Are you seriously suggesting that direct immersion in the field itself would not necessitate extensive documentation and critical thinking?
I am suggesting that if we are going to begin an argument by viewing universities as trade schools--such an assumption ignores the possibility that education may be an end in itself, but for the sake of rebuttal let's assume that--then we should want to know that they should be trained appropriately. I would prefer to hire an employee who had the training necessary to perform the job, rather than providing extensive training. Of course some specific training will always be necessary, but I would not want to have to provide, from scratch, the equivalent of the set of skills that a student learns during a four-year university program.
Are we to base education policy on the desire for 'relevance' on the part of administers with a vested interest in maintaining our current circuitous system?
If they are funded by the tuition money then they will compete with other universities. (This of course assumes that the formal post-secondary education is a desirable commodity.) These decisions are, ideally, made by consortium. I had not imagined administrators giving orders to faculty. Rather, accrediting agencies working with educators devise standards which are used as benchmarks.
