Universities like mosquitoes

Universities were set up to address human questions and crises through research and teaching. Around 1120, when the University of Bologna, Europe's first university, was founded, life expectancy was around 40 years; the world's population was about 250 million; governance was based on feudal systems.

Almost nine centuries later, life expectancy in developed countries is over 75; the world's population is 6.3 billion with a projected figure of nine billion in 2050 (US Bureau of Census 2003); information technology and communication have transformed the world into a global village and international charters have established a framework for a legal and moral world order.

Since the Middle Ages, university graduates produced evidence of crises and tentative solutions applicable to a wide array of contexts. Today, the focus is on issues such as uncontrolled population growth, exclusion, maternal and infant mortality, inaccessibility to reproductive health services and primary education, the repercussions from weapons of mass destruction, extreme poverty, gender inequality, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and environmental degradation.

Universities have formed architects, politicians, sociologists, psychologists, educators, historians, medical doctors, scientists, engineers and hundreds of other professional people who have changed the world for better and for worse.

Like mosquitoes, universities should have piercing mouthparts to "pinch" world leaders and decision-makers with invaluable research findings that could improve people's quality of life, preserving social values, and defending freedom and democracy.

However, like mosquitoes, research findings could prove deadly if their source is infected with greed, prejudice, intolerance, xenophobia, abuse, racism, sexism, violence and other ideas associated with suppression, inequality and undignified behaviours. Most Nazi and totalitarian leaders were, in actual fact, the epitome of a depersonalised system of education encompassing many of the above traits.

In their evolutionary process, human beings discovered that learning must be accompanied by teaching if development is to be sustained. In their original form and up to the pre-digital age, universities served as exclusive seats of learning at tertiary level of education. With the advent of the industrial revolution and the onset of information and communication technology, the raison d'être of universities was radically changed.

Today, knowledge is not exclusively the property of universities; neither is teaching at higher education levels; nor are universities the voice of only the ruling class or hubs for the privileged few to empower themselves through knowledge at the expense of others.

Industrialisation and ICT have popularised universities and mass education is now seen as the driving force of development. This change in the purpose of universities brings an enormous paradigm shift in the institutions' ethos... from seats of learning to centres for the design of foreseeable futures.

Hence, in the 21st century universities should be geared towards five major objectives:

¤to instill values that humanise interpersonal, intercultural and international relations;

¤to provide and disseminate knowledge of the highest quality;

¤to impart skills that help an individual's employability;

¤to act as laboratories of the future; and

¤to create, sustain and restore the rapport between leaders and civil society and be instrumental in and responsible towards social cohesion in their immediate cultures.

1. The bitter experiences of wars and the absurd divisions that religions have systematically injected into many cultures must induce universities to take a leading role in harnessing the values of democracy, respect for fundamental freedoms and diversity, the benefits of a free market economy, the transfer of knowledge to war-stricken and poor communities and the importance of sound leadership skills. A tall order indeed! Yet many universities have acted as cradles of civilisations and therefore efforts to spread these values have solid academic foundations.

Universities are there to educate their students and society's function is to regard these values as fundamental tools to safeguard their co-existence. As catalysts of values, universities are there to deconstruct structures of violence and build structures of non-violence. Experience shows that destructive educational practices, when combined with poor governance, economic tensions, social exclusion and threats to cultural and national identity, fuel intolerance, hostility and direct violence. Universities have been the bastions of the humanistic approach to education.

Today, the humanisation of interpersonal, intercultural and international relations can be attained through the meeting of cultures on and beyond the university campus. The Bologna Process of the European Union for instance, is one of the major steps that European universities have undertaken to ensure a fair playing field in the rewarding of degrees and beyond that, the understanding that relations between cultures and modes of living are based on equity and mutual respect. It is within this spirit of unity in diversity that universities must stand and be counted. Their role is to humanise society within and beyond legality.

2. Universities should be guardians of quality research, teaching and experimentation. Today, many universities have quality assurance mechanisms in place. Universities must ensure that these policies are enforced not only to safeguard quality of all academic and non-academic structures, but also to lead by example. Unless such structures are constantly under scrutiny, universities run the risk of transforming themselves into museums of knowledge rather than becoming pro-active agents of change.

Old and prestigious universities have built their reputation on quality; on reputations rooted in professional commitment towards knowledge and its recipients. Today universities are fully aware that only the quality of their academic, physical and organisational structures as well as their entrepreneurial policies will make them competitive.

At a time when students' mobility is constantly encouraged and supported, universities can only compete if the overall quality of their degrees and accreditation systems is credible, cost-effective and relevant. Their competitive edge is intra-university, inter-university and with other providers of higher education. Similar to business concerns, universities have no other option but to run themselves efficiently, giving students and staff, study and job satisfaction. The university is not just an institution for students and lecturing staff. It encompasses a wide spectrum of jobs. Therefore it must reflect the ethos of the values that it represents, from the food served in the canteen to the quality of its publications.

