Critque of OECD report on Higher Education

As a proponent of an equality based agenda, I endorse entirely Professor Kathleen Lynch's critique of the recent OECD report on higher education in Ireland. She has saved me the trouble of detailing it's failings. The main problem is the value system within which it understands education. The Irish Times title for her article speaks of "reeking of utilitarianism".
See http://www.ucd.ie/esc/html/itdoc.doc

The report also advocates a return to undergraduate fees, and the replacement of academics on governing authorities with "lay" members. Kathleen has also recently presented an excellent outline of why privatisation of education is problematic in a democratic society.
See the Equality Studies announcements page for slides of her talk, which was given to the Global Action society at UCD. In conclusion she gives six reasons why democratic public control of education matters:

1. 1.People have a right to education – Article 24of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 (ICESCR)
2. 2.Education is indispensable for realising other rights: education credentials play a crucial role in mediating access to other goods, including employment, cultural goods and political participation
3. 3.Education enables one to overcome other social disadvantages. In a market-driven private system this becomes a secondary objective
4. 4.Education has an intrinsic value for the development of the individual – for the exercise of capabilities, choices and freedoms
5. 5.Education has a care function as well as a development function: this cannot be guaranteed in a privatised system
6. 6.Education is a Public Good as well as a Personal Good- it enriches cultural, social, political and economic life locally and globally. In a commercially-driven system the public good dimension can be easily sidelined

Regarding " utilitarianism"I would add:
The problem is not with the pursuit of technical and economic goals but with the uncritical and unreflective pursuit of such goals. Economic and technical pursuits need a moral and social context. Moreover, social, civic and cultural goals must be valued in and of themselves. The tradition of the academy is central to civilization itself, and at the core of that tradition is the humanities, the liberal arts and the social sciences. Universties provide a crucial independent arena for reflection and critque in open societies, and a context in which technical and other goals can be subjectied to deeper questioning. They input crucially into the civic and civil fabric of society.