Shouldn't go to university?

There was a recent article in the Times newspaper that argues why people shouldn't go to university. In response to the article, a friend shared the following:

"Recently my friend who is mechanical engineer at aircond factory at Bangi earning 3k decided to resign and open a supermarket back at his hometown, i am thinking, hmm... maybe he should work in supermarket after SPM instead..." (by Tim L.)

Briefly, the story was about a mechanical engineer who was earning an average monthly wage of a university graduate, decided to quit the job in the city and returned to his hometown to start a supermarket. My friend who shared the story, then, argues that it might be better for the "engineer" to venture into the supermarket business immediately after secondary school, instead of going to university.

To many of us, this story seems to be rather familiar. Many university graduates, especially in Malaysia, do not venture into the careers that are expected of them. More often during such discussion, issues such as graduate unemployment, graduate employability as well as the standard of our tertiary education will subsequently be raised.

However, this article attempts to look at this story from a slightly different perspective. While reading the story for the first time, a question immediately came to my mind.

"If this person is "destined" to venture into a supermarket business, how would university education makes a difference to his career?"

I guess, if we are to evaluate this question in relations to the story, our answer will likely to be guided by how we understand university education.

If we take the cost-benefit approach, certainly, the cost will exceed the benefit. The cost will not only include the tuition fees to pursue a degree, but also includes the opportunity costs, i.e. earnings that were foregone while studying and, the possible "experiences" and "opportunities" of working in the supermarket earlier; yet, the "tangible" benefits remain relatively unchanged.

If we assume university education as a form of credential that only leads into the related careers, expectedly, we are likely to argue that university education in such situation is unnecessary.

However, if we return to the basic idea of university education, which is a form of intellectual training and development, then confidently, we can argue that university education will indeed makes a different to the person as a whole.

University education is not only the certificate that one receives at the end of the course or the number of A's that one scores in exams, but rather, it is "the education and training" to become an intellectual person, which can be defined as a person who uses his/her intelligence and analytical thinking, either in a professional capacity or for personal reasons. In the book titled "Knowledge and Decisions", intellectual was also used to mean an individual whose profession solely involves the dissemination and/or production of ideas, as opposed to producing products or services. Briefly, university education could be regarded as a form of training to produce intellectuals, which are then expected to translate their intellectuality into all aspects of life.

It is clear that only through understanding the role of university education, as a form of intellectual training, we could convincingly argue that it remains worthwhile to pursue university education regardless of the career aspiration. This also explains why courses, such as philosophy, classics, literature, languages, history and theology, are relevant and remain as an essential part of the university, despite their practicalities and applicabilities are being challenged.

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate