Workplaces are changing. The nature of work is being transformed. This poses a tough question: how do we re-purpose our education and training institutions to meet the challenges of diversification and flexibility? When a picture editor is called on to provide an image for a news item about universities, he or she tends to fall back on one of two options: the picture of the ivy-covered walls of an ancient foundation – there really is nothing like a dome – or the picture of fresh young faces on graduation day in academic robes. Often, the images are combined: graduating students on lawns in front of ivy-covered walls. This is how universities are represented most often in the news.
It creates an image about universities – that they are cut off from their communities, cloistered, facing inwards. It’s an idea of the university which comes from the Middle Ages. The place of universities in our education, innovation and skills system is one we have to shift, and along with it, public perceptions.
