How to Judge Education Without Degree

Personal Studies
Rogerio, Student (MBA), Portugal, Member
I agree with Jagish' thinking. I believe that in the future, after a level of "degree", anyone can have a personal training in a desired specific interest area.

Education Without Degree
D P BABU, Strategy Consultant, India, Member
Education should be continuous learning through experience culminating into a knowledge base which is versatility used. Hence there is no comparison between education with a mere degree and education acquired through experiential learning.

Judging Education Without a Degree
Anthony Belon, Entrepreneur, Malaysia, Member
How to judge? As I see it - best is by Examples, Degree of impacts, Effects, Influences. Here are some examples:
1. The life & teachings of Lord Jesus Christ is an education without degree. Scholars do degrees to educate themselves on "his education without degree". Impacts...
2. Ferdinand Magellan & Christopher Columbus - sailing around the world did not have degree in sea-navigation. Effects... on exploration
3. Sir Winston Churchill - prime minister - leading UK victoriously during WWII did not have a university degree. Leadership charisma...
4. Bill Gates did not have a degree to become who and what he is now. Microsoft...

How to Judge Education Without Degree
Catherine Piloto, Consultant, Zimbabwe, Member
In my own and indeed most cultures, one can identify many old people in the villages (and those called uneducated) with a wealth of knowledge gathered over the years. Sadly though, the degree education has led us to side line such knowledge repositories, and there is no system in place to harvest this knowledge.
My response to Jagdish' question would be that we need some tools and systems that enable people to realise how much knowledge they have. Hopefully such tools will not be IT-dominated, but human centred, where IT will only be an enabler, and fits into the human domain and not the other way round.
After acquiring endless degrees, people still realise there is a wealth of knowledge from the non-degreed, and in some cases degree acquisition almost becomes an end in itself.
Perhaps knowledge practitioners could take on the challenge and come up with an alternative approach.

Mastery Learning is One Solution
Tebboub Abdelamelk, Professor, Algeria, Member
Mastery learning is an alternative method of teaching and learning that involves the student reaching a level of predetermined mastery on units of instruction before being allowed to progress to the next unit, mastery learning is not a new concept; it was introduced into American education over 70 years ago
It is based on the concept that all students can learn when provided with conditions appropriate to their situation. The student must reach a predetermined level of mastery on one unit before they are allowed to progress to the next. In a mastery learning setting, students are given specific feedback about their learning progress at regular intervals throughout the instructional period. This feedback, by the master helps students identify what they have learned well and what they have not learned well.
Degrees are just indicators to both the teacher and the student to give an idea of the group evaluation not the mastery of subject.

Parameters for Judging Education Without a Formal Degree
D P BABU, Strategy Consultant, India, Member
Education should take care about transfering the perpetual heritage of knowledge from one generation to another. If any someone is capable of consolidating and creating social, economic and ethical values by means of hard work and innovation, there is no hesitation for calling this person as an academician, even if he does not have a formal degree.