Educating the Knowledge Worker

Higher education in the U.S. has become increasingly attractive to foreign students. In 2005-2006, for instance, there were about 565,000 foreign students studying at U.S. colleges and universities. Fifty-eight percent of those students were from Asian countries. Although all societies contribute to the evolution of education, economic and workforce experts claim that North American, Western European, and Australian universities produce graduates with unique capabilities.

The “knowledge worker” college graduate was first defined by Peter F. Drucker in his 1959 book, Landmarks of Tomorrow. Robert B. Reich reexamined the term in his 1991 book, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism. The knowledge worker, or symbolic analyst as labeled by Reich, is a person who can produce new designs and concepts, as opposed to following standard procedures and producing familiar products. Reich explains why the demand for educational content from the developed world’s universities is so high:

“Millions of people across the globe are trying to learn symbolic-analytic skills, and many are succeeding. Researchers and engineers in East Asia and Western Europe are gathering valuable insights into microelectronics, macrobiotics, and new materials, and translating these insights into new products. Young people in many developing nations are swarming into universities to learn the symbolic and analytic secrets of design engineering, computer engineering, marketing, and management.”

Students are willing to travel great distances and, in many cases, commit themselves to years of government service in exchange for the financial support to enroll in traditional U.S., Canadian, European, and Australian degree programs on campus. Imagine how this group of students will exponentially expand if they can begin to receive the same quality and content of coursework via electronic means, without the travel and at a lower cost.

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