Multiple sites of learning

"A MULTIVERSITY called CAP" (My View, March 21) refers. The article is not only a much-deserved tribute to CAP, and to Uncle Idris, though it is certainly that; its significance extends well beyond in its understanding of how the modern university system has largely failed us.
The idea that the "university" is the only site of learning is a rather modern idea, and a fallacious one at that; in fact, in most civilisations, there have historically been numerous sites of learning and pedagogy.
One of the many ways in which modernity has insidiously asserted a deadening homogeneity is in installing the university as as the sole site of learning ... indeed, it is not even "learning" of which we are speaking, but rather an education which these days seems to have no purpose except to prepare students to acquire jobs and become minions of either the state or the corporate world. I'm afraid that the so-called "world universities" in the United States, about which I know a thing or two, are by far the greatest culprits in this enterprise.
The article is also entirely correct in suggesting that the university is now part of the game of ranking: as I say this, of course I recognise the differences from one university to another in various respects.
But the university, like everything else in our times, is now metrics-driven: rankings, number of prize-winning scholars, amount of grants, etc.
Though the article on CAP and what it truly signifies ... a "multiversity" that has repeatedly demonstrated how practice precedes theory ... is short, someone can build on it to develop both a lengthier critique of the modern university system (in Malaysia, and elsewhere) and to develop a narrative of what we might call the multiple sites of learning, even when (as is often the case) they are not recognised as such.
Prof Vinay Lal
Department of History
UCLA