Since the inception of higher education, professions such as law and medicine have been part of the university curriculum. The rest of what were then called "trades" - now known as "economic activities" - were not. Subjects that were theoretical or needed research were the focus of higher education. Even as the field of education itself became profession-alised in the latter half of the 19th century, a doctorate was a rare degree that showed you could not only teach a subject but advance it.
But after the Second World War, governments increasingly began to see universities as manufacturers of skilled players in the economy. The implications have been profound.
Before the war and for a while after, it was not uncommon for someone to begin working at 14 and enter a profession through on-the-job training, by way of an apprenticeship. This applied to nurses, journalists, accountants and managerial staff, although they would often gain certificates along the way.
My grandfather is a good example. He began by earning a marine engineer's certificate as a teenager and ended up as the chief firefighter of the city of Melbourne in the 1930s. No one would hold such a position today with less than a bachelor's degree, and those struggling to rise through the professional ranks need at least a master's. No doubt it is only a matter of time before a doctorate is required just to be a nurse manager or, as they used to be called, a ward sister.
Does anyone else see the problem here? If somebody needs a bachelor's degree just to enter the workforce, this typically means that they have had 12 years of pre-university schooling and at least three years at university. If they then need specialist graduate diplomas or a master's, this can add another two years, or maybe three. When these "qualified" graduates enter the workforce at the age of 24 or so, they still need to be trained to do the work.
This is because universities teach, well, academically. University education is focused on writing essays, passing exams and doing practical exercises in conditions that graduates rarely find in industry. So the age at which the individual starts to be productive is now around 26 or 27. If doctorates then become a requirement, this will go up to 30-32. All the while, there is a constant dearth of skilled workers.
Something is very wrong. We have added over 10 years of education before people can become producers in our society.
At the same time, governments are ending or sharply reducing the "traditional" intellectual pursuits in universities because these do not contribute to economic output. No matter how often academics object to the industrialisation of education, they are ignored by governments and their bureaucracies on both sides of the political fence. Languages, history, classics, philosophy - anything that lacks a dollar value - will be reduced to a tiny rump or eliminated as inefficient.
It is time to confront the sausage-making university model that has become the shared property of educational administrators and politicians around the world. "Qualification inflation" is how governments avoid having to do anything about underemployment, and it generates a massive bureaucracy that has its own interests in perpetuating the system.
My proposal is this: we should return universities to a research focus and eliminate professional degrees, moving education for the professions back to what used to be called technical institutes. Otherwise, we should recognise that universities have been terminally corrupted from their initial purpose and set up pure research institutes, which alone would have the ability to award doctorates. I would even go so far as to say that medical education should be run independently in separate medical schools, and the same goes for law.
A society that cannot do research or intellectual work is a society in decline. At the same time, a society that hides its underemployed is a society that is not being productive anyway. Employers now use university qualifications as markers of competence, but this is expensive and misleading. We need to "deskill" universities.
John S. Wilkins is a philosopher and historian of science. He is an associate at the University of Sydney and visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales. He blogs atEvolving Thoughts.net.
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