ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the most celebrated philosophical defense of the uniqueness of higher education. The core of Ronald Barnett's case is that there are aims that any institution of higher education worthy of the name must embrace, aims built into our understanding of what higher education is. All students in higher education are to be inducted into discipline-transcending reflection and ultimately into a more adequate self-understanding. There are two types of argument on which Barnett relies to make his case: the first philosophical, the second historical; the former focusing on an analysis of the concept of higher education, the latter on how higher education has developed over time. The chapter discusses the accepted view that school education should ideally, for students judged suitable for it, be followed immediately by a university education. It also argues, more broadly, for a unitary, and less age-related, system of post-compulsory education.