Photo by Hutomo Abrianto on Unsplash
In the modern, litigious, and ownership-based society in which we live, one must ask if education could ever be truly open? How do we recognize the achievement of higher education? How do we structure a system where knowledge supersedes credentials? What are credentials actually? Does someone with a Master’s degree in a subject, have the knowledge, or the performance in that subject, more fully than someone with a high school diploma, but a voracious appetite for that subject matter and has read everything available on the subject? Does knowledge even need to be formally acknowledged by an institution, that we have paid money for the privilege of having that institution give us a piece of paper for our completion? Therefore, do credentials mean qualification?
UNESCO fights for access to education as a right. They discuss human rights around free and accessible education. Furthermore, one could say, if the whole educational, and social, structure of our societies is based on not what you know, but what an institution says you know, and that acknowledgment is the defining factor in your progression in both status and financial security, then we will need a true paradigm explosion in not only education but what society values.Â
It is clear that most people, and countries, know the value and the essential nature, of having an educated and informed population. The very nature of being informed is that you can take part in society and try, though not always successfully, to move that society forward. However, we only guarantee an education to a certain level (high school) and that will supposedly get everyone to one playing field. Furthermore, only having a high school education will get you only so far. If one is interested in following their dreams and becoming a doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc, then one will have to have the resources to do this: And so begins the proliferation of wealth and equity gaps. Those who can afford the education can reap the rewards, where those who can’t, cannot. Moreover, this goes to the heart of the issue of ability versus credentials. Our societal structure dictates that status is achieved through education, or at least financial status and security. That is not true in all cases and we have all seen, or know of people, who have made a great success of themselves, in terms of status and security, with little to no education but those cases are few and far between. Therefore, access to knowledge and education are not linked.
I will bring this idea out with an example. I worked in the restaurant industry for a greater part of my working life, 17years. In a kitchen, there are chefs and there are cooks. One difference is that the chef has gone to Culinary School and the cook has worked in actual kitchens. The Chef runs the kitchen and gets paid more, based on his/her paid education. The cook works under the chef, makes less, and in most cases, that I have seen, are better at working with, and cooking, food. Thus, the disparity in the kitchen is based on what someone is certified in, knot what they can do. This is true in the front of the restaurant too, where the person who started out as a host, has worked there for years, rose to the top as head waiter, and knows how a restaurant should run, is working under a person who has 12 months of Hospitality schooling and a certificate, but is not effective in the actual work beyond book learning and classroom scenarios. Can the chef and the manager learn and get better? Yes. Is it the cook or ex-host that is invariably training and bringing the skills to their superiors? Yes. Thus, is the status and financial security achievement of the chef and manager not based on the fact they paid someone money for a piece of paper?Â
Before I go any deeper into this rabbit hole, I will end with this. Do I think that a person’s actual abilities be “worth more” than a person’s certificates? Yes. Do I know how to make this happen on a societal scale? Not a clue. How do we reward those who research and write books, educate the public with a formal education? How do we recognize the skills of those who lack formal education with recognition of their abilities based on experience and not letters after their name? This course is talking about the equity of information access and how we as teachers, and professionals, can take that information we learn to better our classrooms and develop intrigue and self-dependance in our students and in their abilities to find knowledge, to help further themselves, and their understanding, on a topic. So is it not time to redefine what education is, and what it is for, other than receiving marks and latent gratification towards security and financial independence? Welcome to my brain! You’re welcome!