Caplan - The Case Against Education – some inconvenient truths….

Bryan Caplan has dared to ask an almost taboo question, ‘Could it be that we have too much education?’ Where is the economic evidence. part from the correlation between qualifications and salaries, which he explains through 'signalling. This is a brave question.

Education uber alles

In what is a deeply researched and comprehensive book, he concludes that education, especially Higher Education, is around 80% ‘signalling’, therefore much can be seen as of little value to society or even the students themselves. Not all, he still thinks there is essential value in the 20% proportion. A degree for many, however, has become a sticker on your forehead saying ‘hire me’. More people are getting ‘schooled’ for longer and longer and the percentage of one’s life being schooled is increasing. But to what end? Lots of people are now being prompted and pushed into being academic, when they are not, prolonging their schooling, when the evidence suggest that it “neither raises their productivity nor enriches their lives”. His ‘signalling’ theory explains some odd phenomena, such as prevalence of cheating, the final year being worth more than all previous years, rising graduate underemployment and so on. Signalling also raises salaries but not necessarily skills, through credential inflation, that is why he thinks it is so wasteful.

This leads him to the heretical claim that we should spend less on education, allowing that money to be spent elsewhere, such as health. He argues that arguments for lowering education spend tend to be politically unacceptable but “At what point would education spending be excessive?” - a reasonable question. His recommendation is that we need less spend as that will deflate runaway creditialism, without reducing skills.

Time and time again he uncovers key studies that are rather shocking, such as those on the lack of evidence for education improving critical thinking. He gets rather tired of educators telling him that what they do ‘can’t be measured’ – it is a cop out he claims. 

Schools

Why teach so much academic stuff for so long, for almost two decades, when they’re going to forget it anyway. Reading, writing and maths are necessary basic skills but much of the otherworldly curriculum, he argues, is outdated. Millions learning a foreign language in the US, merely for college admission, something they never use, and in any case couldn’t use, as they don’t gain even a basic competence. Schools have the odd and catastrophic result of making almost no one fluent in a language. As proof of futility of signalling he points out that we’re still teaching a dead language – Latin. Much of maths, especially algebra, abstruse number theory and geometry, and other subjects, are notoriously irrelevant, with little transfer, and even if useful, the knowledge is largely forgotten. The existing system seems unable to change, even when there is overwhelming evidence of failure – for example forgetting during the long summer recess.

Vocational learning

Caplan thinks we should Reboot vocational learning. This, he thinks, is a more worthwhile spend. We have evidence that it works from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. ‘Signalling’ theory tilts us towards rebalancing the system towards vocational. It raises pay, reduces unemployment and increases school completion.  The fact that it carries a stigma, reinforces his ‘signalling’ theory, where middle-class parents and employers rank vocational learners as inferior, is proof of his general proposition. However, the social return of vocational learning is clear and proven. In an interesting comparison, he notes that on-the-job training ‘internships’ are regarded as admirable for academic students but looked down upon in vocational learning. We have lost the admirable idea that early exposure to work, even Saturday jobs, are valuable, as “Early jobs are good for kids and good for society”. Unfortunately, we have a system that crowd-pleases the middle-classes, while the disaffected and school drop-outs become embittered. Forcing bored kids through a relentless diet of academic work for 13 or more years makes them resentful – it backfires. 

Higher education

Like Roger Schank, Caplan thinks there’s two things wrong with Higher Education, what we teach and how we teach it. Research on the idea that academia broadens horizons in also rather bleak. Post-testing, even among garduates in the US shows a woeful lack of skills and knowledge. Only around 60% of students attend lectures in the first place, no one takes courses in their University unless they are mandated (though it’s easy and free) showing a puzzling disinterest in wider intellectual development. One fewer degree, it would appear, would make little difference as credential inflation has been rampant. The answer to not having a good view at a concert may for the individual to stand up, but if everyone stands up, no one gains. Worse still, to push an academic track on the “failure prone majority is cruelly misleading”. 

International evidence

At the national level, he shows that research about the economic benefits of education seem to “vanish”. The effects when found, seem “puny” and do not seem to justify the vast sums spent on education, making it more of an act of faith than evidence based policy. There is even evidence that reverse causation may be at work here. It is not that schooling creates prosperity but prosperity leads to more schooling. The richer a country becomes, the more it spends on politically appealing education. Yet Harvard’s Lant Pritchett, formerly of the World Bank, did the data crunching and in a now famous article ‘Where has all the education gone?’ found little evidence between education and higher economic growth. Cambridge economist, Ha-Jon Chang refutes the idea that ‘more education in itself is not going to make a country richer’ and there are plenty of counter examples.

Inequalities

Even worse, could education spend be increasing inequalities in society? Challenging question. Inequalities are certainly rising, especially in countries with large education spends. Caplan argues that massive subsidies for education hurt the poor through credential inflation, which reshapes the job market to their detriment. The economy has not changed, we just have more graduates. The Road to Somewhere by David Goodwin, unpacks this phenomenon in the UK, in terms of the emergence of a 'graduate' class. A similar thing may have happened in the US and elsewhere. To continue on this treadmill, he thinks, is a mistake.

Online education

His signalling theory also explains why online education, that simply apes the current system, MOOCs for example, are bound to fail. No matter how successful they are, they don’t provide the ‘signal’  (the degree) and that’s what students are really paying for. Students are buying signals, not human capital. Online learning makes perfect sense in terms of access, flexibility, cost and convenience - yet all of that goes out the window if the signalling is absent.

Influence

As Caplan says, he is really a whistleblower. One of the reasons that education doesn’t really get put through the economic, sociological, political and pedagogic wringer, is that most of the people responsible for policy, have been through or work in its institutions. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing. His recommendations are that we focus on literacy and numeracy but cut back on spend to counter the non-productive ‘signalling’ and ‘credential inflation’ and spend more on vocational learning or other social goods, such as health, social care, whatever we decide. 

