ABSTRACT
The contention that higher education should positively contribute to the world of
industry and the ‘needs of society’ is not entirely new (Barnett 1990; Holmes 1995;
Silver and Brennan 1988). What is new is the prominence given to this connection
in the curriculum, and, in particular, the new-found attention to ‘transferable skills’
(Holmes 1995). Although simplistic explanations include ‘major structural changes
in graduate employment patterns’ (Holmes 1995: 21) and employer disappointment
with the level of graduate skills (Otter 1992), a number of commentators have
argued that such a development has to be placed within a broader political and
economic context (Assiter 1995; Barnett 1994; Hyland 1991). Hyland (1991), in
particular, notes the rise of an ‘enterprise ethos in education’, which has resulted in
the need to justify higher educational activities in terms of industrial and economic
rationalities. This in turn has led to an increased commercialisation of education at
all levels and the use of managerialism as a mechanism to provide ‘social legitimation
and moral justification’ for this new ‘educational ethos’ (Hyland 1991: 78). The
contrast with pre-1970s educational liberalism could not be more stark.
