‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects of learning as investment: Opening up the neo-liberal view of a programme with ‘high’ levels of attrition

Abstract

For many decades in Australia, enabling educators have worked to engage people in higher education while remaining on the relative periphery of higher education institutions. Recently, there has been an intensification of focus on the value of enabling education from the government policy perspective of widening access for different equity groups, and from the institution, which increasingly operates with a focus on enabling as a source of student capital. Although different, these rationales - both governmental and neo-liberal - tend to consider the education of the student as a form of investment, conceptualised in the form of a productive, manageable citizen or as a potential source of revenue.