Theology and the Outcomes-Based Curriculum: the Value of ‘Not Knowing’

Abstract

In 2003, the then Minister for Education, Charles Clarke, is reported to have dismissed learning for learning’s sake as ‘a bit dodgy’ and described scholars working in the humanities as ‘ornamental’ and ‘an adornment to our society.’ He asserted that the state ought to fund only those higher education courses that could be argued to have a ‘clear usefulness’ for the British economy. This emphasis on the marketability of higher education has led to the valuing of product (or outcome) over and above process/experience. Education—or rather ‘knowledge’—according to Clarke, is only ‘useful’ if it can be measured by narrowly defined outcomes, and if it can be exploited for the world of work.