In praise of ivory towers

Abstract

Mrs Gillian Shepherd, during her tenure as the United Kingdom's Secretary of State responsible for education, announced proposals for a national curriculum for the preparation of teachers - prescribing, for the first time in the United Kingdom, the skills that all teachers should be taught. It seems timely, therefore, to reflect on exactly what is happening to education in general and nursing education in particular in the United Kingdom. The developing climate of opinion (at least from the politician's viewpoint, and perhaps the general public's) is that education should be skills-based - that is, that certain actions and behaviours should be taught that will produce an end product that is 'marketable' and competent to carry out certain 'tasks'. These tasks may be mathematical skills, applying a wound dressing, writing correct English, or any precise measurable activity. The philosophical foundation of this approach is two-fold: (a) with limited resources, it is right to target education towards the vocational needs of an industrial and commercial society improving competitiveness; and (b) that which produces practical end results has more moral worth than pure academic pursuits, no matter how intrinsically valuable they may seem to be.