Education Opens
Last week, the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced plans for free online courses that will allow participants in the program to earn official certifications from MIT. While the courses themselves will be free, heralding what is likely to become a historic step forward for the open education movement, the certificate at the end of the course of study will be available to students for a “modest fee.” In an open and free society, many people have begun to adopt libertarian attitudes towards the availability of knowledge and information. Such information should be free to anyone who wishes to learn it, and there should be some recognition given for the successful completion of independent studies. The same can recently be said for our society’s increasing intolerance of draconian legislation such as SOPA (or, the Stop Online Piracy Act) scheduled for debate in the House early next year. Although these two fields are starkly different — education, and digital ownership of copyrighted materials and media — the fundamental change in the attitudes of free people regarding both matters is evident in each forum.
The step by MIT has been lauded as a noble advance in Western thought on the evolution of formal higher education. The way even young children learn has been altered by the presence of technology in nearly every aspect of human life, and the same is true of college age students and older, non traditional students as well. It is now a fair expectation that, with the abundance of freely available books and knowledge found on an uncensored Internet, people will be able to further their education and value to society with far less dependence on institutional structures. It brings to mind idealistic visions of what life was once like during the pinnacle of ancient Greek society — but unlike then, now, the same educational opportunities are extended to all citizens rather than only to free men.
What do you think of MIT’s bold move to make education more open to ordinary people? Let us hear from you.
