Dual learning – a challenge for higher education in the new landscape of governance

Abstract

In many countries, practice-oriented programmes have been recast as university programmes, fuelling debate on the purpose of higher education. We highlight two ways of talking about the challenges for higher education we think are already familiar to readers. We label them ‘political-worry discourse’ and ‘academic-worry discourse’. We argue for a third position that gives due recognition to the turn in governance. Professional work today is performed in a new landscape where maintaining the conditions for autonomy and discretionary work is more important than ever. This has implications for the pedagogic focus of higher education institutions. The proposed ‘dual learning’ concept addresses this challenge through educating students about governance and allowing students to position themselves in relation to the governance of their professions. By discussing governance, we contribute to a previously neglected field and support the position that higher education may indeed be the best place to provide professional education.

Keywords:

• governance of professions
• critical thinking
• discretion
• higher education policy
• employability
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank visiting Associate Professor Lena Agevall for sharing her knowledge of governance and management by documents.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest were reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was financed by Kristianstad University and Lund University.