Replying to Phillip Capper and LO1559
Phillip,
Credentials are an explicit product of education systems. But I believe
we are in danger of confining our comparisons when we take the business,
or capital, filter and view education only through it.
I for one would never accept the use of one model for the other. When I
think of teachers providing product, or teachers being judged on their
efficacy, I do not think at all about grade inflation. Or grades.
There's something more fundamental which some of use have been toying
with, skirting around and through briefly.
Quality of delivery is essential in provoking learning, supporting
knowledge acquisition. A learning organization in business provides and
supports a place for these activities, among others. This theme is a
difficult one to tackle in business, as scores of postings to this group
have made clear.
Education has turned its eyes away from quality of delivery in some
instances. By this phrase I mean just about everything that can come to
your mind: presence, form, content, measureable efficacy "above and
beyond" grading in the traditional sense.
I can't agree more with you when you say that "These attempts to shoehorn
education into a standardised service delivery model will never be
resolved until we understand what is involved when we are considering a
process where the object whose state we are changing is the customer
him/herself."
Still, I maintain that education is too often a process supported in
"smoke filled back rooms" where measures and measurements are avoided for
fear of running into the teacher's persona, the union's contract,
whatever.
-- Barry Mallis "The world is the closed door. Total Quality Resource Manager It is the barrier. And MARKEM Corporation at the same time it is Keene, NH 03431 the way through." bmallis@markem.com