HEd diversity offers choice – Harvard expert
[ UniNews Vol. 15, No. 13
24 July - 7 August 2006 ]
Australia should have several different higher education models so that undergraduates have some real choice, leading Harvard educationist, Professor James Wilkinson, told a media conference at the University of Melbourne last week.
“Choice does not have to be in terms of rankings,“ Professor Wilkinson said. “There is a lot of room for variety in the higher education system within an overall framework of quality.”
Professor Wilkinson is head of Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Learning and Teaching, the body charged with enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in Harvard College.
He was in Melbourne for talks on undergraduate curriculum innovation and to deliver the 2006 Menzies Oration on Higher Education.
Professor Wilkinson believes today’s graduates are likely to have five to eight jobs in their lifetime. “This makes it important that they are equipped with communication, analysis and team-work skills.
“It’s not just voices in academia saying this,” he said. “People in industry and government are saying the same things. Employers want these skills.”
On the other hand, he warns, in an age of constantly changing knowledge early specialisation in undergraduate programs can result in learning that has to be ‘unlearned’.
Professor Wilkinson had praise for the University’s Melbourne Model, noting that it had not been taken ‘wholesale’ from the Bologna or US models. “It has been well thought out and customised to Australian conditions,” he said.
“I don’t think Australian higher education has any choice but to diversify and innovate now,” he said. “There’s a long lead time in education. It is not smart just to think that what worked well in the past might work in the future.”
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