This is the first of a series of fortnightly posts on the mission drift of universities away from the liberal arts toward ‘pseudo-vocationalism.’
In reviewing the responses to Ivory Tower Blues, disagreements over certain issues often involved confusions between (a) the role of a liberal education in the personal and intellectual development of the student, and the ultimate benefit of this for the society as a whole, from (b) the role of universities in workplace preparation, as found in vocational and professional programmes. Most certainly, over the past century or so, the liberal arts and sciences have struggled to stave off vocational programmes, where the emphasis is on instrumental job training. The compromise has been the ‘multiversity.’ More recently, the liberal arts and sciences are suffering as their primary degree designation—the BA—is being appropriated to legitimate many programmes that are more appropriately described as vocational training.
Programmes can be considered ‘pseudo-vocational training’ in instances where intrinsically liberal programmes have been rebranded to implicitly or explicitly promise that they will give students an edge in the competition for specific jobs. As this has happened, the pedagogical value of the liberal education in stimulating critical thinking abilities, and the skills associated with effectively communicating those abilities in writing and speech, is diminishing as universities adopt teaching practices associated with training people to remember systems of facts and procedures, rather than educating to develop a critical awareness of the world at large that is epistemologically defensible.
Pseudo-vocationalism originates in the pressures on undergraduate programmes to be more ‘marketable.’ If the BA gave graduates in the past an upper hand in entering higher level occupations, the thinking seems to be that accrediting a programme as Baccalaureate level will continue to afford graduates this advantage. Consequently, to pursue this new ‘job market mission,’ many liberal programmes have slowly evolved into pseudo-vocational training programmes, at least implicitly. In other words, the training approach is trumping the education approach, and many universities currently have a mixed system where liberal subjects are often assessed in ways best suited for vocational training (extensive testing of content and procedure). This is causing considerable confusion among stakeholders, especially among students who are told that they can convert a BA/BSc into a job, only to find out that there is only limited truth to this.
Our own discipline, sociology, has a history of this. The most recent fad in sociology departments is to offer specializations in criminology to capitalize on the so-called CSI effect stimulated more by television viewing habits than by the realities of the labour market.
We believe that a good part of this mission drift is due to a loss of understanding of the transformative potential of the liberal educational experience. This transformation requires intellectual engagement and emotional commitment. A student cannot just sign up for a liberal programme, and passively say ‘educate me.’ It cannot be bought with tuition, and there is nothing magical about spending four years at a university. If there were some magic to it, we could offer two types of degrees: one where students take courses and the other where they do not take courses but simply participate in extra-curricular activities and heavy doses of socialization with other students while they live in residence. We could call the former a curricular degree and the latter a residential degree.
In the current era, then, the liberal education is threatened with an eclipse by pseudo-vocationalism, as under funding drives universities to develop programmes that can be delivered on a mass sale and which adopt mass evaluation methods unsuited to the transformative potential of the liberal education. Consequently, universities are currently experiencing a mission drift that threatens the core ‘idea of the university.’
The case of Finland
Not all of the world’s university systems have let the mission drift occur to the extent found in Canada. One country in particular, Finland, has endeavoured to maintain educational standards at all three levels, and in so doing is preserving the integrity of the mission of its university system, while providing effective alternatives for those who are not academically inclined.
The Finnish system is certainly not without its problems, but its current attractive features are a result of an openness to admit to problems in the past and a willingness to work to remedy those problems at their source, a process that continues in its third iteration in the past half century. Certainly, some aspects of the Finnish system would be strongly resisted by certain stakeholders in countries like Canada, but the Finnish example gives us something concrete to bring to the debate.
