Qualifications and Learning

“The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.


In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future.

The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”

Eric Hoffer 1902 – 1983

(From ‘Wikiquotes.)

Eric Hoffer was an American writer of social and political philosophy. He worked as a longshoreman until his retirement in 1965 in spite of the success and popularity of his writings.

So he never gave up his day job!

So why have I given you this quote? Especially that last bit?

Because, this time, I want to speak to you about expertise and knowledge; an explanation of what he meant, in part, by that last sentence is in order.

When you go to a university and take your degree course—it doesn’t matter what it is or, even, whether you are doing a Bachelor’s or a Master’s, etc., The course was written long before you took it.

Someone, in some education ministry somewhere had a peek at what industry needs and what the ‘latest things’ in those industries are currently being fed into the industrial system.

Following this, somebody composed a syllabus from which the university designed a course to suit that syllabus. This would take several years to write in order to cover a new three to four year course.

You then go to the university and study for three, or four, years following which you will take ‘The Final’ (hurraaah!) examinations and, one hopes, emerge from the campus clutching your coveted award—the piece of paper that says you passed the course.

In the meantime ‘Industry’ has moved on six or seven years. In subjects like computing and aviation that period could represent a lifetime of development. Neither of these core subjects stands still for very long.

You are now “highly qualified for a world that no longer exists”.

Immediately.

Let me take a slightly different tack.

You go to a ‘Driving School’. The instructors at the driving school will, more often than not, teach you how to operate a vehicle. They will also teach you how to pass a driving test.

At no point will they spend very much time teaching you how to drive.

Driving is a skill—an art.

Once you get your license (hurraaah!) it is up to you to develop those skills and that art. But, sadly, people believe that, now they have their license, they no longer need to learn.

Thus it is with any qualification. It matters not if it is a certificate or a diploma, a degree or a Ph.D.

The course is only preparation for a life after passing the exam. The answer to success is not having a qualification but by being dedicated and flexible.

The World famous cellist, Pablo Casals, was asked on his 90^th birthday why he still practiced. He replied, “Because I think I'm making progress.”