Class and the Crisis of Higher Education in North America

Class and the Crisis of Higher Education in North America

A salient theme in the debate over the challenges facing the educational system concerns the failure to make the basic distinction between education, on the one hand, and training, on the other. The former speaks to the formation of well-rounded intellects in the tradition of the humanities and classical liberal studies, while the latter deals more narrowly with the technical and vocational aspects of acquiring specific job related skills. Thus, as Randal Collins notes, “most skills are-or can be-learned on the job so given the evidence that job skills of all sorts are actually acquired in the work situation rather than in a formal training institution” (1979:192-93), what needs to be stressed is the education of students as opposed to their training. This sentiment is captured by James Côté, and Anton Allahar (2011:14-16), who echo the earlier sentiments of Terry Wotherspoon, who states bluntly that: “Formal education is about much more than job training” (1998:133). Thus, if we are to address a key element in the crisis of higher education, we must all guard against the trend which sees universities being converted into pseudo-vocational institutions.