Property Education, Training and Phenomenalism

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review several major issues as they affect the design and presentation of property courses. It is argued that university level courses differentiate themselves from technical training programmes by equipping students with background and depth considerably beyond what is necessary for a particular occupational role. This type of education should equip the student with a broad background to the nature and operation of occupational roles and their relationship to human society. By contrast, technical training is directly related to conveying expertise in occupational skills. Training under this definition is highly job related and may avoid any depth or breadth that is not clearly related to immediate occupational requirements. The technically trained person is immediately employable and productive, but is incapable of responding to the challenges of change or to the interpretation of the relationship between his or her occupation and the polis. Property courses need to contain both education and training. The balance between the two is considered in the light of phenomenological approaches to education that have gained acceptance in recent times. These approaches can be interpreted as taking training to an extreme, where practical competencies can be rapidly developed with negligible background understanding. The applications and challenges of these approaches are considered with a focus on its application to university programmes. The paper concludes with recommendations for the design of university level property programmes.