The Economy of Knowledge – Mosse Lectures

More than anything else, education in recent times has been pressured to reform. Despite its permanent crises, its value is not in question. While struggling for necessary subsidies, global competitiveness and socially broad accessibility, this value is actively traded as economic resource and judged in its potential for expanding productivity. Previous ideals of education have thus become outdated. While the advocates of education as Bildung had the natural capacity of self-creation in mind rather than the acquisition of skills, all of today’s noisy debates focus on competitiveness. In as much as the market absorbs most social energies, the patient commitment to an inward form or shape of the personal gives way to issues of human capital and to the promotion of demands for an enduring and optimal exploitation of human resources. Theories of education and practical experience gained in educational institutions as well as national and international so-called ‘offensives of education’ such as ‘life-long learning’ are measured according to the criterion of post-industrial society; economic standards are directly imported into the proceedings of practical learning and higher education. Education as durable investment gives access to knowledge, supported by a system of ,incentives’. How do institutions of education describe themselves under these conditions and what forms of governance do they develop? What means do they have to limit the rule of the market? What kind of accessibility can education provide for those who can hardly participate? If ever more people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds end up socially as losers: How in the long run could reforms lead to less social inequality?