Michael Campion

The article starts by conveying the sense of confusion that those working in universities currently face and feel. It then relates this to a far broader problematique - in essence, that within the university sector, a productivity consciousness is driving out the space for reflection and contemplation - core prerequisites for what is best about universities. The beginnings of an account of distance educators' failure to respond to this set of problems is offered, making reference en route to what it refers to as the 'learning cult'. This is followed by an effort to relate the dominant discourse in education to the development of capitalism through education's tightening relationship to employment. A brief account of the era subsequent to Fordism including changes that are seen to be occurring in the nature and distribution of work across the globe follows. This is seen to have implications for education and specifically for university education which result in a call for a 'New Great Debate' about education and its purposes, and a call for distance educators to play a part in initiating this debate.

Changes in academic work and the implications of these changes for academics continuing professional education are analysed so as to reveal patterns of change which are of more general relevance. I will pay particular attention to the influence of changing technologies — in the narrow sense of changing machinery (computers) and the broader sense of organisational structures (entrepreneurial, neo‐Fordist, neo‐bureaucratic organisations, etc.). To illustrate how things could be otherwise, I will look at the implications for academic staff development of the increasing distance between the contemporary idea of the professional academic, and the idea of the intellectual.

This article contributes to the current controversy concerning the application of the Fordist framework to distance education and open learning by showing that bureaucratic practice can best be understood from within the Fordist framework. In addition, it draws attention to the distinction between bureaucratic and post‐bureaucratic practices, These issues are of particular significance to distance education institutions for frequently their success has been measured by the size of their student populations, and large student populations increase the prospects of bureaucratic practices being the norm.