In defence of universities … under fire from left and right

The meritocracy, it's argued, was enabled by Education Acts, implemented in Australia in the nineteenth century. Assessments within this system divide society into exam-passers and exam-failers.

Exam-passers have an entrée into the meritocracy. Parents therefore expend great effort to get children into the right schools and universities, sending them to cram-schools and providing extra-curricular tutoring.

The meritocracy has thus inevitably become linked to money. Everyone does not have the same chance of success, no matter how much hard work they put in. Rather, privilege and money reproduce privilege and money, with the education system as vehicle. The mythical meritocracy provides a smokescreen for reproducing the status quo in terms of the distribution of wealth and power.

Inequality reproduces itself with or without the help of universitiesh3

So, the argument goes, if the meritocracy is a delusion and universities are enabling the delusion, then universities are problematic.

At this stage I want to wave my arms in the air. Isn't the problem the spurious notion of meritocracy rather than universities per se? In which case, isn't that what should be challenged, rather than universities and education?

The power elite has always reproduced itself one way or another. The meritocracy may have superseded the nobility, and might sound more legitimate, but actually promotes unfairness.

The prevailing notions of merit need debunking, but this challenge has to be addressed directly. Defunding universities won't do the job. Inequality would inevitably reinvent itself under some other camouflage.

Rather than undermining universities, shouldn't the focus be on exposing and dismantling the links between the myth of meritocracy and privilege?

Now what?

In sum, the argument against universities, from the right, relies on narrowing their role to conveyor belts for employers and then calling them out when there's a less than perfect fit. The argument from the left is that universities perpetuate inequality under a camouflage of merit. Both arguments can be co-opted to justify funding cuts.

But, neither argument honours the role of universities as centres of creativity, critical analysis, and research. Neither addresses the real issues of developing efficient employment selection processes or dismantling pseudo-meritocracy. Cutting funds to universities will not solve these problems, but will leave us poorer in other ways.