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Liberal Education, Winter 2003
Why Developing Countries Should Not Neglect
Liberal Education
David E. Bloom and Henry Rosovsky1 |
Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from
every condition of life, and completely prepared by education
for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public
trusts….
(Thomas Jefferson, addressing the benefits to society
of a liberal education, in an 1813 letter to John Adams)
Introduction
Western civilization is home to a long tradition of liberal
education, defined as an emphasis on the whole development
of an individual apart from (narrower) occupational training.
The beginnings of this philosophy can perhaps be traced back
as far as ancient Greece and more clearly to the trivium (grammar,
rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music) of medieval times. That tradition has
continued, and today liberal education is an important segment
of higher education in all developed countries. Its role in
nurturing leaders and informed citizens is recognized in both
the public and private sectors. Global statistics are difficult
to obtain, but our impression is that interest in liberal
education is growing in many parts of the West.
The contrast with developing countries is stark. Especially
since many of these countries achieved independence after
World War II, liberal education has come to be viewed as a
luxury and not a necessity. This is reflected in the curricula
of both secondary and higher education, where vocational training
is frequently favored. Liberal education has been shunned
by governments as elitist, emblematic of the values of hated
Western colonialism, and too expensive. Very recently there
have been a few signs that these attitudes are changing, but
recognition of the benefits of liberal or general education
remains far from common.
We will argue that liberal education should play a vital
role in the colleges and universities of the developing world--in
undergraduate as well as graduate-professional studies. What
follows represents our speculations based on research and
observation in many different countries. Of course, we must
recognize that each country is, to some extent, a special
case, and that offering proof for all that we advocate is
not possible. We believe, however, that our conjectures are
backed by history and logic.
Liberal education in developing countries
As cited in the recent report of the Task Force on Higher
Education and Society (2000), which explores the current state
and future of higher education in developing countries, a
liberally educated person is described as someone who2:
- can think and write clearly, effectively, and critically,
and who can communicate with precision, cogency, and force;
- has a critical appreciation of the ways in which we gain
knowledge and understanding of the universe, of society,
and of ourselves;
- has a broad knowledge of other cultures and other times,
and is able to make decisions based on reference to the
wider world and to the historical forces that have shaped
it;
- has some understanding of and experience in thinking
systematically about moral and ethical problems; and
- has achieved depth in some field of knowledge.
In developing countries, persons with these qualities have
traditionally tended to come from wealthy elites. This has
become less true in the West as liberal education has expanded
beyond a few selective institutions. In the United States,
for example, the annual number and percentage of university
graduates with liberal education degrees diminished and then
increased again during the last 30 years.3
In some developing countries, the manpower needs of rapid
industrialization have helped slow the spread of liberal education.
Instead of giving its students a broad, general education,
the Soviet higher education system focused heavily on vocational
and other specialized training. With the rapid growth of Soviet
industry beginning in the 1930s, this vocational model subsequently
spread first to its non-Russian republics and satellite states,
and then further afield. Echoing observations that could apply
to many developing and transition countries, the political
philosopher Irakly Areshidze (1999) has described what happened
under the Soviet system in Georgia:
Upon acceptance [at University], for the next five years
students would pursue an education focused on giving them
[a] specific, limited set of vocational knowledge in their
given field. Students would memorize information from textbooks
and be lectured at by the Professors. Students would seldom
engage in analytical, critical thinking, class discussion
and writing.
In many developing countries, this lack of critical thinking
might often have been viewed favorably by those in power.
As Lao-Tzu said in The Way of Lao-tzu over 2,500
years ago, “People are difficult to govern because they
have too much knowledge.” Many post-colonial dictators
have, for the sake of their own survival, understandably been
keener to invest in vocational education than in liberal education.
Donor policy has abetted this focus on vocational training.
Organizations such as the World Bank have traditionally promoted
infrastructure and strong institutions as keys to development.
These require skilled workers. Building physical and transport
infrastructure requires engineers; setting up a strong financial
system requires bankers and accountants; and establishing
a health system requires personnel trained in modern medicine.
It is not surprising, therefore, that higher education systems
in many developing countries have been geared toward early
specialization aimed at producing “job-ready”
graduates.
There are other important reasons why families may prefer
to send their children to schools that emphasize specialized
job skills. Investment in university education, both in terms
of direct and opportunity costs, is a major financial undertaking
for the majority of poor-country families. Although tuition
may be free or heavily subsidized, books and living expenses
have to be paid for, and sending a child to college when he
or she could be earning money for the family can be a tremendous
sacrifice. A desire for a quick return on investment is therefore
understandable, and professional courses are often seen as
providing a faster and more certain return than liberal education.
The need for liberal education
By teaching students how to think rather than what to think,
and how to learn rather than what to learn, a liberal education
produces graduates who are better able to adapt and respond
to the demands of a fast-changing economic and social environment.