Bibliography

Caplan, B., 2018. The Case Against Education: Why the education system is a waste of time and money. Princeton University Press.

The Case Against Education – some inconvenient truths…. a must read

Bryan Caplan has dared to ask an almost taboo question, ‘Could it be that we have too much education?’ Brave question.

Education uber alles

In what is a deeply researched and comprehensive book, he concludes that education, especially Higher Education, is around 80% ‘signaling’, therefore much can be seen as of little value to society or even the students themselves. Not all, he still thinks there is essential value in the 20% proportion. A degree for many, however, has become a sticker on your forehead saying ‘hire me’. More people are getting ‘schooled’ for longer and longer and the percentage of your life being schooled is increasing. But to what end? Lots of people are now being prompted and pushed into being academic, when they’re not, prolonging their schooling, when the evidence suggest that it “neither raises their productivity nor enriches their lives”. His ‘signaling’ theory is persuasive, as it explains some odd phenomena, such as prevalence of cheating, the final year being worth more than all previous years, rising graduate underemployment and so on. Signalling raises salaries but not necessarily skills, through credential inflation, that’s why he thinks it’s so wasteful.

This leads him to the heretical claim that we should spend less on education, allowing that money to be spent elsewhere. He argues that arguments for lowering education spend tend to be politically unacceptable but “At what point would education spending be excessive?” - a reasonable question. In the US it’s $1.1 trillion. His recommendation is that we need less spend as that will deflate runaway creditialism, without reducing skills.

You’ll be thinking of all sorts of arguments against this, as I was, but just as you think you have an objection, Caplan has an answer, backed up by research. Time and time again he uncovers key studies that are rather shocking, such as those on the lack of evidence for education improving critical thinking. He gets rather tired of educators telling him that what they do ‘can’t be measured’ – it’s a cop out he claims. What I did like about this economist’s arguments was that he wasn’t scared to tackle educational issues, like the curriculum, quality of teaching and actual (as opposed to claimed) outcomes. 

Schools

Why teach so much academic stuff for so long, for almost two decades, when they’re going to forget it anyway. Reading, writing and maths are necessary basic skills but much of the otherworldly curriculum, he argues, is outdated. Millions learning a foreign language in the US, merely for college admission, something they never use, and in any case couldn’t use, as they don’t gain even a basic competence. Schools have the odd and catastrophic result of making almost no one fluent in a language. As proof of futility of signaling he points out that we’re still teaching a dead language – Latin. Much of maths, especially algebra, abstruse number theory and geometry, and other subjects, are notoriously irrelevant, with little transfer, and even if useful, the knowledge is largely forgotten. The existing system seems unable to change, even when there’s overwhelming evidence of failure – for example forgetting during the long summer recess.

Vocational learning

Caplan thinks we should Reboot vocational learning. This, he thinks, is a more worthwhile spend. We have evidence that it works from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. ‘Signaling’ theory tilts us towards rebalancing the system towards vocational. It raises pay, reduces unemployment and increases school completion.  The fact that it carries a stigma, reinforces his ‘signaling’ theory, where middle class parents and employers rank vocational learners as inferior, is proof of his general proposition. However, the social return of vocational learning is clear and proven. In an interesting comparison, he notes that on-the-job training ‘internships’ are regarded as admirable for academic students but looked down upon in vocational learning. We have lost the admirable idea that early exposure to work, even Saturday jobs, are valuable, as “Early jobs are good for kids and good for society”. Unfortunately, we have a system that crowd-pleases the middle classes, while the disaffected and school drop-outs become embittered. Forcing bored kids through a relentless diet of academic work for 13 or more years makes them resentful – it backfires. 

Higher education

Like Roger Schank, Caplan thinks there’s two things wrong with Higher Education, what we teach and how we teach it. Research on the idea that academia broadens horizons in also rather bleak. Post-testing, even among garduates in the US shows a woeful lack of skills and knowledge. Only around 60% of students attend lectures in the first place, no one takes courses in their University unless they are mandated (though it’s easy and free) showing a puzzling disinterest in wider intellectual development. One fewer degree, it would appear, would make little difference as credential inflation has been rampant. The answer to not having a good view at a concert may for the individual to stand up, but if everyone stands up, no one gains. Worse still, to push an academic track on the “failure prone majority is cruelly misleading”. 

International evidence

At the national level, he shows that research about the economic benefits of education seem to “vanish”. The effects when found, seem “puny” and do not seem to justify the vast sums spent on education, making it more of an act of faith than evidence based policy. There is even evidence that reverse causation may be at work here. It is not that schooling creates prosperity but prosperity leads to more schooling. The richer a country becomes, the more it spends on politically appealing education. Yet Harvard’s Lant Pritchett, formerly of the World Bank, did the data crunching and in a now famous article ‘Where has all the education gone?’ found little evidence between education and higher economic growth. Cambridge economist, Ha-Jon Chang refutes the idea that ‘more education in itself is not going to make a country richer’ and there are plenty of counter examples.

Inequalities

Even worse, could education spend be increasing inequalities in society? Challenging question. Inequalities are certainly rising, especially in countries with large education spends. Caplan argues that massive subsidies for education hurt the poor through credential inflation, which reshapes the job market to their detriment. The economy hasn’t changed, we just have more graduates. On that note I highly recommend The Road to Somewhere by David Goodwin, who unpacks the Brexit phenomenon in the UK in terms of the emergence of a 'graduate' class. A similar thing may have happened in the US and elsewhere. To continue on this treadmill, he thinks, is a mistake.

