Judgement calls in the university

The university has been transformed by competition and consumer values, seen most vividly in the UK. Knowledge and learning are reduced to what can be easily measured, calculated and compared. The impoverished and reductive language that has taken hold affects the way in which we think about education and how we behave and live out our academic lives: it does not allow enquiry of the questions that matter – and which are central to an education that is higher – and that do not go away however much the view is of solving problems and reducing things to a question of economic value.