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Role of Universities and
Preparation Towards the
Knowledge Economy
Dr Edilberto C de JesusSecretariat Director
SEAMEO 22 May 2006
Basic Questions
1. What is the role of the University?
2. What are the requirements of the Knowledge Economy?
3. Does the role of the University change with the emergence of the Knowledge Economy?
KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
• EXPONENTIAL EXPANSION OF
KNOWLEDGE
• ACCELERATED PACE OF CHANGE
• INCREASED INTENSITY OF
COMPETITION
PRESSURES ON THE UNIVERSITY
• SCOPE OF OFFERINGS
• DEPTH OF COVERAGE
• EXPANSION OF RESOURCE BASE
• DIVERSITY OF STAKEHOLDERS
INCREASE COURSE REQUIREMENTS?
the practical error of the last twenty years-- to load the
memory of the student with a mass of undigested
knowledge, [and] to force upon him so much that he has
rejected all. It has been the error of distracting and
enfeebling the mind by an unmeaning profusion of
subjects; of implying that a smattering in a dozen branches
of study is not shallowness, which it really is, but
enlargement, which it is not;
The Idea of A University
Defined and Illustrated
In nine discourses delivered in 1852 in Dublin
By John Henry Cardinal Newman
The Idea of A University
• A PLACE OF TEACHING UNIVERSAL
KNOWLEDGE
• DEDICATED TO THE DIFFUSION AND
TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE– Objective is not the advancement of
knowledge, not scientific and philosophical discovery
Educational Process
• Acquisition of knowledge
• Development of argumentative powers
• Forming intellectual capacities
ASPIRATION FOR “UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE”
• An assemblage of learned men, zealous for their
own sciences, and rivals of each other, are
brought, by familiar intercourse and for the sake
of intellectual peace, to adjust together the
claims and relations of their respective subjects
of investigation. They learn to respect, to
consult, to aid each other.
• Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought,
which the student also breathes, though in his own case
he only pursues a few sciences . . . . He profits by an
intellectual tradition, which is independent of particular
teachers, which guides him in his choice of subjects, and
duly interprets for him those which he chooses. He
apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the
principles on which it rests, the scale of its parts . . . as
he otherwise cannot apprehend them. Hence it is that his
education is called "Liberal."
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
the true and adequate end of intellectual
training and of a University is not Learning
or Acquirement, but rather, is Thought or
Reason exercised upon Knowledge, or
what may be called Philosophy
GOAL OF “PHILOSOPHY”
A habit of mind is formed which lasts
through life, of which the attributes are,
freedom, equitableness, calmness,
moderation, and wisdom;
PROCESS
To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it,
to enable it to know, and to digest, master,
rule, and use its knowledge, to give it
power over its own faculties,
application, flexibility, method, critical
exactness, sagacity, resource, address,
eloquent expression,
PHILOSOPHY FOR A LIBERAL EDUCATION
This process of training, by which the intellect, instead
of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or
accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or
study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the
perception of its own proper object, and for its own
highest culture, is called Liberal Education; this I
conceive to be the business of a University
Liberal Education, viewed in itself, is
simply the cultivation of the intellect,
as such, and its object is nothing more
or less than intellectual excellence.
• the cultivation of the "understanding," of
a "talent for speculation and original
inquiry," and of "the habit of pushing
things up to their first principles," is a
principal portion of a good or liberal
education.
• the business of a University [is] . . . t
o employ itself in the education of th
e intellect,—just as the work of a Hospi
tal lies in healing the sick or wounded .
. . . It educates the intellect to reason w
ell in all matters, to reach out towards tr
uth, and to grasp it.
as a man in health can do what an
unhealthy man cannot do . . . so in like
manner, general culture of mind is the best
aid to professional and scientific study, and
educated men can do what illiterate cannot;
PRODUCT• the man who has learned to think and to
reason and to compare and to discriminate and to analyze, who has refined his taste, and formed his judgment, and sharpened his mental vision, will not indeed at once be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator, or a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a man of business, or a soldier, or an engineer, or a chemist, or a geologist, or an antiquarian,
• but he will be placed in that state of
intellect in which he can take up any one
of the sciences or callings . . . for which he
has a taste or special talent, with an ease,
a grace, a versatility, and a success, to
which another is a stranger.
SOCIAL DIMENSION"Society itself requires some other contribution from
each individual, besides the particular duties of his
profession. And, if no such liberal intercourse be
established, it is the common failing of human nature, to
be engrossed with petty views and interests, to
underrate the importance of all in which we are not
concerned, and to carry our partial notions into cases
where they are inapplicable, to act, in short, as so many
unconnected units, displacing and repelling one another.
• But the professional character is not the only one
which a person engaged in a profession has to
support. He is not always upon duty. There are
services he owes, which are neither parochial,
nor forensic, nor military, . . . and yet are in no
wise . . . inferior neither in their intrinsic value,
nor their moral import, nor their impression upon
society.
As a friend, as a companion, as a citizen at
large; in the connections of domestic life; in
the improvement and embellishment of his
leisure, he has a sphere of action, . . . in
which if he can show none of the advantages
of an improved understanding, whatever may
be his skill or proficiency in the other, he is no
more than an ill-educated man.
• It is the education which gives a man a
clear conscious view of his own opinions
and judgments, a truth in developing them,
an eloquence in expressing them, and a
force in urging them. It teaches him to see
things as they are, to go right to the point,
to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect
what is sophistical, and to discard what is
irrelevant.
• It prepares him to fill any post with credit,
and to master any subject with facility. It
shows him how to accommodate himself
to others, how to throw himself into their
state of mind, how to bring before them his
own, how to influence them, how to come
to an understanding with them, how to
bear with them.
A University training is the great ordinary means
to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the
intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public
mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying
true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed
aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement
and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating
the exercise of political power, and refining the
intercourse of private life.
MODIFYING NEWMAN
• MULTIPLE PATHWAYS TO
INTELLECTUAL EXCELLENCE
• MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE
ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY:VISION 2000
• International Community of Scholars
• Enlivened by Christian Inspiration
• Engaged in the Pursuit of Truth and Knowledge
• Serving Human Society
ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY GRADUATE
• Healthy, Open-minded, with Personal
Integrity, Independent Mind and Creative
Thinking
• Professionally Competent, Willing to
Exercise Responsible Leadership for
Economic Progress in a Just Society
ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY GRADUATE
• Able to Communicate Effectively, with
People from other Nations and to
Participate in Globalization
CONCLUDING QUESTIONS
• TO WHAT EXTENT DOES ASSUMPTION
UNIVERSITY FIT NEWMAN’S MODEL
OF THE CLASSIC UNIVERSITY?
• IS NEWMAN’S MODEL OF THE
UNIVERSITY ADEQUATE FOR THE AGE
OF THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY?
CONCLUDING QUESTIONS
• HOW SHOULD ASSUMPTION
UNIVERSITY CHANGE TO MEET THE
REQUIREMENTS OF THE KNOWLEDGE
ECONOMY?
Thank you
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