Online education

His signalling theory also explains why online education, that simply apes the current system, MOOCs for example, are bound to fail. No matter how successful they are, they don’t provide the ‘signal’  (the degree) and that’s what students are really paying for. Students are buying signals, not human capital. Online learning makes perfect sense in terms of access, flexibility, cost and convenience - yet all of that goes out the window if the signalling is absent.

Conclusion

Anyone who is serious about education policy and open minded enough to consider the idea, not that education is bad, but that we’re spending far too much on the wrong things, should read this book. As Caplan says, he’s really a whistleblower. One of the reasons that education doesn’t really get put through the economic, sociological, political and pedagogic wringer, is that most of the people responsible for policy, have been through or work in its institutions. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing. His recommendations are that we focus on literacy and numeracy but cut back on spend to counter the non-productive ‘signalling’ and ‘credential inflation’ and spend more on vocational learning or other social goods, such as health, social care, whatever we decide. This is not just a good book, it is essential reading.

Humboldt (1767-1825) – Prussian schooling and Higher Education… hugely influential…

After Napoleon had defeated Prussia in 1806, the Prussian state reflected on what had caused this catastrophe and out of that trauma came a reformed system of schooling designed by Wilhelm von Humboldt. The aim was not to produce rounded, autonomous citizens but young men obedient to a military culture and, oddly as he never attended school himself, he set about standardising many of the features of schooling we still see today.

Influenced by the ancient Greeks, his vision of education revolved around ‘character’ and the Platonic idea that education develops and leads one towards a fruitful life. This lde to him defining a school and University system that persists to this day.

Systematic schooling

The schooling that is still prevalent today is largely based on this Prussian model; a set school day, set syllabus, several subjects taught in periods across the day, rows of seats and bells to signal class changes. This stretched to standardised textbooks, state exams and inspections. Although his plans for reform were not published until after his death, along with a piece from a planned ‘Treatise of Human Education’. He saw education as providing a means to an end, the student’s interaction with the world, and not as an end-in-itself. The individual must do more than just satisfy their personal curiosity, they have personal, social and state responsibilities. He was, essentially, an Enlightenment thinker who saw progress of the individual, state and state of man, as the purpose of education.

However, his views on academic versus vocational education strongly influenced education today. He thought of education as a preparation for a life of skills and saw individuals as being prepared for vocations by receiving an academic education. First, vocational skills being easily acquired later. This was to have a profound effect on education globally, diminishing the vocational for the academic approach. Horace Mann, an American, who visited Prussia in 1843, brought this system back to the US and in 1852 Massachusetts adopted the system statewide.

Higher education

His greater influence was on Higher Education, where his combined model of research and teaching became and is now the global norm. This ‘Humboldtian Model’ was an Enlightenment idea, based on the freedom, cultivation and autonomy of the individual. To this end teaching should be informed by research.

Criticism

Unfortunately, it has led to the downgrading of vocational learning, apart, of course, from those Universities teach, like medicine, engineering and, oddly, dentistry. Bryan Caplan has shown the that this approach is wasteful for many students and society as a whole. As much of it is signalling for the employment market, it does not conform to the Humboldtian ideal of intellectual inquiry. Few students ever attend any other lectures than those mandated and even then drop-out is substantial. The cost to society is great in terms of cost and national debt. Caplan argues that much of this money could be better spent on other areas of social good, such as healthcare and vocational education. Even Germany, a strong economy, made sure that the academic and vocational systems were both robust.

Another criticism is the link between research and teaching. The evidence suggests that teaching skills, such as communications, presentation skills, interpersonal skills are not often high in those whose speciality is systematic research. The modern academic has two jobs research and teaching, their passion, training and skills are in the former, with little in the way of training in the latter.

Influence

Humboldt’s influence has been profound, in both schools and Universities. He set the tone for a system that aims to prepare and get young people into University, as a grounding for good citizenship. This has become the model for most countries in the developed world. No other figure matches him for direct causal influence on the structures and methods for education. Yet that influence may be the problem. It has become a mantra which Schank, Caplan, Thiel and many others consider wasteful.

Does Higher education need a Reformation?

Last year I visited Wittenberg and that famous door where Luther pinned his 95 theses. It was to change the world, irreversibly. I have written about the important and lasting roles of religious leaders such as Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, as well as religious educators such as St Augustine, Luther, Calvin and Ignatius. Much of what we see in the calendar, structure, hierarchy and teaching in our Universities is deeply rooted in their religious origins. In may ways academe was never revolutionised by the reformation. It was already, by then, a network of institutions that carried on without interruption. My argument is that it is due its Reformation.

Whatever you may think of Peter Thiel, he’s smart. I don’t just mean business smart but intellectually. PayPal entrepreneur, first investor in Facebook, predictor of the financial crisis and so on… impressive CV. Sure he’s an extreme libertarian, with some extreme views, but we need people who pop our conventional bubbles. So, when I heard him utter the following in an interview, it hung around in my head, until I was compelled to expand on it… Here’s the phrase, ‘Higher Education is like the Catholic Church on the eve of the Reformation’. That’s a damn interesting observation. I've written about Illich, who drew parallels between schools and the church in Deschooling Society but Thiel captures both a diagnosis and treatment in this one phrase. He’s talking Reformation.

Costs

What Thiel went on to explain, was that like the Catholic Church, HE had turned into a global, institutionalised phenomenon that demanded increasingly large sums of money from people, for an experience that is much the same year after year. The cost of indulgences as well as the transfer of productive wealth into the non-productive church, was a major catalyst for the Reformation. People were literally becoming indebted to the level of indenture to the church. This was impoverishing the populace while enriching the institutions. $1.6 trillion of student debt in the US. and similar problems arising in Europe? Even the rich, were handing over huge sums, not to charity but to the Church. This is reminiscent of hedge-fund manager Paulson, who recently wrote a cheque for over $400 million to Harvard. This is buying personal prestige (used to be salvation), not in any way moral progress.

