I continue to wonder whether education, public or private, pre-collegiate or postsecondary, here or there, is a service or a product. And, whether this even matters.
So which is it, service or product? Service because of the process endured during the rendering (or delivery) of that education. On college campuses there are layers and layers of support ‘services’ to enhance students probabilities of success; said services can include mental and health related services, mentoring services, academic support services, student government, as well as retail services such as residence life, or dining, or entertainment…and the list goes on. In the classroom, teachers and professors carefully execute lesson plans and syllabi. While some might be tax payer funded or subsidized and others may be self-funded, without a doubt education is a service!
But how about that diploma or that certificate? That’s the product that many of us work tirelessly or invest countlessly for. The product obtained in secondary school (or high school in the U.S.) is a right of passage to the next step – a little over half in the U.S. choose to make postsecondary institutions their next step. If you do opt for a postsecondary institution, then that next product is that diploma (2 yr or 4 yr, or more) which earns you the next right of passage into graduate school or the workforce.
To my last thought – does this even matter? Yes it does, and it matters for two reasons. First is because we are conditioned to firmly focus on the product at the neglect of the service. The service is the process of learning, learning itself, and all the maturation that occurs. This is essential for becoming lifelong learners (see my last post!). Second, this matters because of the future of the traditional product itself (not the service, and only the traditional product), of the traditional postsecondary product. We often train and confer our products as if the world today is what it was a decade or more ago — it is not. We need multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplined training to prepare our youth for a dynamic and fast target.
So, en mi mente is, service or product?
En Mi Mente: All Things Education 