> I would note that in the US as well, systems of public higher education
> tend to be enmeshed in systems of byzantine regulations by their government
> sponsors regarding purchasing, numbers of staff, salaries of support staff,
> hiring regulations, dismissal regulations, etc., etc. Compared to any
> reasonable well-run private concern they are disastrously inefficient and
> badly managed. I know, I work in one.
So-called "reasonably well-run private concerns" are not immune to wasteful,
bureaucratic, poorly managed, inefficient, whim-driven, Byzantine
disasters. I know, I work in one.
I fear that questions about public vs private management of education
will take us no closer to the educational ideals we embrace for ourselves
and our children. I suspect that we are more likely to see the shift not
from public to private management, but from institutional to personal
management of education. Educational institutions are beginning to lose
their exclusive hold on the avenues of higher learning in this postmodern
era where cyberspace offers learners endless avenues for authentic
inquiry.
Whenever this topic comes up, I'm reminded of Jay's two visionary papers
which he published a full year before the release of the first WWW
browser.
http://134.95.100.201/themen/cmc/text/lemke.93a.txt
http://134.95.100.201/themen/cmc/text/lemke.93b.txt
A reading of these two papers suggests a vision of peripheral control
of learning, based on the learner's own agenda. While degree-granting
institutions are not likely to fade away in the near future, we are
likely to see alternative credentialing systems emerging as
learner-directed activities tend to bypass the traditional pathways to
higher learning.
Martin R.