Promises

The insidious side of the Catholic Church was the threat, that if you didn’t pay up, you were damned. This same powerful idea has been nurtured by University-educated politicians and HE lobbyists. If you don’t get a Degree, you’re damned as a failure. They perpetuate the myth, that if you don’t go to University, you’ll go to some sort of economic hell, never being admitted to the heaven that is gainful employment. Bryan Caplan has written, in The Case Against Education, a solid case showing that this promise is largely (approx. 80% signalling). If he is right, then huge amounts of money, that could be usefully spent elsewhere is being wasted.

Monastic campuses

Like the enormous building projects by the Catholic Church, Universities are spending untold sums of money on monumental buildings. The occupancy rate of their existing property is already ridiculously low, as it was and is with churches, yet the capital budgets keep on rising. It would be more accurate to say, that like the Catholic Church, campuses have become huge, self-sufficient, monastic communities, almost towns within cities. Board and lodging has become a significant revenue stream for many institutions. In some cities they almost overwhelm everything else. With University Rankings they also have their Cathedrals; Ivy League in the US, Oxbridge in the UK.

Teaching as preaching

The dominant pedagogy is still the lecture, basically a sermon to a compliant audience. There’s a lectern, a lecture, designed for the one-way transmission of knowledge, surely as far from contemporary needs as one can imagine. Stuck with a Medieval pedagogy, founded, through necessity in an age when there were no books, the dominance of the lecture lives on as a shameful, religious, pedagogic fossil. Even worse is not recording lectures. Imagine a journalist not publishing their pieces in print or a novelist not putting their work into print? Denying students access to that lecture for revision, note taking, reflection, rewinding (especially if students are being taught in their second language) and so on, is pedagogically bankrupt.

Crisis of relevance

We seem to have reached a position where HE has drifted in terms of relevance, whether it is the degrees offered, the way they are taught or the exaggerated promises. It seems to have lost its way a little, just like the Church in the 16th century. Rather than serve our needs it often seems to be serving its own needs. With falling enrolments, suspicion about the worthiness of a degree when everyone has one and the high cost, is leading to arguments that question its relevance.

Scriptoria

Higher Education's increasing distance from practical skills, unless they involve high salaries (medicine, vets, engineering, law, architecture…) has turned them into seminaries, with the academic priesthood writing ever more obscure manuscripts for smaller and smaller audiences. The scriptoria and libraries are being flooded by manuscripts, most of which are read only by the authors and reviewers. It has become increasingly scholastic, moving in decreasing circles of relevance. The ballooning world of third rate Journals, which are rarely read, and full of low-level research has happened as the incentives have been around publication (no matter where) rather than teaching and learning.

Undue political influence

We have politicians who almost universally went to University, leaders who largely went to just two Universities and many Ministers who did one particular course at Oxford, PPE, a medieval hangover (replacement for Classics). Maybe the idea of a trained Priesthood for politics isn’t too far-fetched. Beyond this David Goodhart in his book The Road to Somewhere identifies an emerged 'graduate class' that now dominates politics and the professions imposting their views on others. Brexit indicated that many had had enough of this views. 

Academic dominance

Like the scholastic age (the Dark Ages) this has also led to the decimation, in some economies, of vocational education, which they are desperately trying to revive. As HE sucks the life out of vocational learning, we find ourselves in Europe with HE heavy economies struggling, while the German, Austrian and Swiss economies thrive. Hold on – isn’t that where the Reformation hit originated and spread from? Luther, Calvin, Knox… There are serious questions being asked about so much time and money being spent on abstract, academic pursuits at the expense of other needs in society, such as those who do not go to college, healthcare, social care and so on.

Calendar

Off for Christmas? Off for Easter? The University calendar is punctuated by holidays, largely determined by religious and agricultural concerns. The Michaelmas terms starts on the feast day of St Michael, the start of the academic year. This adherence to a rigid timetable with only one entrance date per year makes the system primitive and inflexible. It meant that workload for faculty and students couldn't be spread more reasonable across the sort of timetable that the rest of society had adopted.

Anti-technology

The Catholic Church was none too pleased when the printing revolution produced Bibles in local languages and thinkers who questioned their authority. They found themselves losing control of knowledge; its censorship, means of creation, production and distribution. That’s because the Reformation was, in part, amplified and accelerated by a technology revolution – printing. Similarly, the resistance to the use of technology in teaching and learning has led to little more than recording lectures and resources on a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). They were ill-prepared for Covid, rushing to replicated lectures on Zoom and struggling with the more sophisticated forms of online learning that have been around for decades, including online assessment.

Conclusion

The Church, which taught in Latin, kept their power by excluding people from reading in their own languages, suddenly found that people were not only reading scripture in their own languages but also writing and challenging the orthodoxy. The Enlightenment came fast on its heels. Now we have a technological revolution that is no less Copernican, the internet, which democratises, decentralises and disintermediates the learning game. I expect this revolution to have a similar effect on HE, driving access to knowledge and learning through a new means of creation, production and distribution. Rather than accepting increasing costs, we should demand lower costs, better access, and a future where education is not seen as built on elitism and scarcity but on scale and abundance. One beneficial effect and almost immediate effect of the reformation was a push for universal education and access. That stuck. This, in our modern age, is what we need in tertiary education. What I’m arguing for is not the extinction of HE but a Reformation. The Reformation did not destroy Christianity and its ethos. It was strengthened by shedding its obsession with money, indulgences, outdated processes, hierarchy, priesthoods and elitism. In fact, the Reformation led to the rapid expansion of our Universities and a change in their character, awy from religious centres towards more secular, intellectual environments. We need something similar today - a rethink about their purpose, processes, pedagogy and payment.

