Should universities be productive?

(23Oct2011 by baylander)
I admire the person who recently wrote an article about universities, regardless of his beliefs and aspirations. Rolando V. De La Rosa's argument not to view universities mainly as a source of productivity but rather a balanced prospect for creativity is awesome. His article should stir more serious concern by all sectors on HIGHER EDUCATION and its role in the twenty first century.

Should universities be productive?

Through Untrue/ Manila Bulletin

By FR. ROLANDO V. DE LA ROSA, O.P. (Rector, University of Santo Tomas)

October 23, 2011, 8:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Recently, there was a congressional inquiry about the dismal rating of Philippine universities in the QS Asian survey. I wonder why such an inquiry was made. The fact that out of the more than 1,000 universities and colleges in the country, less than 15 have been granted autonomous status is a proof that many of these educational institutions wallow in mediocrity.

Also, the fact that out of the four Philippine universities that figured well in the QS Asian survey, only one is a public university should have occasioned not another congressional hearing, but a sincere examination of conscience among our legislators. After all, state colleges and universities are established by an act of Congress. Government funds allocated for these institutions could have been better spent to improve basic education. Every Filipino thinks that he has the right and duty to obtain a college diploma, but if basic education is in a dismal state, tertiary education is sure to suffer. Garbage in, garbage out.

Legislators also ask why there is lack of productivity among Philippine universities. Productivity, understood within the context of economics, means a process or system that ensures the best outcomes or outputs. This is perhaps why  “outcome-based” learning is getting a lot of hype among educators themselves. But the essential model of a production relationship is the factory, in which raw materials are turned into finished products through various production processes.

The factory metaphor, however, has its own limitations, and when used as an analogy to the education process, has some deleterious effects.  For instance, faculty members think that they could not do without a labor union, sometimes acting like factory workers aggressively fighting for privileges and benefits but without regard for professionalism and ethics that the teaching profession requires.

When I was a student in philosophy, one of my professors taught us the distinction between a product and a creation. Everything that we see around us can be considered either one of these two. A product is something finished and, to a certain extent, perfect according to the specifications of its maker or producer. But from such a perfect state, it undergoes an inevitable process of deterioration.  A creation, on the other hand, is something that begins simple, even imperfect, and then evolves from simplicity to complexity, from imperfection to perfection.

This insight can serve as a caution to those who are too fixated on productivity in education. What we sorely need today is not the quest for perfection but for simplicity; not just the search for productivity but creativity.

The government can lead the way towards this by being more creative in addressing problems in education. Most industrialized countries heavily subsidize even private tertiary education because they know that the progress of a nation depends on an enlightened constituency. Education is the answer to many of our national problems, like the population problem. 

If we come to think of it, there is really no such thing as a population problem. Population becomes a problem when available resources do not meet its needs.  But, as many scientists and demographers have realized, dwindling resources is an illusion. For, when a particular resource diminishes at an alarming rate, people, through education use their creativity and inventiveness to supply what is missing. As one educated man wrote: “The more foxes there are, the less chicken; but the more human beings there are, the more chicken.”