Marcus Leaning said:
"I would say this is probably linked to the much wider changes in
education and educational policy in recent years, seeing education
primarily in terms of employment skills and not of value in its own
right (of course this is wild supposition and is not something I can
support with evidence)."
In a meeting I attended once in the late 1990s, Malcolm Wicks, at the
time a Minister in the Education Department, said, and I quote
directly: "The purpose of education is to prepare people for the
labour market." So there you have some evidence, anyway.
We should also remember that there is currently no UK Ministry with
the word "Education" in its title.
Mark Callan said:
"But for as long as I can recall, education has been a subversive
activity and this is what we must remember. It is NOT worse now than
it once was; rather, we expect - and are capable of - more now than
we once did. Let the tickers of boxes continue but also let's not
forget why we're really here. And keep at the education!"
I agree but there is strong theoretical and empirical evidence to
suggest that the vested interests of the state-corporate system, for
all that they demand "creativity" and "flexibility" from their
top-ranking employees, actually have no interest in embedding
information literacy in the majority of the population - if by IL we
mean a critical, informed awareness of information and its role in
our lives (and this in turn means much more than "teaching them to
cite properly", although that is part of it).
Cures for "information obesity" (which is what I believe we are
suffering from, and which has the same sort of effects on
productivity and the overall health of society as physical obesity")
are simply not going to emerge from the National Curriculum or any
other state-sponsored initiative, because of their critical nature.
It is something educators will have to develop for themselves, and it
may put them in conflict with educational management and policy
makers. But that does not mean it is not important.
Mind you none of that changes the fact that most plagiarism is caused
by bad assessment design! IMO...
Drew
--
"A committee is a cul-de-sac into which ideas are lured and then
quietly strangled." - John Lincoln
http://www.MAdigitaltechnologies.com
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