Knowledge Management; a challenge for Higher Education

About the Book

This book explores the relationship between the theory of knowledge management (KM) and the administration of higher education in Mexico. It uses as a base of comparison the education system of Mexico and that of the United States of America in order to emphasize the historical development of both systems within a wider cultural context. By applying the intangible nature of KM in corporations to the cultural norms of Mexico the book is able to isolate three principles of higher education, which are human rights, individual student development, and institutional knowledge based development (KBD). Using these principles it analyzes the present situation and proposes future requirements. Through the use of multiple information and communication technologies (ICTs) students may choose whichever learning system is most adaptable to their individual needs and higher education can be career driven, discovery oriented, or knowledge based. Above all, it is the student who chooses his learning program rather than the teachers who prescribe study plans for every member of the next generation of graduates. Its conclusions are undeniable, namely that bureaucratic organizations can rarely solve the problems of higher education; that public school systems must be managed rather than directed; that curriculum development may be seen as a part of Knowledge Management; and that students must be free to choose their own educational futures.

About the Author

The author is a higher education teacher, now retired, (yes right, as if we ever do) who teaches university students and looks for the elixir of understanding in the word buckets of his experience. Now partially invalid, his wife calls him Paul Alzheimer, because he goes shopping and forgets what he set out to buy. But that simply shows that a doctorate from the University of Sussex enables him to think of other things.

He is convinced that teaching is becoming a lost art, that modern technology makes it unnecessary for teachers to repeat book knowledge in class, and that each student must be allowed to manage his own learning. Above all, learning is a life time experience, using skills that can be acquired at university, and then carried over to corporate learning situations.