Universities and Coronavirus: revenues will fall, costs rise, liabilities increase

David Hume is, for me, the finest of English-speaking philosophers and at the heart of his philosophy lay the problem of induction. Nicely summarised by saying the chicken emerges from the coop morning after morning to be fed by the farmer, until one day he wrings its neck. Hume was rejected for a post, at the height of his fame, by the University of Edinburgh, because of their own philosophical myopia (he was a religious sceptic).

I fear that the Global University system has been similarly myopic regarding online learning. Now that almost every academic is using the University of Zoom and kids are puzzled as their parents demand they have hours and hours of screen time, one wonders why online hasn’t been a mainstream form of delivery in education. In truth, then system sees teaching as a poor relation to research. Lecturing is easy to deliver, teaching is hard.

But first, what are the fiscal challenges for HE? Many institutions may not have the financial strength and liquidity to do what has to be done. Business as usual may not may not be as 'usual' come September, and for years to come, for the following reasons:

1.     Student revenue is under threat both from national and international students.

2.     Student numbers from China, Far East and rest of the world will drop. 

3.     Increased online capacity (using AI) within China, along with changed attitudes.

4.     Global recession will mean less money around for funding expensive foreign education.

5.     Endowments will fall as economy is now in recession.

6.     Contract revenues will fall as economy is now in recession.

7.     Research grants will fall as economy is now in recession.

8.     Move to online will require initial and on-going costs.

9.     All new students will have gone through online learning during crisis, changing expectations.

10.   Liabilities on accommodation and building programmes, may come home to roost.

11.   Investment losses are already, and will be substantial.

12.   Students will be faced, possibly for years to come, with a difficult job market.

13.   Student loan defaults will balloon.

14.   Markets falls will put massive strain on pension funds (they were under severe strain before crisis).

15.   Add to this the idea that you need a degree to get a good job was waning as large global organisations started to drop the ‘graduate’ requirement. 

16.   People are also getting sceptical about value, (see Caplan) given the huge rise in costs.

17.   Some institutions were in deficit before this crisis (around 1 in 4) – this will accelerate, with government unable to save some.

18.   Academic conferences no longer sensible or viable on pre-virus scale.

19.  Massive and expensive schemes, like Erasmus, viewed as out of tune with climate change and budget restraints.

20.  Renewed interest in vocational learning, science, healthcare etc., as they are the people who were seen to really run society and solve our critical problems.
21.  Students have begun to ask for refunds (class actions in US).
22.  Students know that online is cheaper and will want reduced fees in future.

What to do?

Public spending will be tight. Banks will be reluctant to give huge loans as it is not clear that the education market (and it is a market) will ever return to pre-virus levels. Governments may be reluctant to bail out institutions and see some consolidation as necessary. Healthcare, rightly, will receive more attention than Higher Education. This will mean contraction. Actions that have to be taken include:

Cut back on conference attendance - get virtual.

In Europe, a serious rethink needed on the €30 billion funding for Erasmus. That money should be spent on online alternatives.

Stop capital spend now. Building more buildings is not the answer. That money needs to be spent on online learning, at least a mixture of offline and online for all courses.

Knowles (1913 - 1997) - Adult learning… Andragogy… lifelong learning...

We learn most of what we know, not as children but as adults, yet adult learning, sometimes called ‘Andragogy’ receives a tiny amount of attention in learning theory. Malcolm Knowles didn't give is the word, which goes back to the 19th C but he did give us a set of adult learning principles, a good counter to the clearly false idea that education and learning is confined to one’s youth. Knowles was not dogmatic about the word or his principles, but thought they were an adequate framework for dealing with adult learners. His theories have endured.

Six adult learning principles

Andragogy, meaning ‘man-led’ is to be distinguished from Pedagogy, meaning ‘child-led’. His core adult learning principles (andragogy) are:

1 Need to know – why, what, how

2 Self-concept– autonomous, self-directing

3 Prior experience – resource, mental models

4 Readiness to learn – life related, developmental task

5 Orientation to learning – problem-centred, contextual

6 Motivation to learn – intrinsic value, personal payoff

Adults differ in that they need to be more self-directed, driving their own learning with a focus on connecting new learning to prior knowledge. They need to see the relevance to their one work or life, with an emphasis on problem-solving not memorisation, with internal motivation being a more important factor.

Lifelong learning

What Knowles does reveal is the weakness of lifelong learning when seen as extended schooling. The answer to bad schooling is always more schooling. We may even want less learning. Yet for adults we may want less schooling and courses. As Bryan Caplan has argued, more people are getting ‘schooled’ for longer and longer. But to what end? Signalling. Credential inflation is the wasteful result. Academic qualifications are not the solution to adult learning and the dismantling of vocational learning has meant a surfeit of such courses at the expense of actual skills.

Life, for most, is for living, not learning. We learn to learn without formal structures, following our interests and curiosity, that was Knowles insight. Lifelong Learning is a phrase that appears in lofty reports, grant applications or by organisations that no one has even heard of. Nobody calls themselves a Lifelong Learner. It is a sort of educational conceit, often a hollow appeal by professional ‘educators’. Adults do not want to be infantilised by this sort of jargon. They are adults not learners. The older you get the less inclined you are to want to cram and sit exams, as you know you’ve forgotten most of what you previously learnt. People remain curious throughout their lives but life is not a course.

Criticism

Some question as to whether adult learning really is so separate that it deserves a separate learning theory. The recent emphasis on cognitive psychology suggests that efficient learning may not be that very different, even in adults. Others think that the assumptions are rather strong and that structured, directed learning is still necessary. It may also be the case that adults do not have the drive and motivation to learn without structured help.

