The idea that arts and humanities are “useful for all kinds of jobs . . . couldn’t be further from the truth”, says Nicky Morgan, the UK Education Secretary.

I have blogged several hundred times on the issue of “employability” in UK Higher Education. The latest effort, just last week, is here, and at the start of it are links to the several thousand other posts I’ve written on the subject: http://sonofsar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/eew-gew-new-development-in-ideological_24.html

But in case you don’t want to read these several million posts I will sum up the key arguments now.  1. “Employability” is not about getting students into jobs. If it was, the time and resources put into it would be invested in University Careers Offices in which there are people who are experts on how to get jobs, as opposed to people who are experts on other things and have other things to do, such as teaching, researching, and writing. The policy of “embedding employability” in academic curricula thus suggests that 2. “Employability” is actually about indoctrinating students in neo-liberal economic ideology and behaviour, an “agenda” even more amply revealed in attempts to embed “entrepreneurialism” in curricular and even in extra-curricular activities. And 3. While there is nothing wrong with helping students get jobs via teaching “transferrable skills” such as how to write, speak, and make arguments more effectively etc., and via writing references for them and so on, there is something deeply wrong with embedding employability and entrepreneurship in places where free thinking is supposed to be. Something that in my view betrays the very principle of education, a betrayal that in turn corrodes the foundations of a free and democratic society.

Of course there are many people who don’t agree with me. Some reject my arguments because they think that embedding “employability” and “entrepreneurship” is just about jobs and isn’t about neo-liberal ideological indoctrination. Others might agree with the arguments but reject the conclusion that the employability and entrepreneurship agenda should be explicitly and loudly resisted because there’s little they can do about it, and in any case they must obey as the current HE environment explicitly and loudly threatens them with unemployability (though I know many of these people are quietly subverting the agenda by simply requiring students to think in various ways anyway). And others may agree with my arguments but reject my conclusions on the grounds that employability and entrepreneurship are the very essence of free thinking and are the actual foundations of a free and democratic society.

Now, there is no point in me addressing the people in category three. These free-market Stalinists are as unpersuadable of my views as I am of theirs. And, of course, as an advocate of free-thinking, I have to admit that they are entitled to their stupid opinions. To the others, though, there is one more argument against “employability” and “entrepreneurialism” I would offer. Or, rather, I’ll let the Education Secretary Nicky Morgan argue it for me, here (though you’ve probably seen it already): http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/education-secretary-nicky-morgan-tells-teenagers-if-you-want-a-job-drop-humanities-9852316.html

Here, the UK Education Secretary is quoted as saying: “If you wanted to do something, or even if you didn’t know what you wanted to do, then the arts and humanities were what you chose because they were useful for all kinds of jobs. Of course, we know now that couldn’t be further from the truth – that the subjects that keep young people’s options open and unlock the door to all sorts of careers are the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths).”

So, there it is. The argument I haven’t made yet is easy enough to see from this: there is no point in trying to appease or collaborate with the promoters of “employability”, at least for the arts and humanities. For all the efforts made at my former UK HE College of Arts and Humanities and other similar institutions to promote employability and to be seen to be promoting employability, and there has been *a lot* of effort, the Education Secretary—the Education Secretary—still says that the idea that the arts and humanities are “useful for all kinds of jobs . . . couldn’t be further from the truth”. You don’t even have to agree with me that employability and entrepreneurialism represent a neo-liberal ideological plot to see that it is highly dangerous to flirt with an undeniable instrumentalism in which a degree is seen as a route to work rather than (and not as well as) a pathway to intellectual growth and good citizenship. And it’s clear enough that obedience to these doctrines is not going to promote the survival of these disciplines or the employment of those who work in them.

So what can you do? Keep on subverting surreptitiously for sure. But perhaps it’s time for more open resistance to this ideological agenda, or at the very least to this instrumentalist fundamentalism. Maybe lobby heads of department, heads of colleges, and even senior managers and Vice-Chancellors. Possibly lobby the union not only about defending pay and pensions (important as they are) but about defending what universities are supposed to be for. Maybe join and act with The Campaign for the Public University [http://publicuniversity.org.uk/]. Or even perhaps write trillions of blog posts or letters to and articles in newspapers about the value of free education. It’s alright for me, you might think, as I’ve fled to France from these and other developments in modern UK HE, and of course it’s harder to kick against a system you’re still in. To be fair, though, I did write about a bazillion blog posts before I left, and I was prepared to risk being unpopular with certain people for something I believe in so strongly (or madly, if you prefer). After the Education Secretary has spoken the words above, however, I’d suggest that the biggest risk now lies in staying silent.