But in a rush to respond to a rapidly changing world, it is
easy to overlook long-term objectives. The view that engineers
should learn solely the technical aspects of their trade,
for example, neglects the social and environmental impacts
of their work. Skills in road design and maintenance are clearly
essential for all countries, but if planners and policy-makers
do not recognize and take account of the views of local populations,
negative social impacts of a project may outweigh, and eventually
threaten, the positive economic outcomes. As another example,
genetically modified (GM) foods are creating an enormous and
increasingly urgent need for a new body of technical expertise
in developing countries. Such expertise is needed if these
countries are to take advantage of the benefits of such foods
(e.g., nutritional, health, cost), while seeking to minimize
the risks (e.g., new invasive species; new plant, animal,
and human diseases with no known cure; and greater agricultural
dependency on developed-country seed providers). GM foods
also raise many complex issues that go beyond science, including
matters related to ethics, public regulation, business practice,
community life, globalization, and world governance. It is
hard to imagine countries addressing these and similar issues
effectively without the leadership, or at least the aid, of
individuals with a strong liberal education.
Many of the benefits of a liberal education are tangible
in the form of higher incomes and accrue predominantly to
the individuals who receive the education. But there are also
intangible benefits, many of which are enjoyed by other members
of society. Although it is difficult to offer decisive evidence,
we can think of six main channels through which society may
be expected to benefit from liberal education programs. Naturally,
their applicability and importance will vary from country
to country. All forms of higher education create national
benefits but liberal education creates a particular set of
benefits through the channels delineated below.
The first channel is economic. We think that business
leaders are more likely to innovate when they have been stimulated
by the broad range of studies that typically comprise liberal
education. For developing economies, such innovation can mean
moving into new, more productive fields, and adapting technologies
developed elsewhere to create new jobs, and reduce poverty
at home. Liberal education, which encourages people to question
and challenge conventional thinking and practices, can be
an important catalyst for increasing an economy's fluidity.
In addition, as Thomas Jefferson observed, liberal education
can raise the value placed by a society on merit, as opposed
to status or wealth at birth. In many developing countries,
nepotism has hampered economic development.
The second channel is the impact on
policy-making. There is no standard recipe for reaching
development goals, but much of the evidence we have suggests
that good governance, good macroeconomic management, attention
to education and health, and integration into the world economy
are useful ingredients. All of these instruments of development
(some of which--like health and education--are goals in themselves)
require both generalist as well as specialist knowledge and
skills.
The impact of liberal education on political participation
is a third possible source of public benefit. Strong
leaders help move countries forward, but an informed and engaged
citizenry can often serve as a necessary and constructive
counterbalance to the power of leaders. Representative democracy,
which has contributed powerfully to long-run economic and
social development in the West, depends crucially on having
a critical mass of citizens who are well informed and able
to assimilate and work with complex ideas. By spreading knowledge
and increasing debate, broadening liberal education away from
elite groups will tend to lead to a more involved citizenry.
The fourth channel is the effect on the cohesion
of societies. By exposing students to a wide range of
differing views and encouraging them to make connections across
different disciplines and cultures, we would hope that liberal
education promotes tolerance and understanding of others.
Liberal education can also foster a sense of community and
of working together to achieve goals. And by broadening and
deepening knowledge of history, the arts, and the sciences,
it nurtures both pride in one's own culture and respect for
others. Liberal education can therefore have a strong influence
on public spirit, which developing and developed countries
alike require if their societies are to work together to solve
problems and seize opportunities.
The fifth channel by which liberal education
benefits society stems from the possibility of reducing brain
drain. Students who have an opportunity to receive a
well-designed, broad-based education in their own countries
are more likely to pursue their studies at home and avoid
the cost of going abroad. This may confer an added benefit
on women, whose families may be reluctant to let them study
overseas. Similarly, those students who do study in other
countries are more likely to return home, knowing that they
will find a stimulating environment. A related benefit derives
from the fact that a liberal education promotes a culture
of lifelong learning, which abets the development of a vibrant
intellectual culture and encourages professionals trained
in other countries to work in their own country, for that
country's benefit.
The final channel relates to globalization.
We believe that liberal education promotes cohesion not just
within, but also among, societies. Studying the world's religions,
for example, can help students see the connections between
them at the same time as understanding and valuing the differences.
Literature, history, and language shed light on a country's
past and present ways of thinking. In an increasingly interconnected
world, empathy with other cultures can encourage both peaceful
relations and productive business and cultural interaction.
Globalization is also changing the economic climate. Trade
between countries enables many economies to move into new
areas. Successful economic development is generally accompanied
by a move up the industrial value chain. Training in a specific
area of expertise, therefore, quickly becomes obsolete, and
as individuals' careers become more varied, more flexible
skills, as well as the ability to quickly learn new skills,
are required. Rapidly developing technology exacerbates this
requirement as the machines of the future will bear little
resemblance to the machines of the past. Knowledge has become
a core competitive advantage for both individuals and economies,
and the generalist skills nurtured by liberal education appear
poised to grow in value relative to more specialist abilities.
