ABSTRACT
Can the essence of a university education be preserved in post-Fordist times given the inherent tensions between providing flexible access, quality learning experiences and cost-effective distance learning offerings? We engage this question by first outlining the construct of postFordism, followed by a summary of the post-Fordist debate in higher education. We move to describe and connect constructivist learning theory with the post-Fordist framework, including an overview of the industrial, production and process issues that revolve around distance education. This will then be followed with a brief section on constructivist learning theory and its potential role within a post-Fordist era. We conclude that in a post-Fordist framework, distance education can achieve any two of the following: flexible access, quality learning experience and cost effectiveness-but not all three at once. The on-campus university experience has been a prominent face of the Zeitgeist for centuries, with professors being the “visible embodiments of the realised humanity of our aspirations, intelligence, skill, scholarship” (Arrowsmith, Green-Lewis, & Soltan, 2008). The very idea of seeking to restore the interpersonal relationships between professors
and students from the time of Socrates has been perceived by many as the spirit and essence of a university education. The core of this vision, the student-professor interrelationship, first began to show signs of erosion with the age of industrialism, alongside the need for a move to a cost-effective, transmissive mass education.
