AUSTRALIA’S elite universities yesterday attacked the $500 million cut to promised increases in research funding, claiming the government was wasting money instead on opening university places to ill-prepared students.
Research in the university environment is meant to complement education and teaching, not substitute for it.
Sinclair,
Have you seen any changes in what is taught to students from research? I’ve seen stuff (at a very basic and glib level) that is perhaps 40-50 years old I did/became knowledgeable about in honours creep into undergrad texts after tutoring them for a couple of years.
If we have given out so many nobel prizes, shouldn’t primary and secondary school have become harder since the end of WWII?
My point is that research training is more costly if the quality of applicants to undergrad and graduates themselves haven’t improved relative to what is known from research.
I will also email you a request from a third party about where to learn about laissez faire economics.
Bring back the old Tech Colleges…..more plumbers less halfwit public service employed (sic) BAs.
The only problem with TAFE is that it is largely run by those same people, Alfonso. It has a training regime and business plan stuck in 1951 as well.
Much like the universities.
I was active in the Apprenticeship system for 30 plus years.
It was common knowledge that the bulk of TAFE’s Trade Trainers were ‘failed’ tradies – couldn’t make a go of it as a Plumber or Electrician so became a TAFE lecturer!!!!!!!!!!!!
Britain:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195547/Thousands-students-hoodwinked-taking-courses-jobs-get.html
Off topic sorry. I can access via my iPhone but my town desktop says ozblogistan is broken. Is it just my work pc?
TAFEs should be privatised. There is no justification for governments owning vocational training institutions.
Really, Sinc? As Dot points out, this has very little to do with children. Stealing from crusty old tenured academics, more like.
In fact, the Go8 are advocating stealing from children who want university education.
“TAFEs should be privatised.”- only if their graduates are subject to independent testing before being allowed to present themselves as qualified.
There would be a lot of babies being thrown out with the dishes if TAFEs were privatised.
This is great news. The Go8 have admitted that subsidising more schools leavers to go to uni is a waste of money. That provides all the reason the government needs to cut funding for teaching as well as research. The ideal outcome of eliminating all university funding would save how much? About $10bn pa? That’s nearly 1% of GDP off Commonwealth expenditures. Next item please…
Um … yep. That’s my point too. You’re not just a pretty face.
I see Sinc, so you’re against the Go8! Apologies for misconstrual.
I am quite pretty, ’tis true.
Homo sapiens’ genetic instinct to mutually beneficial trade is starting to rear it’s ugly head Monty.
You’ll be voting LDP next…
Wait – isn’t the ideal university the one with no students?
How to get an ARC grant. At Quadrant a few examples:
and then there is this:
Almost $330K to find out why people go to the movies.
Whoops! Second example of ARC grant idiocy should have been this one:
Only surprise there is neither mention Climate Change.
Recently came across the ‘Strategic Initiatives’ issued here.
Could not have come up with a more ‘Environmentally correct’ pile of nothing if they tried.
Climate change? You won’t be disappointed. There’s lots of money for that as well, as the story explains.
Oh I’m sure there is!!
Sinc,
I deal on a daily basis with first year students. This year there has been a large increase in the numbers of Commonwealth Grant supported students, with a corresponding drop in the ATAR needed to get in. The result has been a great increase in the number (and percentage) of fails.
Personally, I would prefer to see this money not spent. If it has to be spent by the government, then I would prefer it be spent on useful research, not on having students turn up and fail.
Picking winners Andrew?
No – it’s the one with no staff…
No Rabz, you’re thinking of Hospitals. They’d run perfectly if not for the damn patients!
It’s better than having a lot of students added to first year when they have little hope of passing.
Sinc, when the gummint lets in a slew of people in the lower percentiles it is deliberately picking losers.
I don’t know about that – many will fail some will pass. It is up to the individual rather than government fiat.
From my own experience in academia:
Problem 1 : Too many underqualified students mean to keep up numbers many have to be nursed through; thus a resultant tendency for standards to fall overall (worse in some areas and institutions than others).
Problem 2: There are too many less-than-impressive staff chasing too few research dollars to keep them all on tenure track or tenured. Subsidiary factor is that very competent people get drawn overseas.
Problem 3 : There are too many universities, thus spreading the research load too thin. Interweaves with Problems 1 and 2.
Problem 4: Too many scratch-my-back winks between ‘old’ established researchers in a gravy-train club. Hardening of paradigmatic arteries.
Problem 5 : Too little direction regarding where and how research efforts could be usefully applied, including lack of direction from industry (I emphasise here ‘direction’ not ‘co-operation’).
Problem 6 : Top heavy administrations, too many useless reporting lines from unnecessary or inflated units (EO, OHS, HR, Sustainability, Equity, Aboriginal, Remedial etc), too few hard decisions made and too much union interference in decisions. Plus governance selection and selection of staff is heavily infected with a network of marchers in the Long March who thus resist change or are too timid in effecting it (the bob-each-way VC’s).
There are some attempts to address these problems but they are largely insufficient. A big broom is needed.
I am no longer available.
“Research in the university environment is meant to complement education and teaching, not substitute for it.”
Why do you say that? Can’t universities have a research focus of equal or greater importance? Surely some might go that way if tertiary ed was deregulated.
Who do you think should set spending priorities the Uni or the Minister?
Pedro – the government shouldn’t be giving money to uni’s at all. But given that it does, the argument that giving money to students is a waste and that money should rather be given to academics to pursue their own interests is a very bad look.
Yes, but that is then a different critique. I’m not sure one is a worse look than the other for the reasons Andrew Reynolds gave.
If your point is pressed then people might believe you think Unis should have no research at all. I’m pretty sure you don’t think that. We’re really talking about a balance and who gets to decide it.
I’m happy to think school vouchers might be a bit marginal, but uni vouchers seem a great idea as an alternative to this problem.
The G8 universities are as keen as any other to get their noses into the trough of money available to take on at least some categories of ill-prepared students. From my ANU experience, I am speaking of students who identify as Aboriginal. Resources were devoted to chasing them up, and on additional teaching assistance. One baleful effect of this policy was to in effect lower the pass rate, for, contrary to Andrew Reynolds’ experience, there was great pressure to pass these students. Taking in hordes of overseas students had the same effect. In addition, there was great pressure to set assessment (such as by essays and take-home exams) in a way that was calculated to provide an opportunity to cheat. One de facto function of the ANU Aboriginal assistance unit was to write the essays, or at least to write them up to a passable standard. Teachers who did not conform to this pressure were rated as poor teachers by the students, and some of those who raised a fuss were hounded out.
There are thousands who should not be studying at university level, and if these cutbacks force a review of admission policies that would be very good.
Pedro – you shouldn’t confuse ‘government funding’ with ‘doing research’. I am firm believer that academics (all academics) should do research and teach. I have zero tolerance for the argument that people are too busy researching to teach.
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside hearing that. Nothing worse than a lecturer that treats his customers with disdain or indifference.