Hi Douglas, there are several perspectives discussing this issue. Credentials, degrees, status are used to classify the jobs, actions and what people do. The more ctegorized the levels, the better the system/organization/state controls over the actions of people. From another point of view it is necessary to define jobs, responsibilites and status so that work is run better and reach higher quality. In both views individualism is ignores, credentials is appreciated. The result: value in learning and intelllectual development become less valued. This is the new interpretation of humanist thoughts in changing social and educational values.

Hi Douglas - I think this becomes recognised when 'person specifications' become split into Qualifications, Skills, and Experience/Track-record. Each is a result of some form of personal development and/or education and a qualification forms a useful benchmark in many cases. I suspect these days intellectual curiosity becomes more encapsulated in the type of organisation you wish to work with or for than the role you may actually perform there. 

Hi Douglas, I am not sure I can thoroughly address any of your questions, but I might be able to offer a perspective that gives a start.  I believe that especially in the US, the baccalaureate degree has become a proxy for credentials and certifications in most training contexts outside professional credentials such as medicine, law, education, and accounting for example.  Since there is no standardized way to ensure the entering worker is prepared, organizations figure that requiring a college degree is the most expedient alternative.  If we had solid social acceptance of 1) genuine competency-based education at the elementary and secondary level, 2) a consistently applied set of relevant measures of such competencies, and 3) a scalable means of providing adequate training where it is really needed, higher education institutions would not have so much to do with credentialing and certification.     

Dear Fatma, Gayle, and Bonnie,

I thank you for your responses and information you have provided. In writing this question I was thinking how compartmentalized higher ed. has become. In being so specific in the classes and the limited elective courses that can "count" in fulfilling the required subject area there is little to no chance of students being expossed to other perspectives and ways of thinking.

From the employer side of the coin there view on what a perspective employee's degree really means> Meaning to an extant Bonnie's point of not knowing what they are going to get as an employee. 

How does the view of a degree effect our perception of an educated person with a degree? In the past a good solid liberal arts degree meant a person was exposed to many differing topics, schools of thought, and subject matters. In today's higher ed. this has changed into a centralized narrowly focused topic specific school of thought. This has had to have an effect on the well rounded student as he/she leaves with a degree.

To me this does effect the way I perceive today's educated person. hence the question.

Thank You all again,

Douglas 

Hi again Douglas,

I share your concern about the shift in emphasis on the meaning of "educated" and also appreciate the observation about how intellectual curiosity is eroded when the focus on programmatic content is narrowed.  In my better moments, I am more encouraged when I see trends in medical education to expand physician training past memorization of didactic content toward appreciation of a more holistic view of the community and society.  Recent changes in undergraduate physician education are oriented toward exposing students to other perspectives and ways of thinking, and that I believe is an encouraging sign.

Hello Douglas,

Given many problems associated with current credentialism-oriented higher education and societies, I believe there is always space for educators/teachers/professors in every classroom to expose students to various meanings of 'educated' and learning via their own approaches to, understanding of, and concerns about education and learning.

Out of very commercialized or very discipline-focused or superficial social justice-obssessed educational settings as I have been experiencing and observing in various countries, there are always students who are genuinely striving to be 'educated' in the ways you have described above, and are demanding the kind of education that would inspire them to achieve their aspiration.

So if those working in HE do not give up hope and do not stop leading by example and continue to improve themselves and engage in 'educated person' aspects of teaching and learning, then I see credentialism as being just a phase, and as being one of many competing doctrines and practices that exist side by side with all other tenets and values.

Many thanks for the question and for your insights into the issue too.

Le-Ha

Hello all,

@ Bonnie, thank you for the encouraging news from undergraduate physician education. I wonder though if this includes a bridging between East and West medicine?

@ Le- Ha, I am afraid I do not share your claim when you write "  I see credentialism as being just a phase" because history here in the U.S. demonstrates the opposite. The U.S. history regarding education points to the fact that once a policy has been put in place that it takes an earthquake to remove, change, or add on to it. However I do share your hope in the individual student. 

Thank you all,

Douglas

Hi again Douglas

I understand your concern regarding 'little to no chance of students being exposed to other perspectives and ways of thinking. From the employer side of the coin their view on what a perspective employee's degree really means'. My experience suggests this is why certain sectors tend to employ those with certain types of qualification (or from particular organisations) and firms can be quite rigid in this requirement. Some firms will actively recruit those who have not been exposed to wider thinking so that it is easier to train them in what the firm requires, while others specifically draw in wider knowledge to expand their own capability from this base. I would anticipate that narrowing policies would lead to alumni/graduates/former students finding roles more aligned with employers seeking that range, and if this creates a mismatch, fewer may enter education at the point that becomes apparent. Firms also respond by generating their own internal training at all levels to meet what entrants cannot offer from outside. Ergo the continuous argument as to what balance education needs to achieve between meeting employer needs or whether it is there to 'open the mind to possibility'.

All the best

Gayle

Dear Douglas,

Marketization of education has had horrendous educational consequences encompassing demotivation, shallowness, intellectual torpor, corruption and and lack of literacy. Education has turned into a lucrative business at the hands of some money garbing agents who have ruined the academic standards beyond measure. Educational institutes and organizations have mushroomed and they churn out degrees with impunity and without any qualifications. Ironically , credentialism has attached massive significance to certificates and degrees which are basically issued with little expertise and knowledge in the field, hence a chaotic abysmal situation. Degrees have turned out to be the prerequisite condition for employment which is , in turn,  fraught with irregualarities, nepotism, and cronism. Individuals with pathetic intellectual abilities and mental competencies have been hired for sensitive postions in different organaztions just because they hold  a  prestigious degree isssued by shadowy profeetiering institutes . Social statues and overt prestige are defined by degrees captured through cash not educational qualifications. Employers demand degrees for jobs and positions which require skills not papers , So individual holding diplomas and lacking in practical skills are hired  much to the frustration of talented skillful individuals and devastation of the desired output.

good luck with your research

a.

Dear all,

I believe we have all to some degree or another have pointed out the "problem/concern" over the practice of credentialism in connection with what it means to be educated and employment and I agree with all of your concerns. However I believe there is a much more larger issue at hand and that being the way we view higher ed and what education means.

To me education has a sole purpose and that it to produce educated people making for an educated populas. I am reminded of the warning Paulo Freire gave with his words all education is political. 

Given our current state in higher ed with its narrowing down of or focused curricula's for differing subject matters I find myself trembling for our future generations due to the results of not being educated. In-fact I would argue that creditialism and higher education is becoming more and more like K-12 from the view point of indoctrination. 

Education is becoming a place were the unity of a people is sacrificed due to the demands of the market place. This phenomena could have graver consequences than ever even imaged from a nationalistic view point (personally I am in favor of denationalism but wonder what a world without false notions as defined spacialazation in higher education continues.

Douglas