Post-secondary education and the knowledge economy

Post-secondary education and the knowledge economy

Jim Butler, organizer

Bob Geldart

Jeff Cupchik

Kathy Acheson

Peter Ormond

David Hayes

Stacy Jeffrey

Barbara Shackleun

Dave Docherty

Michael de Monte

Others who stopped by later

Bob: concern for what employment prospects will be for his children who are now getting university educations; how will the rest of their lives unfold if they don't have secure or on-going employment.

Barbara: post-secondary education saved my life (immigrant parents; working-class; no plan for continuing to univeristy); didn't come fom a background that encouraged her to go: concern about the underclass, those who don't have access to post-secondary education; would be working in a low-wage job.

Peter Ormond: skills jobs

Stacy: college is for jobs, university is for something else (what we are told in high school).

Bob: my income from dinosaur job got my daughters their education

Stacey: OSAP

Kathy: knowledge economy needs university-educated people, not college-skills

Stacy: university doesn't really get people a job

Bob: what is a knowledge economy? 

Jim: The industrial revolution moved people from farming to industry, now we are moving to a knowledg-base in which you will need university education.

David D: hard to tell where a service economy stops and a knowledge economy starts

Barbara: we need to have entrepeneurial spirit

David D: communication skills are the link between critical thinking and entrepeneurial spirit. Transferable skills are the most important for the future, as people will have several jobs.

Jeff: different kinds of high school experiences seem to mean different levels of competence in communication.

David D: things haven't changed much

Stacy: are there just more people going to university

Jim: actually 50% do not go

Barbara: what will happen to those people?

Jim: are they doomed?

Bob: daughter wanted to be a teacher, went to university, after she went to college for computer training; she doesn't enjoy university; classes too big and impersonal; need a certain skill set to succeed.

Stacy: university student, doesn't enjoy her courses; would prefer to take more difficult courses that interest her, rather than easy ones that don't.

Michael: post-secondary education doesn't recognize trends. He got jobs -- in technology -- started own businesses; has been very successful (is founder of scribblelive.com). Self-education is valuable.

Stacy: everyone seems to want to be told what to do; that's their experience in high school; they want to know what their job will be

Jeff: Waterloo is unique for co-op program -- they have edge in job market. More schools should have co-op.

David D: co-op can be tough to balance with quality of education: larger faculty or fewer requirements; compromise. Not just co-op that provides that kind of experience; international exchanges, etc. Universities need to make better case for the relationship between what we do inside the university with what people do outside.

David H: co-op does give important experience, maturity in job-seeking, synched with business cycle

Barbara: her arts education is supplemented with technology interest, wide experience; broad experience of world = flexibility, well-rounded. How do we equip people to be specialized but well-rounded? 

David H: well-roundedness could be read as inconsistency, unreliability

Stacy: if you have varied experience it looks like you are not one thing or another.

Barbara: diversity of experience supports innovative thinking; engineers are artists, etc.

Unknown person: has Fine Arts background, felt pigeonholed by that education both within Fine Arts and in employment world.

Jeff: story about engineers working with artists and inventing new things

Kathy: so many requirements in university degrees, no flexibility.

Unknown person: education is so structured and prescriptive.

Stacy: disciplinary segregation is endemic to the University -- even from frosh week, develop names for selves and others, very us versus them.

Jim: Why is Ontario's university system the least well-funded in the country? 

Bob: because the manufacturing economy has declined...

Barbara: more funding for accomplished students

Unknown person number 2: why do people do post-diploma education? 

David D: supplementation is great, valuable -- a BA student makes a great MBA students; the best MAs might be a BSc

Jim: if it's so valuable, what about asking students to pay more

Bog: only the wealthy will be able to go

Jim: then we need more public money in the system.

Summary: Jim: on video: OUr question was what is the role of ps-ed in the knowledge economy. Two conclusions: critical thinking is very important; we need to embrace entrepeneurial spirit and develop communication skills; developing the whole person is essential to the educational mandate.