New ways of working are accompanying the trend towards global
integration. The increasing quantity of knowledge means that,
as Michael Gibbons (1998) has argued, “no matter where
one is, more than 99 per cent of the knowledge needed lies
elsewhere.” New connections must therefore be developed,
across disciplines and across cultures. Networks of expertise,
which “bubble up like molasses on the stove” as
intellectual resources shift from “area to area, problem
to problem, grouping to grouping,” are likely to propel
economies forward. This kind of thinking and working is a
key feature of a good liberal education, which encourages
students to make connections across disciplines and draw on
others' ideas, while working together to advance learning
and tackle problems.
We understand that the connection between social and private
benefits ascribed to these channels is a mixture of hope and
reality. Opportunities can remain unexploited, and excellent
education alone cannot prevent all manner of bad outcomes.
(Nazi Germany is an obvious example of bad outcomes arising
despite a world-famous national system of schools.) Nevertheless,
the channels do reflect what is possible and what has happened
in different societies as they have moved from poverty to
greater well-being.
Developing a liberal education
Several important questions face those attempting to design
a liberal education program in developing countries.
The first question is what to teach. Liberal education in
the West has evolved over time to a broad-based menu, which
takes in history, politics, literature, languages, and the
physical and biological sciences. Developing countries have
the opportunity to learn from the experience of the West,
but they also need to take into account their own economic,
social, and political environment. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee (BRAC) has recently established a university that
offers a liberal education and that aims to reflect the needs
and aspirations of Bangladeshi society by producing graduates
who will work to alleviate poverty and to overcome the country's
severe problems in the areas of health care, education, and
employment. The report of the Task Force on Higher Education
and Society (2000, 85) summarizes their strategy for designing
a liberal education curriculum as follows:
BRAC started with a significant program of research among
potential employers, students and parents, as well as successful
local universities. BRAC wanted to … ensure not only
financial viability through good initial enrollment rates,
[but also] that the university's graduate stream would prove
attractive to prospective local employers; this, in turn,
would link back to maintaining enrollment on an ongoing
basis.
BRAC's research found that employers were seeking graduates
with analytical abilities and skills in writing, use of the
English language, and communication. The ability to think
independently and take the initiative on tasks was also highly
valued. BRAC realized that the involvement of key local stakeholders
in the curriculum design process is perhaps the best way to
maximize its benefits to society. Consistent with the type
of liberal education we are espousing, undergraduates at BRAC
are required to pursue a diverse set of topics, including
a substantial number of courses outside of their main focus
area.
The content of liberal education curricula will naturally
vary across countries. Each country will need to take lessons
learned elsewhere and adapt them to its own needs. For example,
while South Africa, where English is widely spoken, may not
need the same language courses as Korea, it may need to focus
particularly on the country's need to build strong institutions.
Accordingly, subjects like law, philosophy, economics, and
politics might be relatively more important. Designing a liberal
education program offers the opportunity to ask fundamental
questions about what matters to a particular society. It offers
the opportunity to focus on a country's history, its culture,
and its values. Doing this will help energize the whole higher
education system--and, in time, may change the way a society
thinks about itself.
Having determined what to teach, educators next need to
decide how to teach. The rote-learning-passive-learner model
that typifies so many institutions of higher education in
developing countries makes this a particularly important issue.
New teaching methods that require students to take a more
active role fit well with the more collaborative ways of working
that an increasingly knowledge-based society requires. A well-delivered
liberal education can give graduates a head start in developing
the necessary skills in working with others to address problems
and create solutions.
Finding faculty who can take part in interactive learning
is, in fact, a major obstacle to the development of liberal
education in the developing world, because the tradition of
"intentional learning" is so weak.4
The needed reforms will only take place if the political
aspects are realistically taken into account. Policymakers
and stakeholders alike must acknowledge that while the technical
and narrowly pedagogical aspects of such reform are important,
they are only a part of the story. A wide range of interested
parties--from students to parents to educators of all levels,
from business to donors--have contributions to make, and if
any group feels ignored, the success of the reform may be
jeopardized.
The third question facing curriculum designers is how to
make students aware of liberal education's merits. At present,
as we have seen, specialized training often has a stronger
lure than more general subjects. Enlisting employers in promoting
liberal education is critical. The National University of
Singapore, for example, has launched a new liberal education
curriculum for some of its undergraduates, with the ambitious
goal that those students will be comparable to those of more-established
universities in wealthy countries (www.nus.edu.sg). This effort
has the support of local companies, whose pronouncements about
the course's value are likely to have a strong effect on parents
and students alike (Task Force, 90). The availability of a
liberal education curriculum by itself is unlikely to stem
the tide of technical training. Concerted efforts are therefore
needed to raise awareness of its importance for both individuals
and society.
