Meaningful bonds: HEIs need to devote sufficient resources towards students’ social capital development. – 123rf.com
Higher education has been called upon to fulfil various objectives and outcomes.
The Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education) requires higher education to produce graduates with ethics, leadership, national identity, language proficiency, thinking skills and knowledge.
All these disparate attributes are praiseworthy; however, it appears that an important component is left out – friendships!
Friends play an important role in our lives. Friends and family form the basis of our social reality, making our lives interesting, fulfilling, joyful and meaningful.
At work, friends enable our performance to be efficient and productive. In our careers, friends offer advice, guidance and opportunities. In business, friends provide information, market intelligence and networking opportunities.
In education, friends offer support, motivation and peer learning. In academia, friendships are subsumed under the sociological concept of “social capital”.Numerous research shows that social capital is correlated with academic performance and satisfaction. Subsequently, social capital developed and nurtured during studies continues to offer benefits in work, career and business.
Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling were friends in university before they eventually became business partners and founded multibillion-dollar Grab.
Social capital is also a source of personal satisfaction and basis for platonic and romantic relationships.
Currently, there is a general shift in higher education towards more online teaching and learning.
Some higher education institutions (HEIs) are hybridising by replacing some of their traditional in-person interactions with an online model, while others may opt for a fully online mode and become “open”, “distance” or “virtual” universities.
Converting education to an online mode raises questions about its effects on social capital formation and development.
Intrigued by this question, the author led a research team to explore this issue, resulting in an article (Social capital development in online education and its impact on academic performance and satisfaction) published in internationally ranked Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning journal.
Online education has both positive and negative impacts on social capital development.
Positively, students can reach out to acquaintances and friends easily, efficiently and free from physical constraints. Negatively, students feel isolated, disengaged and some even reported depressive thoughts.
Students’ personality type is a significant factor, with those high in extraversion reporting greater social capital, while those low in extraversion report the opposite.
Apparently, the effects of personality types on social capital development are amplified in online education. Overall, there is a decrease in social capital when students are subject to online education.
These findings call for more attention in higher education, both online and offline, towards students’ social capital development.
The seemingly innocuous ability to make friends and maintain friendships is vital.
The legendary Greek philosopher Socrates wisely proclaimed that “man is a social animal”.
We are all part of society regardless of our personality or surroundings, and rely on friends, family and others for our well-being.
From personal experience, my best friends were made in school where we physically played, studied and grew up together.
I have since taken some online courses in universities, but no lasting friendships were formed, only sporadic superficial acquaintances.
So, it is crucial that HEIs devote sufficient resources towards students’ social capital development.
In conventional education institutions, students of the same cohort form strong friendships as they live together in the same dormitories and take many classes, labs and workshops or practical training together physically.
Further bonding is provided from extracurricular activities such as sports, music, performing arts, clubs and societies.
Appropriate resources in the form of institutional support, sports facilities, musical performance venues, and funding for clubs and societies are required.
Online HEIs need to critically evaluate how they can similarly nurture friendships and foster social capital development among their students.
In evaluating choices of HEIs, students and parents should pay sufficient attention to the support and resources allocated towards students’ social capital formation.
An appropriate balance between academic rigour and non-academic resources is ideal. Extremes on either end, such as “party schools” and “degree mills”, are obviously questionable.
At the end of the day, consider whether the HEIs you are interested in are conducive to lasting and meaningful friendships.
After all, your friend might turn out to be your future business partner or spouse!
Dr Wong Teik Aun, a principal lecturer at the Centre of Australian Degree Programmes at INTI International College Penang, enjoys writing on subjects close to his heart and has published On the Beaten Track Nepal: The Himalayas, Symphony and Synchrony: An Orchestra of Ideas and Tales of Animal Lovers. He has also contributed numerous academic articles to internationally ranked journals.
The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
