Adult Foundational Learning and the Economy of Education

There has been a call in the adult learning environment to streamline and reduce duplication, eliminate waste, and centralize the post-secondary system. The business model.

The problem is the survival mode in the face of such a climate can also change the climate within an institution.  No longer is even basic education honoured as a human right.  Disenfranchising people because their educational needs don’t fit neatly into time frames and business models, manufactures narratives based in rationalization and rhetoric. Recognition of values-based programming isn't considered worthy of costs, that is, unless the value is according to economy and a quick fix mentality.  

“But students want to get in and out and into employment right away.”  Of course they do!  Besides having many other things going on in their life, who doesn’t want to achieve something they have to sacrifice time and family and money in attaining?  Does that mean post-secondary institutions throw pedagogy, and the brain-based research involved in how humans learn and understand information out the window?   Or throw out any programming that doesn’t conform with the quick fix mentality of a business model? Does it mean ignoring educational needs in favor of the chimerical solution of online-anytime?  It shouldn’t. 

There needs to be a happy marrying of the two components, based on the paradigms of adult learning and proven educational  practices. A standing up for what is right and what works for learners.  Culture, diversity, literacy, numeracy, efficacy, learning barriers, learning disabilities, all should be considered in the delivery of any programming.   Accessibility that is decentralized beyond the technological panacea, and thinking in ways that provide a bridge between economy and education.  

Education is a human right.  But the pressure remains, who is going to pay for it?