The Finns have viewed their educational system as a work in progress for the past few decades, as it should be the case in all countries experiencing rapid social and economic change. Indeed, some of the features that we believe warrant close scrutiny from Canadian educators and policy makers are rather recent additions or reforms to the Finnish educational system, as Finnish society has adjusted itself to current conditions. The following figure shows the various levels of the Finnish system as it is now constituted, along with the typical ages at which people pass through them.
| The Finnish Educational System | ||
| Starting age (typical duration) | Academic stream | Vocational stream |
| Doctorate | ||
| Licentiate | ||
| (2-3) | Master’s (University) | Master’s (Polytechnic) |
| 20 (3-4) | Bachelor’s (University) | Bachelor’s (Polytechnic) |
| 16 | Upper secondary | Vocational and apprenticeship training |
| 7 | Comprehensive (primary) | |
| 6 | Pre-primary | |
Three features of the Finnish system immediately stand out in this figure: (1) the late starting age for primary school students, (2) the division of secondary schools into vocational/apprenticeship and academic streams, and (3) the separation of liberal arts universities from polytechnic universities. Most germane to the current discussion are features 2 and 3.
Although there is no streaming during primary school, or more specifically ‘comprehensive school,’ a major streaming takes place when students are 16 and have completed nine years of formal schooling. About half go on to upper secondary schools, which are designed to prepare students for tertiary institutions, and most of the remainder go into vocational institutions and apprenticeships, which are designed for direct labour-force entry, although students can redirect to the tertiary route later if they can qualify. The lack of streaming during primary school is meant to achieve a uniform education for all students, regardless of their eventual occupational destination. This helps to reduce social-class reproduction and assure a standard of literacy and numeracy among the entire Finnish population.
During the period of primary education, students, teachers, and parents get a good idea of the student’s interests and abilities, and the decision is made on this basis regarding which secondary stream is pursued. This is not an irreversible decision and students graduating from the vocational stream can qualify for tertiary education by passing a nationally standardized entrance exam.
Most of those who complete the vocational stream at the secondary level go straight into the labour force. Note that in much of Canada, serious vocational training is delayed until the tertiary level, rather than integrating it into the secondary level.
Those who complete the upper secondary stream in Finland can qualify for tertiary education by taking the ‘national matriculation examination.’ Successful completion of this exam affords entrance into one of Finland’s 20 universities or 30 polytechnics. Just as the primary and secondary levels do not require students or parents to pay tuitions fees, the tertiary system has no tuition fees, and those who need financial assistance at both the secondary and tertiary levels are eligible. The current polytechnic system was developed in the 1990s, with all of the current schools completed by 2000. Some polytechnics now offer degrees comparable to Master’s degrees.
What are the most notable differences in the outcomes of the Finnish system from the Canadian one?
First, the dropout rate at the secondary level is lower than in Canada, with 90 percent of young Finns obtaining secondary qualifications ‘on time.’ About 12 percent leave vocational schools, but many are simply ‘stop outs’ undertaking military service or temporarily doing something else. This lower drop out rate is presumably because more students are involved in educational activities that they find interesting and rewarding, rather than being forced into them, as is the case schools in Canada where these options are not available.
Second, universities are clearly distinguished in their missions from polytechnics. Universities are defined by their ‘focus of research and education based on research’[i] while polytechnics ‘train professionals in response to labour market needs and conduct R&D which supports instruction and promotes regional development in particular.’[ii] The liberal mission of Finnish universities is kept on track by the National University Act, which specifies that
universities must promote free research and scientific and artistic education, provide higher education based on research, and educate students to serve their country and humanity. In carrying out this mission, universities must interact with the surrounding society and strengthen the impact of research findings and artistic activities on society.[iii]
Thus, the research capacity in the liberal tradition, vital for taking Finnish society into the future, is preserved in Finnish universities. At the same time, the immediate labour market needs of the economy are the focus of polytechnics, as are the earlier-stream vocational and apprenticeship programmes. In Canada, these missions have become confused, a conundrum that is being exacerbated as more community colleges across the countries are being declared by government fiat to be ‘universities.’ In turn, liberal-arts classroom pedagogies are being attacked unjustly as not being relevant enough to the job market and more and more schools are turning to a form of pseudo-vocationalism.
[i] Finnish Ministry of Education, Education system in Finland, http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/koulutusjaerjestelmae/?lang=en, accessed March 24, 2009
[ii] Finnish Ministry of Education, Polytechnic Education in Finland, http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/ammattikorkeakoulutus/?lang=en, accessed March 24, 2009
[iii] Finnish Ministry of Education, University Education in Finland, http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/yliopistokoulutus/?lang=en, accessed march 24, 2009