Michelle Selinger asks, "Do we need to do more?" More of what? She throws down yet another challenge from the corporate sector to the universities sector. Selinger calls herself an "escaped academic". She identifies 3 chasms: cultural (cultural), school/university (sectoral), formal/informal learning (personal). Having worked 15 years in the corporate sector for the energy industry, I consider my self a corporate escapee.
To the extent that universities are partners with the corporate sector, they will be interested in "formalising" or otherwise exploiting (colonising) informal learning. What is informal learning? I would argue that universities need to do formal learning and do it well. When formal learning colonises the informal, I suggest the aim is cultural replication in the eye of the coloniser (show me my reflection in your face). Perhaps part of the attrition at T U Eindhoven that Selinger mentions is because some of the learners learn that they want something other than to work with Philips? Transformation happens within bounds of affordances: physical, technical, political, economic and cultural. The link with academic publishers, for instance, is largely sustained by the corporate sector enforcing international IPR regimes. Do international agreements such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services help or hinder educational development in other countries? Should universities only reproduce people inculcated with Cisco's culture? What needs to change? Maybe "we" could let Africa protect its devlopment as "we" have protected ours.
