The perspectives on post-secondary education have followed two broad trajectories. First trajectory has looked at post-secondary education as a livelihood enhancing capability, as any economy moves towards a greater share of service sector. In this sense, knowledge economy requires ‘knowledge labourers’.

The second trajectory on post-secondary education is rooted in the framework of life-long learning; it looks at learning new knowledge as part of being in and contributing to a knowledge society. In knowledge society, we share a ‘knowledge commons ‘which is collective pool of ideas, innovations, wisdom and theories evolved throughout humanity.

These two perspectives lead to different emphases in the design of policies and institutions that promote post-secondary education. The former approach makescompetition as the basis for entrance into educational institutions. That’s why most students spend long hours and much money to attend various ‘preparatory’ courses,institutions and tuitions during and after secondary education. Millions of such ‘preparatory schools’ have sprung up to feed the demand. The quality of these ‘preparatory schools’ remains uneven, and there is no mechanism to ensure any regulation, other than the market itself. It was, therefore, heartening to note that hundreds of students going to such a coaching centre in Patna (India) protested vehemantly against poor quality ofteaching there.

In the second perspective, education, and therefore research, could become relevant to society at large. Selection of research topics and learning from field projects may be embedded in specific questions on which ‘new’ knowledge may be needed. In this manner, in the province of British Columbia, in Canada, various ministries and government departments share policy-relevant research questions with institutions of post-secondary education, and then provide scholarships to those students who agree to study them as part of their post-secondary education.

Many other such practical manifestations of these two differing trajectories can be mentioned. The key question is how to integrate livelihood-orientation with the perspectives of life-long learning. In the knowledge society, learning throughout life is invited; in the knowledge economy, learning again and again is necessary.

Do we have examples where the requirements of knowledge economy and the expectations of knowledge society been integrated organically?

Rajesh Tandon