JoLIE 8/2015
MODULARISATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Marek Smoluk
University of Zielona Góra, Poland
Abstract
As we all strive for perfection, so should education which we all undergo. Throughout the centuries, educational theorists and practitioners have assiduously attempted to offer their suggestions for its improvement. The recent growth of higher education, being labelled as universal, and the transformation of what is offered in its name, are all new issues but some of the educational troubles are old, even a century-old. Already in the 1930’s some of the educationalists endeavoured to attract public attention, for instance, to the problems of educational narrowness, career-oriented lecturers or interchange between universities. As the former two still need to be looked into, the latter has been worked out by the introduction of modular degrees, and the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme. These new ideas have pedagogical merits which suit best the new policies of education and university expansion in the United Kingdom. The comprehensive study of the current state of higher education, in particular with reference to these new schemes, reveals that modularisation and Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme give rise to some practical difficulties. Objections to modular degrees and transfer programme appear to be even more questionable when they are set in the context of educational commodification. The effect of the market ethos on the ‘newer’ universities is that teaching institutions have become more preoccupied with a survival battle for their finances than with their prime functions of educating the young and doing research.
Key words: Higher education; British universities; CAT scheme; Modularisation.
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How to cite this article: Smoluk, M. (2015). Modularisation and commodification of higher education in the United Kingdom. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 8, 203–212. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2015.8.13
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