3. Employability and unemployment have often been associated with the university's adequacy or inadequacy to impart knowledge and skills relevant to socio-economic and cultural contexts. In today's unorthodox knowledge society, universities are there to guarantee relevancy of knowledge to employability. Such a task necessitates closer ties with industry and the world of work. It may also imply that learning is backed by practical work in the community or in industry either independently or in conjunction with vocational colleges.

Departing from the notion that universities are no longer exclusive seats of learning but centres for the design of foreseeable futures, the relationship between study and work is gaining renewed ground on students and their future employers. Unified higher education systems, in which universities and vocational colleges fine-tune each other, have had a positive impact in various European countries.

Students of higher education should be encouraged to migrate from and to universities and vocational colleges to obtain a more holistic preparation for the world of work. Preparing students for a world that does not exist has led to unemployability. In this connection, the secret of success lies in empowering students with theoretical frameworks and hands-on practical skills as applied to defined workplace contexts.

4. Through research findings, universities are barometers of future trends and perspectives. Today, universities have a more meaningful role to play: that of simulating foreseeable and sustainable futures. By being laboratories of the future, universities create learning environments in which young and mature students design possible 'futures' and work together to pilot such 'futures'.

Many universities, such as those in Hong Kong and North Carolina, have already embarked on this mission. More space in university programmes should be allocated to simulating 'futures' in the local community, in tandem with other national and international bodies, particularly in industry and in governmental structures. Unless lecturers and students put research into practice, nobody else will! They are the makers of their own creations. They must market universities as laboratories that successfully experiment with 'futures' that can or cannot work. Like prophets, they must predict the future but, similarly, they must also seek to fulfil their prophecies. In turn, they will augment their credibility.

5. The role of creating, sustaining and restoring the rapport between political leaders and civil society is very significant at a time when leaders in the western world are becoming rare and far apart. Universities, in their mission to promote foreseeable futures, can ensure that capable and conscientious leaders are formed. If universities aim at achieving leadership in the quality of applied knowledge, they should also regard leadership skills as part and parcel of every programme of studies.

Echoing the UN's Commission on Global Governance, one is aware that "the world faces the need for enlightened responses to the challenges that arise on the eve of the new century... (and the concern) at the lack of leadership over a wide spectrum of human affairs". (1995)

Political, social, economic and cultural leaders may make or break the vulnerable structures that can bring equality, social cohesion, justice, employability and peace of mind.

Universities are indeed in a 'pole position' to win the treacherous race between justice and injustice, affluence and poverty, peace and war, violence and non-violence, joy and fear, happiness and pain, health and sickness, employment and unemployment, life and death. Universities can empower promising individuals with leadership skills based on the safeguarding of human dignity.

Universities are by tradition leaders in the acquisition of knowledge. Civil society now requires universities to produce leaders in every sector of society and, in conjunction with vocational colleges and other higher education institutions, a workforce capable of meeting the challenges of competition, productivity and the inevitable process of globalisation.

Universities are there to create think-tanks fuelling constructive development from the top to the lowest levels of society and vice-versa. It is in the interest of higher education that universities provide civil society with graduates who can help increase productivity, diversify economic policies, grasp opportunities offered by ICT, foster co-operation on a global level, eliminate all manifestations of intolerance, protect the natural and cultural heritage, and employ identity as an enriching aspect of development.

It is perhaps apposite that in the wake of an era empowered by keyboards and mobile communication, universities search for a dynamic role that ICT cannot provide. With an experience of almost a thousand years, universities have the advantage of an extensive repertoire of knowledge and a network of resources unparallelled in human history.

Today, with the shift from elite to mass education systems, universities must preserve valuable, acquired experiences; forging the necessary balance between tradition and innovation to build futures on humane pasts; and re-adjust knowledge to better serve humanity in its quest for longevity, dignity and more refined international, legal and moral systems of knowledge and behaviours.

No matter how big or small universities are, they are there to meet these challenges.

Like many mosquitoes, universities by their very nature can make a difference! They are there to provoke change, prodding decision-makers into taking action; and they are there to annoy, irritate and alert complacent societies into waking up from their slumbers and to work towards desirable 'futures'.

Knowing how difficult it is trying to sleep in a room invaded by a mosquito makes one marvel at the capacity of relentless provocation this tiny insect possesses! Just like the African proverb, "if you ever thought you were too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito", then every university, like nearly every mosquito, must be a constant agent-provocateur for all time!

Dr Calleja is Malta's representative on the EU Socrates Sub-Committee of Higher Education.