Introduction
Post-secondary education can also be referred to as higher, tertiary or third level education. It’s an advanced stage of learning that takes place at colleges, universities, seminars and technology institutes. It also includes certain institutions which provide colligate level education such as vocational institutions, career colleges, community college, independent colleges, which provide professional certification courses or academic degrees in affiliation with higher level institutes (Steckley and Kirby Letts, 2007).
The social activities by the colleges and universities, teaching, research, acquiring precision in applied work (as in medical and dental schools) also falls in the realm of higher or postsecondary education.
Developed countries are far ahead of under developed and developing countries in providing Higher or postsecondary education. A large proportion of population now enter the colleges and universities and other technical institutes for this purpose. In today’s world, higher education is significantly related to the growth of the economy. Highly skilled, educated and trained workers get much higher wages, a position of repute and are unlikely to remain unemployed as compared to workers with less education (Simkovic, 2013).
In the developed countries like United Kingdom and Ireland, postsecondary education is called ‘further education’. This involves usually working in direction of gaining college level degree or foundation level degree education. The higher education is America refers to the attainment of the degrees of Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s, Education specialists, Ph.D., or other equivalent and other professional degrees like law, medicine, engineering etc.
The right to higher level education is a human right. A number of international human rights institutions acknowledge the right of access to postsecondary education. It has been declared in the United Nations International Covenant on Economics, social and cultural Rights of 1966 that the “higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education"(Article 13).
Issues in postsecondary education
Researchers and policymakers have identified many issues related to the postsecondary education and in its implication. A number of issues related to different aspects of postsecondary education arise with its spread. Some of the important issues pertaining to postsecondary education shall be discussed below:
- Adults continuing with their education: education is a lifelong process. It continues throughout the lifespan and the state responsibility to provide education does not end as the child become adults. Most of the interest and funds are incorporated by the state to P-16 education level. Some of the services are also provided by the state to gain higher education. But there are people who don’t have a high school diploma to pursue higher education and they remain working on the low-paying jobs with little or no hope for any advancement. To address this problem in U.S. an act was passed in congress in 1988 which addressed adult education and literacy (Workforce Investment Act,1988). Many programs have been introduced by state as well as by other organizations to train the unskilled and less educated workers. Efforts have also been made to provide work and job training to the adults, by government and private organizations. Such collective efforts have been made to keep the adult learners off the fringes of the society.
- Accountability: the accountability of the postsecondary educational institutions is another issue faced by the researchers and policy makers. The questions of how the postgraduate institutions are producing degrees and how productivity can be increased by using the funding as a lever are of central importance in this issue. The state and the organizations are using the progress of student data now, to evaluate and account the performance of the institutes of postsecondary education. the performance accountability models ;
- Helps to align the aims and strategies of the state in accordance with the funds available.
- Rewards the institutes that enrol and graduate the population who are undeserved, to address the problem of attainment gaps.
- Use the funds as a tool to stimulate innovations in diverse fields.
- Helps to provide an organized and strategic view of the performance of the postsecondary educational system and whether it’s meeting its goals or not.
- Affordability: This is another important issue in relation to postsecondary education. Many of the adult population who wants to attain higher education do not have enough funds to pay off their fees. With the increase in inflation the fees of higher education has also increased significantly. But along with this, the rate of enrolments in postsecondary education is also increasing. The increasing number of enrolments places a burden on the postsecondary institutions and system. The state and federal money is insufficient to fund the whole postsecondary system which in turn force the institutes to increase their fees.
According to the data collected by National Centre for Education Statistics(2012) show a wide discrepancy between the price of institutions tuition list and the total cost of attendance for financially unprivileged students. In such cases the institutes and state provides financial aids and scholarships to the deserving students to help them in continuing their higher education. Student loans programs have also been implemented to provide support to the students in their education (Education Commission of the States, n.d.).With the increasing number of students coming from diverse cultures and low income groups, towards higher education, it’s extremely important for the state and the higher education system to integrate their efforts and funds for the students coming from low income groups or immigrants from other countries, for boosting the economic growth.
- Community and technical colleges: they work with several social and economic missions. One of the most important aims of the community colleges is to provide open access to pathways for fresh high school graduates and adults who pursue higher education. Economic support and work force development initiatives are supported in these two-year institutions. They provide general education and degrees to the students which earn them at least family sustaining wages. In the past years, increasing attention has been paid to these community and technical colleges, which worked as laboratories for work force innovation and up gradation. Customized employee training program has been designed in private as well as public sector. This also helps to generate revenue for improving the programs. The policy makers and state has recognized the importance of these colleges for completion agenda and economic growth. (Education Commission of the States,n.d.)
- Educational Attainment: post graduate education not only benefits the student alone but to families, societies and to nation as a whole. The importance of improving educational attainment has been recognized over the time. It’s a key to enhance life quality and give strength to the economic competition. The low levels of adult education in any country can has negative impact on, the overall economic growth of the state, on health of the people, the education and brought up of the children, the rate of crimes, rate of voting and the skilfulness of workforce. State and policy makers, together working to improve the level of educational attainment of adult population (Education Commission of the State,n.d.).
Conclusion
The importance of postsecondary education in today’s global economy cannot be denied. It’s essential to attain economic stability and a better quality life. The skilled and professional workforce is the key to economic growth and stability of the state. There are many other issues related to higher education but, the basic issues need to be resolved together by the state and the postgraduate institutions, to provide higher quality education to all students and formulate such policies that the system should be accountable to the general public.
References
John Steckley and Guy Kirby Letts, "Elements of Sociology: A Critical Canadian Introduction, 2007. Publisher: Oxford
Michael Simkovic, Risk-Based Student Loans (2012) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1941070
What Do Students Pay for College? 2012 | National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012263
