author: E.W. Dijkstra
content: 'The problem with educational policy is that it is hardly influenced by scientific
  considerations derived from the topics taught, and almost entirely determined by
  extra-scientific circumstances such as the combined expectations of the students,
  their parents and their future employers, and the prevailing view of the role of
  the university: is the stress on training its graduates for today''s entry-level
  jobs or to providing its alumni with the intellectual bagage and attitudes that
  will last them another 50 years? Do we grudgingly grant the abstract sciences only
  a far-away corner on campus, or do we recognize them as the indispensable motor
  of the high-technology industry? Even if we do the latter, do we recognize a high-technology
  industry as such if its technology primarily belongs to formal mathematics? Do the
  universities provide for society the intellectual leadership it needs or only the
  training it asks for?'
id: cdc15b9b-d3af-4836-be99-1388b238487d