Influence

The word Andragogy has gained some currency but mostly at an academic level. Adult learning still tends to be an orphan in the learning community, despite the fact that the vast majority of learning takes place by adults, a huge amount of it in the workplace. Knowles provides a welcome balance to learning theory. With an increase in the need for reskilling, a focus on lifelong learning, perhaps more leisure time due to automation and an ageing population, we may well have more time as adults to learn.

Bibliography

Knowles, M.S., Holton III, E.F. and Swanson, R.A., 2012. The adult learner. Routledge.

Knowles, M.S., 1980. The modern practice of adult education.

Tennant, M., 1986. An evaluation of Knowles’ theory of adult learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 5(2), pp.113-122.

Chomsky - Education as indoctrination

Noam Chomsky is a towering intellectual. Some argue that he is to linguistics, what Darwin is to biology. He is also famous for his relentless work in politics, an outspoken critic of US foreign policy. As a cognitive scientist he also has deep and considered views on many areas of human endeavour, including education and learning.

Theory of knowledge

To understand Chomsky’s thoughts on learning one must understand its roots in his ‘transformative-generative grammar’ which describes the deep syntactical processes common to all human language, as opposed to its surface structure. The minds is not a tabula rasa, it has a set of innate rules in language, hardwired in the mind. Knowledge builds on prior knowledge on an underlying cognitive matrix. Our human nature, with a set of common cognitive traits, is the driver for learning. Education, in his view, must continue to encourage this growth and development and not thwart its progress. The teacher must nurture the natural capacity to discover.

Education as indoctrination

Although not a Marxist, he is firmly in the tradition of Gramsci, Althusser and Habermas in that he thinks that the state shapes education, which in turn shapes minds to the needs of the state and market. It is nothing less than ‘indoctrination’ through control and coercion. Children are taught, not to think for themselves, but to ‘obey’. He likens schools, college and universities to factories, where students are, by and large, indoctrinated by a ‘liberal elite’ to conform to their orthodoxies. In particular, he thinks that history, a self-serving narrative, is written by these elites.

Assessment

He is a strong critic of education that proceeds by staged preparation for tests. Taking tests can be useful but they should be ‘ancillary’ not central to the educational process. As an advocate of genuine search, inquiry and discovery, to challenge and look for alternatives, he hopes that teachers can bring students to the point where they can autonomously operate and learn for themselves. Rather than shape young people it should encourage them to shape themselves.

Influence

Chomsky is also an enlightenment figure, who believes fundamentally in free, independent and autonomous thought. Education, for him, must have the purity of this spirit of inquiry. He rightly warns us about the hidden hand of the state or commerce and warns us of the dangers of indoctrination. While this is true to a degree, it is not clear that it is a fully explanatory theory of education and learning.

Chomsky may confuse conformity with real needs. We can all bow to this academic, Enlightenment view of education but this may not be relevant in poorer countries where the needs are for vocational learning, something that Chomsky finds all too easy to denigrate. Not everyone can or is suited towards being creative intellectuals. He may also be charged with being part of the very intellectual elite he denigrates, promoting an overly intellectual and academic approach to education that focuses on the production of an academic elite, rather than the many needs of society.

Legacy of Marxism in education

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” said Marx. And change it they did, unfortunately, often for the worse. The 20^th century saw the dogmatism of Lysenko in Soviet Russia, political indoctrination in schools and dialectical materialism interpreted by Mao during the Cultural Revolution into an intellectual pogrom. The results in Cambodia, speak for themselves, with the virtual elimination of education and educators. With that and the collapse of the Soviet Union came the end of the interpretation of history as science and the utopian dream.

On the positive side, the Victorian democritisation of education, that arose from the industrial revolution, was transformed by Marxist and socialist ideas into a movement that pushed for free, state-funded education as a right for every citizen. This struggle is still raging as attempts are made to widen access to education, vocational and higher education across all socio-economic groups. Marxism is far from dead and the Marxist lite ideas that everything becomes commoditised, including knowledge and education, is useful in combating the excesses of education and training aimed merely at increasing commercial productivity. 

In addition, the idea that the relationship between the state and education remains problematic, is worth examination, and Marxist theorists have much to say that is useful in relation to the idea that education reflects and props up class differences, by sorting and filtering people, not on ability, but social background. Bryan Caplan, in his economic analysis of Higher Education in The Case Against Education makes the case for education being largely about signaling. He concludes that Higher Education is around 80% ‘signalling’, therefore much can be seen as of little value to society or even the students themselves. A degree for many has become a sticker on your forehead saying ‘hire me’. More people are getting ‘schooled’ for longer and longer and the percentage of your life being schooled is increasing. But to what end? Lots of people are now being prompted and pushed into being academic, when they’re not, prolonging their schooling, when the evidence suggest that it “neither raises their productivity nor enriches their lives”. His ‘signalling’ theory is persuasive, as it explains some odd phenomena, such as prevalence of cheating, the final year being worth more than all previous years, rising graduate underemployment and so on. Signalling raises salaries but not necessarily skills, through credential inflation, that’s why he thinks it is so wasteful. This leads him to the heretical claim that we should spend less on education, allowing that money to be spent elsewhere.

The rise of technology may be moving us in the direction of education without interference from state or commerce, with almost universal access to online knowledge through open educational resources, Google, Wikipedia and a plethora of other sources. A different breed of intellectual may arise, free from the control of institutional academia. We may even see much learning break free, in the way Gramsci imagined, from the control of formal, coercive curriculum, assessment, qualifications and institutions.

OEB Berlin… AI, video, learning analytics, data, and schnapps!

Been going for many years… and like the vibe… fruity mixture of tech, academic, government from 73 countries. There's the added attraction of Berlin, a Christmas market right across the street and free drinks at the Marlene Bar!

Gave three talks, all on AI theme… AI and ethics (the overblown hysteria), Learning Analytics (how to and real examples), Video and AI (research and how to). A number of the sponsors were companies that use AI and it was a solid theme this year, rightly, as it has already changed why, what and how we learn.

