer a counter-narrative to years of exclusivity and the closing of education; there is evidence of increasing managerialism in higher and distance education. While Teelken (2012) found three ways of responding to managerialism namely symbolic compliance, professional pragmatism and formal instrumentality, she did not find outright resistance and concerted efforts to disrupt the hegemony of managerialism in higher and distance education. Why? Has faculty become neutered? Or is faculty so enjoying the fruits of the entrepreneurial university that they cannot bite the hand who feeds them?

There is no doubt in my mind that the recent debates around the MOOCification of higher education have raised important questions about knowledge production, open scholarship and open teaching, assessment and accreditation. We will have to see whether and how this increased openness will impact on the hegemony of performativity in higher education or possibly even strengthen it…

References

Blackmore, J. (2001). Universities in crisis? Knowledge economies, emancipatory pedagogies, and the critical intellectual. Educational Theory, 51(3), 353 — 370.

Diefenbach, T. (2007). The managerialistic ideology of organisational change management.  Journal of Organisational Change Management,  20( 1), 126 — 144.

Giroux, H.A. (2003). Selling out higher education. Policy Futures in Education, 1(1), 179— 311.

Locke, R.R., Spender, J-C. (2011). Confronting managerialism. How the business elite and their schools threw our lives out of balance. London, UK: Zed Books.

Reid, I.C. (2003). Quality online education – new research agendas. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 7(1). Retrieved from http://www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/mo2268w03.htm

Teelken, C. (2012). Compliance or pragmatism: how do academics deal with managerialism in higher education? A comparative study of three countries. Studies in Higher Education, 37(3), 271-290. DOI: org/10.1080/03075079.2010.511171.

Within the context of this carnavalesque period where traditional assumptions, epistemologies and distinctions between different forms of higher education are redefined and questioned, what do we expect of our leaders and managers? This blog is not about providing (yet another) attempt to distinguish between managers and leaders in higher education.  Personally, I find these (often elaborate) distinctions and classification systems superficial and laborious reading.  In most of these explorations of the distinctions between managers and leaders, managers are often denigrated to the role of foot soldiers who act on the orders from higher up (sometimes literally).  Spare a moment for these unlucky souls who, with no mind and creativity of their own, are destined to jump at being called to the office of Brother or Sister Leader who had an epiphany during the night, or worse still, whose speech writer had an epiphany during the night.

This blog is not about leaders or managers, however appreciated, or cursed. I would like to reflect on the impact of decisions leaders and managers take, often after sleepless nights, or in a split second. How do we judge and evaluate them retrospectively when the results of their decisions are glaringly visible for all to see – whether good or bad? What does it take for those in leadership positions to take a decision, affecting the lives of many, while they do not, necessarily, have all the facts to their disposal, or possibly decide to ignore some obvious facts? Understanding higher education as entering a period of supercomplexity (Barnett, 2000), how do higher education leadership make decisions?

Higher education leadership also has to dance to tunes played by national legislation and funding frameworks, the demands of regulatory and professional employer organizations, the drum beat of neoliberal market ideologies, an increasingly disgruntled faculty, administrative departments and students-as-customers. How does the leadership then decide to join the rush to join Coursera, MOOCs or go fully online? What evidence does leadership use to make these decisions? And how do (or don’t) they embrace dramatic systemic shifts required by an increasingly globalized, open and digital world?

Leadership’s understanding (or misunderstanding) of a particular context (whether current or future) shapes their responses. For example, should they understand a particular situation as ‘simple’, they will be keen to follow ‘best practice guidelines’ imported from a different context to (quickly) solve a problem. Another example would be for the leadership of an institution to appoint a committee to investigate a situation and submit a report in a context that is highly turbulent, where there are no clear cause-and-effect relationships and where there are no right answers.

Personally I still find the Cynefin framework by Snowden and Boone (2007) a useful tool for understanding the need for different types of responses in different contexts.  Snowden and Boone (2007) distinguish between four different contexts – ranging from simple, complicated, complex to chaotic.  In each of these contexts, there are different relationships between cause and effect, and therefore, our responses (whether sensing, analysing, categorizing, responding) take different forms.  The below figure illustrates their framework:

Figure 1: Cynefin framework (http://www.hlswatch.com/2010/07/29/tara-the-bodhisattva-of-risk-management/)

Without discussing their framework in detail, I would like to point out to Snowden and Boone’s (2007, p. 3) description of complexity:

• “It involves large numbers of interacting elements.”
• These interactions are “nonlinear, and minor changes can produce disproportionately major consequences.”
• “The system is dynamic, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and solutions can’t be imposed; rather they arise from the circumstances.”
• “The system has a history, and the past is integrated with the present; the elements evolve with one another and with the environment, and evolution is irreversible.”
• “…hindsight does not lead to foresight because the external conditions and systems constantly change.”
• In complex systems “the agents and the system constrain one another, especially over time. This means that we cannot forecast or predict what will happen.”

In the past higher education was fairly predictable with strict and very visible distinctions between Ivy League, other residential (face-to-face) and distance education universities. With the increasing convergence of different types of higher education and new types of higher education emerging, it is simply no longer business as usual.  The number of variables and nonlinear interactions has increased exponentially with minor interventions or actions resulting in disproportionately large consequences. We (and the external consultants and oracles we get to advise us) also forget that each institution and the higher education sector as a whole, has a past, and we cannot separate the past from the present (or the future). It is crucial that we understand evolution as irreversible. Our institutions are furthermore constrained by our contexts and by the different agents in these contexts. “This means that we cannot forecast or predict what will happen” (Snowden & Boone, 2007, p. 3).

This year has provided ample evidence that higher education has moved away from simple and even complicated contexts, and function, increasingly, in complex and chaotic environments often bordering on disorder (as described by Snowden and Boone, 2007). I don’t like binaries, but I suspect institutional leadership can either respond to the current and projected future flux with arrogance or by being paralyzed with indecision. I don’t know which is worse? Arrogance and paralysis may also be two gestalts of an incompetence to deal with the new permanence of ambiguity and flux.  Leaders may then either ask, arrogantly, “what revolution?” or have a wild West approach shooting at shadows, clamping down on the carnival and incarcerating  the clowns.

We need, more than ever before, the clowns – those who question, challenge, provoke, and dethrone management and leadership in mock rituals. More than ever before do we need rigorous and informed debates regarding the future of higher education in an increasingly unequal world.

Send in the clowns.

References

Bakhtin, M.M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Translated by H. Iswolsky. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press.

Barnett, R. (2000). University knowledge in an age of supercomplexity. Higher Education, 40, 409 — 422.

Scott, N.A. (1986). The house of intellect in an age of carnival: some hermeneutical reflections. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55(1), 3-19.

Snowden, D.J., & Boone, E. (2007). A leader’s framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, November, 1-9.