Pandemic Privatisation in Higher Education: Edtech & University Reform
in. According to market analysts, the opportunity of this model is its ability to provide affordable subscriptions to a diverse customer base. Indeed, we think Course Hero is a clear example of privatisation and commercialisation in which learning has been reduced to individual market exchanges and transactions. This direct-to-student model reflects an assumed future of increasingly ‘remote’ education serving largely ‘nontraditional’ students who cannot attend campus due to work and/or family commitments. Like most services provided during the pandemic, there is optimism within the edtech industry that students will continue to renew their subscriptions after the pandemic, as these tools will have become an essential part of their studying practice. This direct-to-consumer model targets the huge amount of private capital available from positioning learners as customers, and the ways in which learning has become commodified as a private positional good (Verger, Lubienski & SteinerKhamsi, 2016). In this context, students - or at least those who can afford to - use their resources and advantages to vie for private services in the hope it might bring them competitive advantage. Targeting students directly allows commercial players to bypass the regulatory environments of HE institutions that often control access, IP, data privacy and so on.
7. Reimagining credentials Student-consumer edtech paves the way towards new forms of credentialing and certification in HE. Rather than the conventional, university degree model, there are new educational imaginings that claim to better understand what students want, and indeed, what the economy now needs. This has been reflected in recent years by the emergence of ‘digital credentials’ as easily shareable ‘badges’, ‘digital certificates’ and ‘micro-credentials’ offered through online courses either by universities or by industry as part of their ‘education as a benefit’ employee training programs, and which have become a key focus of education and technology organisations such as Pearson.112 Microsoft, for example, recently launched the Global Skills Initiative. The aim of this program is to expand access to digital skills, particularly for those individuals ‘hardest hit’ by COVID-19 job losses, including those with lower incomes, women and underrepresented minorities. Microsoft 112 Pearson Digital Credentials in Higher Education: https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/products-servicesinstitutions/digital-credentials.html
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