As is usually the case at conferences I found the smaller presentations and conversations more useful than the keynotes. Great start with Julian Stodd, who was his usual articulate and incisive self. He talked about the weirdness of HR trying to ‘impose’ values and compliance training on people, attacking people’s sense of self and agency. But one phrase that really resonated with me was the ‘humility to listen’. There’s a lot of depth to those three words…

The opening keynotes were a trio of very different fruits. The Max Planc/MIT guy gave a solid talk, showed the Frey and Osborne report (2013), but got the date wrong – it wasn’t 2016 – this matters as it was a paper that predicted the 47% jobs at risk of automation over a decade in the US. We are 6 years in and there is pretty much full employment in the US. Toby Walsh eviscerated this report and talked at this conference two years ago – so we seemed to be going backwards. The Chinese guy was clearly giving a sales pitch but at least he had data and citations to back up his case. Audrey Watters gave her standard  ‘it’s largely agitprop, ideology and propaganda’ replete with soviet posters. Oddly she mentioned being jeered at a summit in Iceland. I was there - it was a very small audience and the first question she was asked (by a woman) was whether she was throwing the baby out with the bathwater, neither was there a 3D cat. She rightly showed some claims that were unsubstantiated but out of context and actually several are evidence-based but Audrey’s was so keen to show that everyone else was ideological that she missed the fact that hers was the most ideological talk of the three. But oh how academe clapped.

The keynotes on the second day (HE session) tackled the future of HE. Professor Shirley Alexander showed the shocking costs, debts and default rates of HE – it is basically out of control on costs. But her solution, literally on the next slide was a huge, spanking new building they’ve just erected and some writing feedback software. I was convinced by nether the erection nor software, which has been around for decades. Bryan Alexander is always up for some fun and opened his talk in a Death Metal voice. Had a great conversation with Bryan about AI afterwards and he did the futurist thing – 3D printing, drones etc…didn’t really see any scalable solutions that tackled the cost issue.

One feature of learning conferences is a general refusal to face up to political issues such as cost and inequality. It is assumed that education is an intrinsic good, no matter what the cost.  No reflection on WHY Brexit, Trump, Gilet Jaunes and other political upheavals are happening, only a firm belief that we keep on doing what we do, no matter the cost. This is myopic. Bryan Caplan tried with his keynote last year, with real evidence, but once again we seemed to have gone backwards. I had a ton of conversations in the bar, in restaurants and over coffees on these issues. A refreshingly straight talk with Mirjam Neelen was one of many.

I liked the practical sessions on learning analytics. It is complex subject but offers a way forward that builds on a platform of data that can be used to describe, analyse, predict and prescribe learning solutions. With smart software (AI), it frees us from the fairly static delivery of media, which online learning has done for over 30 years. Speaking with the wonderfully named Thor and Christian Glahn, we opened up the world of xAPI, LXPs, LRSs and adaptive learning. Here lies some real solutions to the problems posed by the keynotes. 

Sure there are ethical issues and I gave a session explaining that AI is not as good as you think and not as bad as you fear. We went through a menu of ethical issues: Existential, employment, bias, race, gender and transparency. Every man, woman and their dog is setting up and ethics and AI committee, pouring out recommendations and edicts, often based on a thin understanding of ethics and the technology. Many seem designed to give people an excuse to avoid it and do nothing.

Enjoyed Mathew Day’s session on the use of video which is uploaded to the International Space Station, which they use just before they do a task. That’s what I call cosmic, performance support. I was on just before him and showed the evidence in learning theory on why video on its own is rarely enough for deep learning, as well as key evidence on what makes a good learning video, much of it counterintuitive – POV, slower pace, edit points, not so much talking heads, maximum length, adding active learning and so on.

So many interesting chats with people I knew and met for the first time. What I did walk away with was a sense that people are waking up to the possibilities of AI in learning, especially for teaching, Henri Palmer of TUI gave a great case study, showing how one can deliver a large project, super-fast at a fraction of the cost using AI created online content. Great to hear that her team won a Gold Award for that project the night before in London. 

Final dinner in Lutter and Wegner, an old German restaurant was great. Harold did his pitch-perfect Ian Paisley impression at full volume with much clinking of glasses… wine and schnapps. When you’re sitting next to people from Norway, Poland, France, Belgium and Trinidad – you can’t go far wrong.

BIG thanks to Channa, Astrid, Rosa, Rebecca, Harold and the team for inviting me… open people who not only do a great job organising this event but are also open-minded enough to encourage critical thinking…

Year of learning dangerously – my 15 highs and lows of 2018

So 2018 is behind us. I look back and think… what really happened, what changed? I did a ton of talks over the year in many countries to different types of audiences, teachers, trainers, academics, investors and CEOs. I wrote 65 blogs and a huge number of Tweets and Facebook posts. Also ran an AI business, WildFire, delivering online learning content and we ended the year nicely by winning a major Award. 

So this is not a year end summary nor a forecast for 2019. It’s just a recap on some of the weirder things that happened to me in the world of ‘learning’…

1. Agile, AI-driven, free text learning

As good a term as I can come up with for what I spent most of my year doing and writing about, mostly on the back of AI, and real projects delivered to real clients of AI-generated award winning content, superfast production times and a new tool in WildFire that gets learners to use free-text, where we use AI (semantic analysis) as part of the learning experience. Our initial work shows that this gives huge increases in retention. That is the thing I’m most proud of this year.

2. Video is not enough

Another breakthrough was a WildFire tool that takes any learning video and turns it into a deeper learning experience by taking the transcript and applying AI, not only to create strong online learning but also use the techniques developed above to massively increase retention. Video is rarely enough on its own. It's great at attitudinal learning, processes, procedures and for things that require context and movement. But is it poor at detail and semantic knowledge and has relatively poor retention. This led to working with a video learning company to do just that, as 2+2 = 5.

