Peer review of paper number 120
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Enter plain text and/or HTML tags. The paper goes to the heart of an increasing trend to commoditise more aspects of human spaces and human experience. This is a manifestation of the extent to which neo-liberalism, and globalisation as its hand-maiden has reached. This commoditisation of human experience is perhaps more dangerous in the area of education since education is such a powerful transmitter of culture and values. The comparison of the two English courses given in the paper is very powerful, as it shows the divergent paths that we could follow, and how by opting for the "quickie, bite-sized, chunked" course we trigger a self-fulfilling cycle. The latter course is perceived as more relevant to society's needs, hence fewer students taking the more substantial course and so on. This is the phenomenon of increasing-returns in economics that demonstrates how we may become "locked-in" to an inferior trajectory. In this case we go for gloss at the expense of substance, which  the author has also drawn to our attention (Pop-Stars, Idols, Harksen etc.) Shamim Bodhanya
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