Access is the final major issue to address. Because of its
breadth and typically low student-teacher ratios, liberal
education tends to be expensive relative to specialized professional
training, and therefore not all students in poorer countries
can be offered a full course of liberal education.5
Those universities with established traditions in the field
will be able to provide the more intensive programs, but in
order for liberal education to contribute more fully to society,
expansion beyond elite groups is critical. Pakistan's private
Aga Khan University (AKU) uses some of its endowment to fund
scholarships to extend its fledgling liberal arts and sciences
course beyond wealthy groups.6
Although it is difficult to generalize about this topic
because systems of professional education vary so widely,
establishing general education as a component of technical
and professional courses is one promising way of expanding
access. This would help broaden the learning of specialists
and give them a better background to cope with changes in
social and economic conditions. Promoting liberal education
in professional courses would also help such students incorporate
broader societal goals into their interactions with a wide
range of people in their countries. Students could be given
liberal arts education for a year before moving on to their
core course; alternatively, the two could run concurrently.
Consistent with this goal, the AKU states (www.aku.edu) that
graduates from its medical school should be able to "provide
leadership in issues concerning society."
Most developing countries will find it neither possible
nor necessary to give all its college and university students
a liberal education. Indeed, not all, or even most, students
need to have a generalist background. Constructing a system
of higher education in which various types of institutions
serve distinct purposes will be essential for developing countries,
and some institutions will, inevitably, offer very little
in the way of liberal education. (This applies as well in
developed countries.) But increasing the number of students
with the option of at least a basic grounding in liberal education
will help shed the elitist label and strengthen the national
stock of human capital. As the Peril and Promise report (Task
Force, 87) suggests, higher education institutions “must
become more tolerant at points of entry . . . ensuring that
those who have not had a broad secondary education have the
chance to catch up and fulfill their potential.” In
this spirit, AKU's liberal arts program is considering the
possibility of bridging courses to help secondary school students
from poorer backgrounds and from neighboring countries to
transcend the gap.
Conclusion
In implementing a liberal education program, policy-makers
and educators currently face several challenges. As well as
designing courses and making them fit society's needs, promotion
of the benefits of liberal education will be needed along
with efforts to attract students from beyond the traditional
target audience.
These efforts promise to be extremely worthwhile. In the
past, liberal education has been regarded by many developing-world
policy-makers as a luxury, and only meant for the rich. Today,
it is a much more a necessity. Leaders with the vision to
look beyond the short-term economic benefits of a highly specialized
technical education have the opportunity to make significant
long-term contributions to their countries' development.
David E. Bloom is Clarence James Gamble
Professor of Economics and Demography at the Harvard School
of Public Health, and Henry Rosovsky is Geyser University
Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences at Harvard University.1
Notes
1. Larry Rosenberg and Mark Weston provided helpful comments
and assistance.
2. Participants at a seminar of the British Council held
in Bath, UK, in March 2002, noted that raising the question
“What makes an educated person?” could in itself
“be a potential catalyst for wider curricular reform.”
The full report of the seminar is at www.tfhe.net/seminar/report_of_the_seminar.htm.
3. As to the current situation, Carol M. Baker, in “Liberal
Education for a Global Society” (a 2000 Carnegie Corporation
of New York report) says, “In 1995, 40 percent of the
degrees granted were in the liberal arts. And the number of
liberal arts undergraduate degrees reached an all-time high
of 466,000.” The report is available at www.carnegie.org/sub/pubs/libarts.pdf.
4. A new report by the Association of American Colleges
and Universities points out the importance of “intentional”
learning—that students who learn with a purpose, learn
more and are much better prepared to use what they have learned
for the betterment of society. See Greater Expectations:
A New vision of Learning as a Nation Goes to College,
available at www.greaterexpectations.org. In referring to
the U.S. situation, the report states: “The best undergraduate
education for the twenty-first century will be based on a
liberal education that produces an individual who is intentional
about learning and life, empowered, informed, and responsible.”
5. The emerging view in the United States is different.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities says
that liberal education should be available to all students.
See www.greaterexpectations.org.
6. Aga Khan University (1994). The Future of the Aga Khan
University: Evolution of a Vision. Report of the Chancellor's
Commission. Available at www.akunet.org/aku.
Works Cited
Areshidze, Ivakly. 1999. Liberal education and self-government
in Georgia.
www.psigeorgia.org
Gibbons, Michael. 1998. Speech delivered at World Conference
in Higher Education. Paris:UNESCO, 5-9 October.
Task Force on Higher Education and Society. 2000. Higher
education in developing countries: Peril and promise.
Washington, DC: World Bank/UNESCO
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