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Re: casual contributors
From: |
Graham Percival |
Subject: |
Re: casual contributors |
Date: |
Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:21:40 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) |
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 08:06:23PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>
> Engineering student numbers have dropped significantly
> at my former university, and it is to be expected that standards were
> adjusted downwards in order to get enough students back (we have state
> education almost exclusively, but the funds are distributed according to
> student numbers).
Sounds familiar.
> And that means that the degree is less worth as a means of securing a
> reputation and a job.
Sure, but it'll take 5-20 years for employers to realize this
(depending on the employer). Government elections happen every
4-5 years, so guess what the government pressures universities to
do?
Famous quote (well, paraphrase) from a high-ranking UK government
official approximately ten years ago:
Official: we want to have over 50% of school-aged students
attending university in ten years.
Reporter: excuse me sir, but only 40% of students finish their
A-levels. [these are high school exams for academic-oriented
students]
Official: well then, we'll just have to reduce the difficulty of
the A-levels.
*shrug*
They know what they were doing. The government, and universities,
know that they're trading short-term "number of students with
degrees" and "tuition fees from foreign students" for "quality of
degrees". I don't think that's a good trade-off, but then again I
always tend to favor long-term approaches. But although I
criticize their goals, I cannot find fault with their methods.
They wanted to reduce long-term quality in exchange for short-term
numbers, and they are succeeding.
- Graham
- Re: casual contributors (was: patch going unpushed), (continued)
- Re: casual contributors (was: patch going unpushed), Graham Percival, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, David Kastrup, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Graham Percival, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, David Kastrup, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Graham Percival, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, David Kastrup, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Graham Percival, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, David Kastrup, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Janek WarchoĊ, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, James, 2012/03/29
- Re: casual contributors,
Graham Percival <=
- Re: casual contributors, David Kastrup, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Colin Campbell, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, David Kastrup, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Colin Campbell, 2012/03/23
- Re: casual contributors, Graham Percival, 2012/03/23