The commodification of knowledge and emphasis on rankings undermine the true purpose of education By Prof.Kalyan Kumar Sahoo, Ph.D.
[Bhubaneswar, Odisha], [Friday, 4, 2024] – The rise of metrics-driven education has transformed learning into a market commodity, prioritizing efficiency and productivity over equity, accessibility, and well-being. This paradigm shift has far-reaching implications, neglecting marginalized groups and individuals, fostering competition over collaboration, and narrowing curriculum and teaching methods. The shift towards a metrics-focused system in education has raised concerns that it:
- Commodifies knowledge: Education is seen as a product to be bought and sold, rather than a fundamental right.
- Prioritizes efficiency over equity: Emphasis on metrics can lead to neglect of marginalized groups and individuals who may not fit traditional measurement criteria.
- Fosters competition over collaboration: Schools and educators focus on outperforming others, rather than working together for collective improvement.
- Narrows curriculum and teaching methods: Standardized testing and metrics-driven assessments can lead to teaching to the test, rather than promoting creativity and critical thinking.
- Undermines teacher autonomy and professionalism: Educators are constrained by rigid evaluation frameworks, limiting their ability to adapt to diverse student needs.
- Creates unnecessary stress and anxiety: Students are pressured to perform well on tests, potentially harming their mental health and well-being.
- Overlooks non-academic benefits: Metrics-focused systems often disregard essential aspects of education, such as socialization, emotional intelligence, and personal growth.
- Fails to address systemic inequalities: Metrics can mask underlying issues like resource disparities, socio-economic gaps, and lack of access to quality education.
Impact on HEIs : Higher Educational Institutions serve a dual purpose: cultivating future citizens through teaching and mentoring, and advancing knowledge through research. Ranking systems oversimplify this complexity, ignoring of multifaceted nature of institutional excellence, socioeconomic impacts and diversity of university contributions.
Expert Insights: Ranking systems attempt to capture the essence of education with a single metric, ignoring the richness and diversity of university contributions. The marketing approach of universities prioritizes ranking agencies over students, faculty members, and key stakeholders.
Call to Action: To rebalance education, we must recognize value based education as a fundamental right, prioritize equity, accessibility, and well-being, foster collaboration and creativity, support teacher autonomy and professionalism, and emphasize holistic development.
