{"id":29935,"date":"2025-10-10T08:53:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T06:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/?p=29935"},"modified":"2025-10-10T08:53:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T06:53:58","slug":"university-under-threat-neglected-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/en\/university-under-threat-neglected-education\/","title":{"rendered":"University under threat, neglected education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo: Walter Frehner<\/a> \/\u00a0Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n

A classroom reflection on Nature<\/em>\u2019s recent editorial in a special issue on the future of the university<\/p>\n

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License Creative Commons <\/a><\/p>\n

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Antoni Hern\u00e1ndez-Fern\u00e1ndez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Cover of Nature<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Universities<\/strong> around the world face strange and challenging times. Beyond political pressures and vested interests, there is a growing social scepticism, seeping through social media and increasingly polarised and politicised traditional news outlets.<\/p>\n

In this context, it is heartening to hear strong, reasoned voices from the scientific and academic arenas, urging both reflection and, crucially, action. In a recent<\/a><\/span> editorial in Nature<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, part of a compelling special issue on the future of the university, entitled with a phrase as categorical as it is hopeful\u2014\u201cUniversities are \u2014 and must continue to be \u2014 a force for good\u201d<\/a><\/span>\u2014the journal reminds us that universities, beleaguered by budget cuts, political interference<\/strong>, the unsettling rise of artificial intelligence, and ongoing tensions over academic freedom, cannot succumb to social discouragement. They must resist and persist. Perhaps, reading between the lines, the editorial speaks primarily of the United States, though its message resonates far more widely.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Nature<\/em> editorial calls on universities to embrace fresh ideas<\/strong>, abandon inertia, and dare to experiment with new structures. More than a warning, it reads as a hymn: despite the storm, despite the wear, higher education institutions still possess\u2014and indeed bear the duty\u2014to be a social force for the common good. And what Nature<\/em> urges of universities can also inspire the schools that educate our young<\/strong>: future citizens, researchers, scientists, engineers, thinkers, and artists. Universities flourish only if, earlier in compulsory education, curiosity, motivation, interest, and above all, students\u2019 dreams have been nurtured.<\/p>\n

Nature<\/em> places the university at the centre of the narrative, as if it were both the origin and the culmination of social transformation. Yet, while recognising the crucial role of universities\u2014where knowledge and learning should rise to their highest human expression\u2014it must not be forgotten that the university is only one peak in a far broader educational landscape. Forgive me, but education has other peaks too, such as vocational and<\/strong> technical training<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The pre-university stage, compulsory education, is not a passive waiting room but a decisive space where habits of thought, ethical dispositions, and future vocations are forged. Universities arrive too late if secondary education fails to spark curiosity, ignite imagination (and that enables students to picture themselves in their future), cultivate critical thinking and creativity<\/strong>, and, of course, teach students to navigate a complex world and socialise peacefully.<\/p>\n

Passionate defence of the need to preserve and renew the university is essential. Yet Nature<\/em> neglects to acknowledge that its vitality depends on what happens beforehand: on schools capable of sowing the seeds that universities will later harvest. That omission reveals an elitist perspective, glorifying a particular culmination of the educational path without attending to the journey that makes it possible, nor to those left behind or who chose alternative personal and existential paths.<\/p>\n

Drawing on Wolff<\/strong> (2017) and the Nature<\/em> editorial, I venture to extrapolate some of its suggestions to pre-university education, emphasising the centrality of knowledge and scientific evidence\u2014something Nature<\/em> itself should highlight when proposing educational improvements:<\/p>\n