Role of Universities and

Preparation Towards the

Knowledge Economy

Dr Edilberto C de JesusSecretariat Director

SEAMEO 22 May 2006

Basic Questions

1. What is the role of the University?

2. What are the requirements of the Knowledge Economy?

3. Does the role of the University change with the emergence of the Knowledge Economy?

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

• EXPONENTIAL EXPANSION OF

KNOWLEDGE

• ACCELERATED PACE OF CHANGE

• INCREASED INTENSITY OF

COMPETITION

PRESSURES ON THE UNIVERSITY

• SCOPE OF OFFERINGS

• DEPTH OF COVERAGE

• EXPANSION OF RESOURCE BASE

• DIVERSITY OF STAKEHOLDERS

INCREASE COURSE REQUIREMENTS?

the practical error of the last twenty years-- to load the

memory of the student with a mass of undigested

knowledge, [and] to force upon him so much that he has

rejected all. It has been the error of distracting and

enfeebling the mind by an unmeaning profusion of

subjects; of implying that a smattering in a dozen branches

of study is not shallowness, which it really is, but

enlargement, which it is not;

The Idea of A University

Defined and Illustrated

In nine discourses delivered in 1852 in Dublin

By John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Idea of A University

• A PLACE OF TEACHING UNIVERSAL

KNOWLEDGE

• DEDICATED TO THE DIFFUSION AND

TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE– Objective is not the advancement of

knowledge, not scientific and philosophical discovery

Educational Process

• Acquisition of knowledge

• Development of argumentative powers

• Forming intellectual capacities

ASPIRATION FOR “UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE”

• An assemblage of learned men, zealous for their

own sciences, and rivals of each other, are

brought, by familiar intercourse and for the sake

of intellectual peace, to adjust together the

claims and relations of their respective subjects

of investigation. They learn to respect, to

consult, to aid each other.

• Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought,

which the student also breathes, though in his own case

he only pursues a few sciences . . . . He profits by an

intellectual tradition, which is independent of particular

teachers, which guides him in his choice of subjects, and

duly interprets for him those which he chooses. He

apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the

principles on which it rests, the scale of its parts . . . as

he otherwise cannot apprehend them. Hence it is that his

education is called "Liberal."

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

the true and adequate end of intellectual

training and of a University is not Learning

or Acquirement, but rather, is Thought or

Reason exercised upon Knowledge, or

what may be called Philosophy

GOAL OF “PHILOSOPHY”

A habit of mind is formed which lasts

through life, of which the attributes are,

freedom, equitableness, calmness,

moderation, and wisdom;

PROCESS

To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it,

to enable it to know, and to digest, master,

rule, and use its knowledge, to give it

power over its own faculties,

application, flexibility, method, critical

exactness, sagacity, resource, address,

eloquent expression,

PHILOSOPHY FOR A LIBERAL EDUCATION

This process of training, by which the intellect, instead

of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or

accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or

study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the

perception of its own proper object, and for its own

highest culture, is called Liberal Education; this I

conceive to be the business of a University

Liberal Education, viewed in itself, is

simply the cultivation of the intellect,

as such, and its object is nothing more

or less than intellectual excellence.

• the cultivation of the "understanding," of

a "talent for speculation and original

inquiry," and of "the habit of pushing

things up to their first principles," is a

principal portion of a good or liberal

education.

• the business of a University [is] . . . t

o employ itself in the education of th

e intellect,—just as the work of a Hospi

tal lies in healing the sick or wounded .

. . . It educates the intellect to reason w

ell in all matters, to reach out towards tr

uth, and to grasp it.

as a man in health can do what an

unhealthy man cannot do . . . so in like

manner, general culture of mind is the best

aid to professional and scientific study, and

educated men can do what illiterate cannot;

PRODUCT• the man who has learned to think and to

reason and to compare and to discriminate and to analyze, who has refined his taste, and formed his judgment, and sharpened his mental vision, will not indeed at once be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator, or a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a man of business, or a soldier, or an engineer, or a chemist, or a geologist, or an antiquarian,

• but he will be placed in that state of

intellect in which he can take up any one

of the sciences or callings . . . for which he

has a taste or special talent, with an ease,

a grace, a versatility, and a success, to

which another is a stranger.

SOCIAL DIMENSION"Society itself requires some other contribution from

each individual, besides the particular duties of his

profession. And, if no such liberal intercourse be

established, it is the common failing of human nature, to

be engrossed with petty views and interests, to

underrate the importance of all in which we are not

concerned, and to carry our partial notions into cases

where they are inapplicable, to act, in short, as so many

unconnected units, displacing and repelling one another.

• But the professional character is not the only one

which a person engaged in a profession has to

support. He is not always upon duty. There are

services he owes, which are neither parochial,

nor forensic, nor military, . . . and yet are in no

wise . . . inferior neither in their intrinsic value,

nor their moral import, nor their impression upon

society.

As a friend, as a companion, as a citizen at

large; in the connections of domestic life; in

the improvement and embellishment of his

leisure, he has a sphere of action, . . . in

which if he can show none of the advantages

of an improved understanding, whatever may

be his skill or proficiency in the other, he is no

more than an ill-educated man.

• It is the education which gives a man a

clear conscious view of his own opinions

and judgments, a truth in developing them,

an eloquence in expressing them, and a

force in urging them. It teaches him to see

things as they are, to go right to the point,

to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect

what is sophistical, and to discard what is

irrelevant.

• It prepares him to fill any post with credit,

and to master any subject with facility. It

shows him how to accommodate himself

to others, how to throw himself into their

state of mind, how to bring before them his

own, how to influence them, how to come

to an understanding with them, how to

bear with them.

A University training is the great ordinary means

to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the

intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public

mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying

true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed

aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement

and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating

the exercise of political power, and refining the

intercourse of private life.

MODIFYING NEWMAN

• MULTIPLE PATHWAYS TO

INTELLECTUAL EXCELLENCE

• MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE

ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY:VISION 2000

• International Community of Scholars

• Enlivened by Christian Inspiration

• Engaged in the Pursuit of Truth and Knowledge

• Serving Human Society

ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY GRADUATE

• Healthy, Open-minded, with Personal

Integrity, Independent Mind and Creative

Thinking

• Professionally Competent, Willing to

Exercise Responsible Leadership for

Economic Progress in a Just Society

ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY GRADUATE

• Able to Communicate Effectively, with

People from other Nations and to

Participate in Globalization

CONCLUDING QUESTIONS

• TO WHAT EXTENT DOES ASSUMPTION

UNIVERSITY FIT NEWMAN’S MODEL

OF THE CLASSIC UNIVERSITY?

• IS NEWMAN’S MODEL OF THE

UNIVERSITY ADEQUATE FOR THE AGE

OF THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY?

CONCLUDING QUESTIONS

• HOW SHOULD ASSUMPTION

UNIVERSITY CHANGE TO MEET THE

REQUIREMENTS OF THE KNOWLEDGE

ECONOMY?

Thank you