Let Them Eat MOOCs

Artículo de Gianpiero Petriglieri, en Harvard Business Review, en el que este profesor de INSEAD se declara "objetor de conciencia" ante los MOOC, por su fuerte carácter propagandístico y de ofensiva estratégica desde corporaciones de élite.

MOOCs can be used as a cost-cutting measure in already depleted academic institutions and become another weapon against battered faculty bodies. They may worsen rather than eliminate inequality by providing credentials empty of the meaning and connections that make credentials valuable.

Worst of all, they may become a convenient excuse for giving up on the reforms needed to provide broad access to affordable higher education. The traditional kind, that is, which for all its problems still affords graduates higher chances of employment and long-term economic advantages.

Seen from this perspective, the techno-democratization of education looks like a cover story for its aristocratization. MOOCs aren’t digital keys to great classrooms’ doors. At best, they are infomercials for those classrooms. At worst, they are digital postcards from gated communities.