EDITORIAL — Training and technology not dirty words — Intellectual elitism

Bill Graham, president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), believes students are humanized by understanding philosophy, ancient history, or paintings on ancient Greek vases. Unfortunately, he says, “Corporate Canada” has launched a stealthy and insidious attack on higher learning, which, if left unchecked, will create a society of robots unable to make and pass judgments on social and political events.

University education is “under siege,” Graham says, because funding is being repeatedly cut from the humanities and social sciences and being “thrown” at high-tech courses. The ever-vigilant educator recently fended off an attempt by the government of British Columbia to create a technical university. CAUT organized a boycott and fought hard to have the idea scrapped, in part because the institution of “higher training” did not offer tenure for faculty. No matter that high-tech jobs are going begging, while graduates of Greek history and women’s studies wait tables in restaurants.

“This isn’t a university,” Graham sniffed in an interview with The Toronto Star, “it’s a training school of some sort.”

In the next breath, Graham bemoaned the fact that Ontario had announced $150 million for the education of 51,000 more electrical and computer-engineering students, while resources for philosophy were reduced. He also complained that faculties were having their powers “eroded” because universities are being pressured to incorporate “performance indicators” and pay heed to “market forces.”

Who’s to blame for all this? Why, the usual suspects, of course. The Fraser Institute, the Business Council on National Issues and the National Citizens Coalition are all portrayed as Dickensian purveyors of self-interest scheming to keep the masses out of universities and chained to the minimum-wage workbench.

It’s all rubbish, of course. A quick flip through the career pages of any major newspaper shows that corporations are desperately seeking workers with “higher training,” and willing to pay a good buck for them. Yet, at the same time, we have unemployed young people loitering in malls because the education system has failed them; literally and figuratively.

For too long, educators have focused on university-bound students at the expense of those with a more practical bent. They failed to see that some students want to be trained more about how things work and educated less about ancient wars and literature. They want an education relevant to them; not some bureaucrat stuck in a time and class warp.

Sadly, ivory-towered educators have devalued an entire generation of young people — males, in particular — who may have little interest in Shakespeare or ancient Greek vases, yet are fascinated by schematics and components and the underlying form of things. “Corporate Canada” is doing more to restore their dignity and lure them back to the classroom than our educators, who have become too politicized and resistant to change to be relevant.

It is unfortunate that many educators have an intellectual bias that blinds them to the artistry and innovation driving modern technology. These people fail to see the complex decision-making that goes into the design and assembly of motors, computers and sophisticated electronics. They fail to understand that self-esteem comes from learning to do something — anything — well.

It is insulting to suggest that “trained” workers have no ability to think critically, or to appreciate the arts. The computer and the Internet make it possible for anyone to pursue cultural and intellectual interests, without the baggage of some professor’s political agenda.

Perhaps the biggest joke of all is the notion that “higher training” will somehow lobotomize young people. Let’s look at universities, where, more often than not, the exchange of ideas is stifled by a repressive fringe of politically correct idealogues. These petty tyrants are left unchallenged to rewrite history and police language; rather than find solutions, they simply foster the culture of complaint and blame the “corporate agenda” for the world’s ills.