The quest for technological excellence must not blind us to the importance of students receiving a grounding in the basics, writes DOUG SUTTON*.
Rugby officials worry that our rugby is falling off the pace because players' minds have disengaged.
They say that the players' raw talent and specialised skills take them so far, but the absence of any other sort of mental stimulation in their working lives leaves them ill-equipped for thinking rugby. As a result, they were unable to learn from their mistakes and fared poorly in the Super 12.
It rings true, and it is a symptom of a wider problem that needs to be confronted as we search for a new path forward for this country. The single greatest threat we face as a nation is that we will not learn fast enough to think broadly, creatively and with insights garnered from around the world.
If we do not learn these fundamental skills, we will be subject to a closing of our minds - something which was a risk here in the past when the tyranny of distance isolated us from continental centres of thought and creativity.
Ironically, we are now much more in touch with the rest of the world but because of decisions we have made as a nation, large parts of the population are not getting the quality of education it takes to keep up with change and challenge at the start of the 21st century.
These are Kiwis talented, generous and wishing to be participants in and contributors to the new New Zealand. Our education system is failing them.
Around the world it is acknowledged that technical training is necessary for national prosperity and well-being, but not sufficient to that end. Specific skills learned in a short period on the basis of latest technology can take us a long way.
But to get a place on the leading edge we need something extra - education in the fullest sense of the word. That is, we must develop through our education system the cultural and intellectual capacity to manage complexity, uncertainty and rapid change.
Specific technical skills will not deliver those insights, because they come from the study of humanity in its diverse social, cultural and ethnic dimensions.
Without that added capacity, our people, our society and our economy will struggle to learn from their mistakes, to live in harmony and to adapt swiftly and creatively. We will struggle to compete with the world leaders.
Worse yet, we will have difficulty cooperating with other peoples because our understanding of them, our ability to speak their languages and to appreciate others, will be dangerously weak in an ever more demanding, multicultural and globalised world.
Without education in a broad and emancipated sense of the term, New Zealand will become poorer and less cohesive, socially and materially.
How do we meet this need? By promoting fundamental, liberal education. Its core is the research-based study of the humanities: literature, creative works, music, languages and the social sciences, our cultures and society and others around the world, present and past.
Study of the humanities promotes the qualities people most need now - an understanding of the intellectual traditions of their own society, the ability to reason and write clearly and cogently and the capacity to address the complexity and contested nature of the world.
The humanities also promote awareness and understanding of the diversity of human cultures, beliefs and values and provide the basis for critical reflection on human practices and institutions.
These skills are essential in meeting the challenges we face. Our chance of future well-being, prosperity and social cohesion depends upon the degree to which we will nurture creativity, compassion and maturity and strengthen our ability to make sound judgments based on breadth of knowledge, creativity and a love of diversity.
It is now recognised in many prosperous parts of the world that creativity, rather than purely technical skills, makes the difference to businesses seeking to prosper and to societies looking for new ways to tackle issues and improve their citizens' quality of life.
I'm not suggesting that creativity based in the humanities could provide the solution to all our problems. But as we go about equipping our nation for the 21st century, we should value the humanities, make them central to our education, and accessible to all those who want to learn.
In the best universities in the United States, no matter what vocation you want to pursue - medicine, business or science - you must start with a grounding in the humanities. It is no coincidence that the US is a cauldron of creativity and that its professionals are leaders in so many fields.
Others are following. The national university of Singapore now has a core curriculum programme that takes its best students through the full range of humanities and academic disciplines in the hope of producing well-rounded, thinking graduates. We should emulate that philosophy.
But at the moment in secondary and tertiary education we are moving even further away from it. Specialist subjects are proliferating and demanding that students choose a narrow path of study earlier and earlier in their education.
Core humanities such as English, history, mathematics and languages have been relegated to options. This is woefully short-sighted. We need specialists but specialists who have first been educated and want to learn throughout their lives.
Learning to navigate the web at school is important, but it's no substitute for being able to weigh two sides of a debate and reach a reasoned view.
Right now the University of Auckland and the Government, in partnership with a cross-section of business and community interests, are considering these issues in the context of the Catching the Knowledge Wave project.
The aim is to spark a broad-based national discussion on how we can benefit from the pursuit and application of knowledge-based creativity and innovation that is the key to success. It will develop concrete initiatives for change and build national support among political, business, academic, media and community groups for that change. It is a project that must succeed.
The knowledge society does not mean that everyone has to work in the IT industry or in laboratories. Nor does it mean ignoring our agricultural industries. It's about improving everything we do through the application of knowledge, be it tourism, fashion, professional services, boat-building or sports.
Knowledge workers include those bringing new thinking to the arts, music and cultural endeavours. More broadly, professionals in all sorts of fields who have the benefit of a full education are able to add value across the board to professional skills.
As part of the discussion on equipping us to become a knowledge society we need to address the shortage of skills and specialist research being undertaken here. We need also to take a step further back and ask what is the core education that New Zealanders need to give direction and understanding to those skills.
We then need to deliver that education.
* Professor Doug Sutton is dean of the faculty of arts at the University of Auckland.
href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=57032">Catching the knowledge wave
Catching the knowledge wave conference
Other Herald features