Big Question #4
Destructing the Curriculum
Lloyd Smith
Emerging governments around the world are taking a more liberal, democratically based approach to procurement of higher education (Singh and Han, 2005). Citizens of countries are hungry for social equity and security college and university degrees can bring, which is creating a vast market for higher education globally (Singh and Han, 2005). These international students seeking an advanced degree are representing every age group, and the adult life-long learners are growing exponentially (Singh and Han, 2005). Thus the ever growing need for online and distance learning within post-secondary education. The demand is out pacing the technological availability of these degrees from established colleges and universities in developed countries. Exporting degrees globally through technology and the virtual classroom has negatives as well. One of these negatives is the high demand for college degrees internationally are causing a displacement of faculty labor toward technology (Singh and Han, 2005). These new “labor displacing technologies” are racing to catch up to the international demand, but whom or what is at stake (Singh and Han, 2005)?
The answer to this question is multifaceted; there are many stakeholders at risk. Faculty is one of the first areas to see this displacement. The fallout of labor displacement is that colleges and universities are seeking more and adjunct faculty for online instruction as a cost saving measure. It is expensive at this point to develop an online degree program, which raises the costs of higher education (Archibald and Feldman, 2011). Full time and tenured faculty are expensive as well, so any cost saving measure to thwart funds into the stream of technological advancement and distance learning online. This is evident in the rising costs disease suffered in higher education today (Archibald and Feldman, 2005). Distructuring the curriculum in higher education is an effect of this facet of cost disease.
Singh and Han, researchers in technology and globalization of higher education from Australia, posit the issue by stating, “Universities are being driven by neo-liberal policies which are promoting their economic destructuring and recurrent organizational restructuring” (Singh and Han, 2005). This international destructuring of higher education curriculum to be restructured into an online, distant degree exporting phenomenon, causing the globalization of higher education (Singh and Han, 2005). Another facet to this dilemma is the expectation that universities and colleges in developed countries who grant accredited degrees are now being expected to destructuralize and restructure into transnational businesses (Singh and Han, 2005). This raises questions across higher education internationally, but it is inevitable. As technology continues to improve, access continues to be demanded, and higher education is the vehicle being pushed to accommodate this destruturalization.
References:
Archibald, W. and Feldman, R., (2011). Why does college cost so much? New York, NY,
Oxford University Press.
Singh, M. and Han, J., (2005). Globalizing flexible work in universities: socio-technical
dilemmas in internationalizing education. The International Review of Research
in Open and Distance Learning, vol. 6(1). Retrieved from:
