Continuing Education: Market Driven or Student Centered? :: School Education Learning Essays

keep Education Market Driven or Student Centered? unity enduring controversy in chronic preparation is whether plans should be grocery driven. The controversy has some connection with the pervasive image of the marginality of continuing education in higher education as well as the construct that continuing education programs must(prenominal) be self-sustaining. As Edelson (1991) says, This principle of having to concede its own way is the single most distinguishing feature of American continuing education today (p. 19), adding that adult education is the most blatantly market-driven segment of education. At the heart of the controversy is the issue of whether market driven is unavoidably antithetical to the principles and philosophy of adult learning. This publication looks at whether this is a misconception or a reality. The Case against Market Driven According to Beder (1992), successful market-driven programs must have commensurate numbers of voluntary adult learners who are cause to exchange enough of their time and money to yield the clients and fee income unavoidable to operate programs (p. 70). This need to target areas of high demand leads to what Beder sees as the primary quill problems of market-driven systems (1) they perpetuate inequality by neglecting the needs of those less able to redress (2) they may meet individual needs efficiently but not overarching social needs and (3) they often displace educational benefit with return as an overriding goal. Rittenburg (1984) agrees that the demands of the marketplace are not a sufficient foundation for continuing education The nature of aesthetic and ideological products is such that production to meet consumer demand is not an adequate framework (p. 22) because such products have intrinsic value. Controversy over a market preference for adult education programs is not a new issue. Edelson (1991) reviews the history of the hybridization Foundation/Fund for Adult Educations Test Cities P roject (1951-61), which sought to prove that noncredit liberal adult education could and should pay for itself. Over time, this obsession with stinting viability led to the sacrifice of small-group discussion forums to the need for economies of scale and formats that produced higher revenues (such as large lectures). The controversy crosses many fields. In social work, Laufer and Shannon (1993) describe how program quality, which requires long-term investment in lieu of short-term profit, can drop off when programs must pay as they go. They argue that quality should be the arsehole line below the bottom line (p.