ABSTRACT
Thinking about the practice and future of education in general, and higher education in particular, takes place increasingly within the context of a specific vision of our economic and social future. This vision is commonly termed the Information (or Knowledge) Society. This is illustrated by the following comment from Hamish McRae, a respected British economist and economic commentator:
The clarion call for universities to rise to the challenge of providing higher education which is appropriate to the needs of the emerging ‘knowledge economy’ or ‘information society’ can be heard across the globe. The link between higher education and the demand for a growing pool of ‘knowledge workers’ forms the basis for politicians and policy makers to argue for an expansion in the provision of higher education. In this chapter, Garnham critically explores the validity of such widely-promoted assumptions about the need to keep pace with the ‘information revolution’, explaining why he believes this view is predicated on false beliefs. He also warns that such beliefs can act as a smokescreen for more deep-seated conflicts over the role of higher education, such as the attempts to utilize new media primarily to increase productivity in higher education – rather than improve quality.
