The public role of the university reconsidered

Abstract

Today, higher education has become a commodity in the global education market aiming to serve the knowledge society through 'the production, transmission and dissemination of high-quality knowledge' (Simons, 2006, 33). One cannot dispute the economic importance of higher education, but to see the university as performing only this economic function is a misplaced and indefensible idea. In this article I shall argue that the university (its academics and graduates) has a role to play in cultivating democratic action and that this can most appropriately be done by reconsidering its civic role in relation to critical reasoning, social justice and deliberation with others.