Our Higher Education System - Our Future
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Transcript of Our Higher Education System - Our Future
Stephen Murgatroyd, PhD FBPsS FRSAChief Innovation Officer Contact North | Contact Nord
Our Higher Education System, Our Future
Equity, Innovation,
Change
Beyond Diversity: Learning and Working in an Inclusive World
Challenges from Outside
❖ Austerity as the new reality of Governments
❖ The demand for relevance and tangible outcomes
❖ The focus on STEM as a response to the future
❖ A demand for more access rather than better quality - and the assumption that you can have both
❖ Private capital and globalization
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Challenges from Inside❖ “Procedural fetishism” of the modern college
and university (Peter McKinnon, 2007) - paralysis by analysis and process.
❖ The trade off’s between quality and innovation - settled largely in favour of gradualism and mimicry.
❖ The pursuit of brand and status (a.k.a funding security)
❖ Resistance to technology and open educational resources.
❖ Fear of unbundling 5
Five Big Distractions
❖ Rankings and league tables – "PISA for grown up’s"
❖ MOOC’s which are not strategic
❖ The hunt for the holy grail of becoming an international hub and centre of excellence
❖ Claiming that university research is the engine of diversification and innovation
❖ Technology is “the answer”
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What Are We Really Supposed to Be Doing?
1. The development of highly qualified people who have social impact
2. Being agents of community resilience and development
3. Making a difference through evidence, capacity building and knowing how to learn - being the critical-reflective knowledge hub
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Why This is Important
❖ Society needs more knowledge “smart” but also “street” smart, nimble minded self-managing learners who can make a difference and engage in effective change management
❖ Society needs more First Nations, single parents, recent arrivals, at risk youth and, in some fields, males to engage in advanced learning to advance them and those they represent
❖ Communities need leadership and engaged citizens who are knowledgeable, effective communicators and can actively promote non-formal and formal learning
❖ Education needs to be more about engendering commitment to change through knowledge and understanding and less about mastering a body of “content”
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What We Need to Do
❖ More co-operative programs, more internships and a requirement for social contribution for more students in more programs
❖ More focus on the idea of the “communiversity” and less on rankings and brand-status
❖ More focus on the D&D in R&D&D❖ More investment in social and environmental capital❖ More focus on the individual as learner than on “batch”
learning and large class size - requiring pedagogic innovation and high levels of student engagement
❖ More varied forms of assessment to focus more on outcomes and impact
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Why This is Important❖ Universities and colleges are community hubs for
innovation, change and development - they are also knowledge hubs and they belong to their communities
❖ Universities and colleges are sustained by their local communities - we need to feel an obligation to sustain our communities
❖ Universities are anchors in the business and social innovation “clusters”in their communities and regions - they should do this work consciously and with commitment
❖ Universities and colleges know how to process knowledge and evaluate choices - we should build the capacity of communities to develop these (and other related) competencies
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What We Need to Do❖ Stop thinking of our work in knowledge silos, or just in
terms of programs and courses - start thinking of it in terms of building social capital and capabilities.
❖ Require every student to engage in a community focused research study / project that seeks to have social impact and transfers skills / competencies to others
❖ Engage in more cross-boundary learning.
❖ Promote strategic foresight around social, environmental and health issues.
❖ Let more community members teach and open access to learning for more members of our communities - systematically make a difference for under-represented groups.
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Why This is Important❖ Universities and colleges are powerful hubs in local,
regional and international knowledge and performance clusters - yet we create barriers to accessing knowledge, skills and learning.
❖ Life-long learning is the real role of our work - courses and programs are “teasers” and “competency building” for this real work.
❖ Economic diversification, building powerful and effective health, education and social networks, reducing crime and building vibrant communities requires design work, execution and evaluation - we know how to do this.
❖ When we put our minds to it, we are actually good at this work - look at the work we have done building Canada’s oil and gas sector, our effective work on building world-class K-12 education…we have played key roles.
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What we Need to Do❖ Build strong strategic foresight capabilities linked to
regional challenges / opportunities.
❖ Develop the skills and competencies of designing social networks and effective social enterprises.
❖ Harness the power of philanthropy, social enterprise and business / government to focus on a narrow range of opportunities to build jurisdictional advantage and community resilience.
❖ Align significant resources around these possibilities.
❖ Commit to medium and long-term knowledge, learning and innovation investments to build self-directing clusters and build their capacities for impact and sustainability.
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The Impact We Can Have
❖ Less social and income inequality in society and more social mobility.
❖ More social and community engagement.
❖ More learning more of the time by more people.
❖ More engagement between our institutions and a broader range of people, groups and communities.
❖ Less demands for accountability and relevance and a stronger focus on outcomes and impacts.