THE DANGER OF PROFIT-DRIVEN EDUCATION

Nowadays we increasingly observe how Western culture promotes the view that education should enable students to develop skills and acquire knowledge which will help students to succeed in the labor market. In doing so, young people will contribute not only to their own financial profit but also to the improvement of the economy of the country in which they live and work. Certainly, rarely will anyone oppose the idea that education should not enable students to become qualified for the job they will be doing in their future. But is this the primary purpose of education? Already 150 years ago John Henry Newman (1801-1890), in his classical work The Idea of a University, thought about the purpose of education. Authentic education should primarily be focused on the integral formation of a person, and not primarily on the formation of skills for profit making that benefit economy. The problem is when profit becomes more important than a full development of a person and when educational institutions do not criticise such trends but rather support them.

Newman has criticized the philosophy of utility that lies behind the tendencies that narrow the meaningful and profound idea of education. When the concept of education is narrowed, the degradation of the human being can become reality. As Newman writes,

(...) Man is to be usurped by his profession. He is to be clothed in his garb from head to foot. His virtues, his science, and his ideas are all put in a gown or uniform, and the whole man is to be shaped, pressed, and stiffened, in the exact mold of his technical character.

A contemporary influential author who strongly criticizes education that is profit-centered is American philosopher Martha Nussbaum. In her book, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Nussbaum writes about the "silent crisis" in education that is visible in almost all parts of the world. She analyses the narrowing of the concept of education around the globe and states how education is to a large extent profit driven. Students are encouraged to develop skills that are economically most productive, while humanities and arts are neglected and marginalised as economically useless. However, it is not sufficient to invest solely in scientific disciplines such as science, engineering and technology, but also in humanities and arts. Humanities and arts are vital for the comprehensive development of a democratic society. As Gregory R. Maughn comments:

A student who is capable of doing good living can not be able to live well: he or she may be unable to engage in social or political work against injustice or civic improvement, or to engage with the kinds of of existential questions (…).

Moreover, analysis and debates about the fundamental purpose of education are not enough present, and the promotion of profound critical thinking and active use of the powers of the mind are not sufficiently fostered. This may result that educational institutions develop a person who is more like a machine, than as a complete human being. To put it Nussbaum’s words:

Thirsty for national profit, nations, and their systems of education, are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive. If this trend continues, nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person's sufferings and achievements.

What is needed nowadays is that educational institutions encourage formation of a person, that is "a certain type of citizen: active, critical, curious and capable of resisting authority and peer pressure." Nussbaum emphasises that authentic education should develop a person who is not only capable of earning a lot of money, but who is able to live a meaningful life and live well. Such education will motivate and support students to formulate critical thinking, empathy, imagination, especially imagination of various human conditions such as human vulnerability and suffering. The problem with profit driven education is that it neglects valuable aspects about human beings and human lives, and on the long run is not healthy nor for individuals nor for a society.