Measurement in Education LO1560

pcapper@actrix.gen.nz
Thu, 8 Jun 1995 13:53:28 +1200

Replying to LO1559 --

My feeling about the debate about the 'customers' in education, is that
people are talking about two different possible 'products'. Education,
learning, the acquisition of knowledge - these things occur all the time
all over the place. One does not need an institution for education to
occur. One might hope that the education that occurs in an institution is
better organised, more focused, and less riddled with error - but I'm not
even sure about that much of the time.

No - the product of post-compulsory formal education (compulsory education
is a different matter entirely, requiring an answer to the question 'Why
is it compulsory?') is CREDENTIALS. I come to believe this by observing
behaviour, not by listening to rhetoric.

What sort of a product is an educational credential? It is piece of scrip
enabling the possessor to trade in the futures market of employment.
Therein lies the awful dilemma confronting educators. If they regard the
students in front of them as 'customers' (as all the pressures push them
into doing) then how can they maintain educational standards when to
'fail' a student (i.e. fail to deliver the product) is regarded in a
'customer' based model as a failure of the educator as service provider
rather than student as service purchaser?

The inevitable consequence is a debasing of the value of the product
through grade inflation - although, of course, a few institutions create a
high-value market niche in the time honoured way of acting in the opposite
direction to the market tide.

Exactly the same problems are now beginning to afflict organisations which
are underpinning organisational learning settings by the application of
skills based employment contracts.

These attempts to shoehorn education into a standardised service delivery
model will never be resolved until we understand what is involved when we
are considering a process where the object whose state we are changing is
the customer him/herself.

--
Phillip Capper
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business
Wellington
New Zealand

pcapper@actrix.gen.nz

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