CRIS Scientific Seminar 2022-2023

Friday, September 23th 2022, 11:30 am
Sciences Po (1, Place Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin), room K011

The Education Gospel and the Death of Human Capital Theory

Hugh Lauder

Professor, University of Bath

There has been a widely held view that education is central to the development of individual and national prosperity because the 4th Industrial Revolution has heralded the dawn of a knowledge economy. For policy makers the attraction is that the knowledge economy has a near infinite demand for highly educated workers which has led to the development of mass higher education.  In turn, it offers the promise of economic efficiency allied to social justice since all those with the ability and motivation to succeed in education can ascend the credential ladder to gain well paid rewarding jobs. This dominant policy view is known as the Education Gospel.

This Gospel is justified by Human Capital Theory, the orthodox economic bridge between education and the labour market and was identified by Michel Foucault as providing the key tenets of neo-Liberalism. The problem is that this theory is flawed theoretically and empirically, while turning education into the servant of the economy: the result is that it offers students a false prospectus, learning no longer equals earning. A data analysis is provided on graduate returns in the labour market over a forty year period since the inception of the 4th Industrial Revolution. These data do not support human capital theory and hence the Education Gospel.

We, therefore, need to reconsider the role of education and the contribution that graduates can make to society.

Registration is mandatory. Thanks!