3. Research matters

I have never been more aware of the lack of awareness on research on learning and online learning than I was this year. At several conferences across the year I saw keynote speakers literally show and state falsehoods that a moments searching on Google would have corrected. These were a mixture of futurists, purveyors of ‘c’ words like creativity and critical thinking and the usual snakeoil merchants. What I did enjoy was giving a talk at the E-learning network on this very topic, where I put forward the idea that interactive design skills will have to change in the face of new AI tech. Until we realise that a body of solid research around effortful learning, illusory learning (learners don’t actually know how they learn or how they should learn), interleaving, desirable difficulties, spaced practice, chunking and so on… we’ll be forever stuck in click-through online learning, where we simply skate across the surface. It led me to realise that almost everything we've done in online learning may now be dated and wrong.

4. Hyperbolic discounting and nudge learning

Learning is hard and suffers from its consequences lying to far in the future for learners to care. Hyperbolic discounting explains why learning is so inefficient but also kicks us into realising that we need to counter it with some neat techniques, such as nudge learning. I saw a great presentation on this in Scotland, where I spoke at the excellent Talent Gathering.

5. Blocked by Tom Peters

The year started all so innocently. I tweeted a link to an article I wrote many moons ago about Leadership and got the usual blowback from those making money from, you guessed it, Leadership workshops.. one of whom praised In Search of Excellence. So I wrote another piece showing that this and another book Good to great, turned out to be false prophets, as much of what they said turned out to be wrong and the many of the companies they heralded as exemplars went bust. More than this I thought that the whole ‘Leadership’ industry in HR had le, eventually to the madness of Our Great Leader, and my namesake, Donald Trump. In any case Tom Peters of all people came back at me and after a little rational tussle – he blocked me. This was one of my favourite achievements of the year.

6. Chatting about chatbots

Did a lot of talks on chatbots this year, after being involved with Otto at Learning Pool (great to see them winning Company of the Year at the Learning technologies Awards), building one of my own in WildFire and playing around with many others, like Woebot. They’re coming of age and have many uses in learning. And bots like Google’s Duplex, are glimpses into an interesting future based on more dialogue than didactic learning. My tack was that they are a natural and frictionless form of learning. We’re still coming to terms with their possibilities.

7. Why I fell out of love with Blockchain

I wrote about blockchain, I got re-married on Blockchain, I gave talks on Blockchain, I read a lot about Blockchain… then I spoke at an event of business CEOs where I saw a whole series of presentations by Blockchain companies and realised that it was largely vapourware, especially in education. Basically, I fell out of love with Blockchain. What no one was explaining were the downsides, that Blockchain had become a bit of a ball and chain.

8. And badges…

It’s OK to change your mind on things and in its wake I also had second thoughts on the whole ‘badges’ thing. This was a good idea that failed to stick, and the movement had run its course. I outlined the reasons for its failure here.

9. Unconscious bias my ass

The most disappointing episode of the year was the faddish rush towards this nonsense. What on earth gave HR the right to think that they could probe my unconscious with courses on ‘unconscious bias’. Of course, they can’t and the tools they’re using are a disgrace. This is all part of the rush towards HR defending organisations AGAINST their own employees. Oh, and by the way, those ‘wellness’ programmes at work – they also turned out to be waste of time and money.

10. Automated my home

It all started with Alexa. Over the months I’ve used it as a hub for timers (meals in oven, Skype calls, deadline), then for music (Amazon music), then the lights, and finally the TV. In the kitchen we have a neat little robot that emerges on a regular basis to clean the ground floor of our house. It does its thing and goes back to plug itself in and have a good sleep. We also have a 3D printer which we’re using to make a 3D drone… that brings me to another techy topic – drones.

11. Drones

I love a bit of niche tech and got really interested in this topic (big thanks to Rebecca, Rosa and Veronique) who allowed me to attend the brilliant E-learning Africa and see Zipline and another drone company in Rwanda (where I was bitch-slapped by a Gorilla but that, as they say, is another story). On my return I spoke about Drones for Good at the wonderful Battle of Ideas in London (listen here). My argument, outlined here, was that drones are not really about delivering pizzas and flying taxis, as that will be regulated out in the developed world. However, they will fly in the developing world. Then along came the Gatwick incident….

12. Graduation

So I donned the Professorial Gown, soft Luther-like hat and was delighted to attend the graduation of hundreds of online students at the University of Derby, with my friends Julie Stone and Paul Bacsich. At the same time I helped get Bryan Caplan across from the US to speak at Online Educa, where he explained why HE is in some trouble (mostly signalling and credential inflation) and that online was part of the answer. 

13. Learning is not a circus and teachers are not clowns

The year ended with a rather odd debate at Online Educa in Berlin, around the motion that “All learning should be fun”. Now I’m as up for a laugh as the next person. And to be fair, Elliot Masie’s defence of the proposition was laughable. Learning can be fun but that’s not really the point. Learning needs effort. Just making things ‘fun’ has led to the sad sight of clickthrough online learning. It was the prefect example of experts who knew the research, versus, deluded sellers of mirth.

14. AI

I spent a lot of time on this in 2018 and plan to spend even more time in 2019. Why? Beneath all the superficial talk about Learning Experiences and whatever fads come through… beneath it allies technology that is smart and has already changed the world forever. AI has and will change the very nature of work. It will, therefore change why we learn, what we learn and how we learn. I ended my year by winning a Learning technologies award with TUI (thanks Henri and Nic) and and WildFire. We did something ground breaking – produced useful learning experiences, in record time, using AI, for a company that showed real impact.

15. Book deal

Oh and got a nice book deal on AI – so head down in 2019.