In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity • Hacker News Board

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#151

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

peoplewindow wrote: post #95

pjc50 wrote: post #29

This should probably be seen in the context of the ongoing industrial action in response to a sneaky attempt to convert pensions from defined-benefit to defined-contribution, thereby halving their value. This was based on an extremely questionable financial scenario ("what if all UK universities went bankrupt?")

Er is it a questionable scenario? UK universities all have very similar businesses, customer bases, staff unionisation levels and risk profiles. It's quite imaginable that if there was a sudden drop in the number of students attending university they might all get in dire straits simultaneously.

They have very different financial reserves, especially the Russell Group ones, and this also presumes that the government would let its entire tertiary education system collapse without intervening.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#152

Post by senorjazz » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

patricius wrote: post #139

sykh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone says tuition is free or that healthcare is free what they mean is that using these services doesn’t cost out of pocket expenses and doesn’t lead to debt. In this sense those services are free.

Well, if we can redefine free to mean "I will let someone else pay for it" or "I will pay for it at some later date", then sure...

Why are you being facetious? You know very well what they mean and what is meant by "free education".

If someone says to you "I am giving this to you for free" do you then then argue "it is not free, someone had to pay for it" :-\

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#153

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

YellowCode wrote: post #107

Here is an interesting read http://www.culturewars.com/2002/potter.html

What does a 2002 article on faxes and children's books have to do with the present-day UK education sector?

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#154

Post by iguy » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #129

gaius wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality But it must be. An institution with AAA A-level students can teach more advanced material at a faster pace than one that admits EEEs. This is surely obvious, no? It doesn’t mean anyone is better or worse in a moral sense, it just means more or less academically able.

Not at all. The ability to learn at university is not correlated with A-level results. Mastery of the material can help give a good starting point, but I've worked with fantastic E/D/C students and terrible AAA students.

ability to learn at university is not correlated with A-level results

This is incorrect. They are obviously not 100% correlated (even re-sitting the same exam isn't!) but the correlation is extremely strong.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#155

Post by arethuza » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #143

arethuza wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick: Scots undergraduate degrees are typically 4 years rather than 3 as in the rest of the UK.

If you have good A-levels then it certainly used to be the case that you can skip first year.

Possibly, doesn't apply to anyone coming from Scotland as we tend to not do A-levels (some of the more expensive private schools do then rather than Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers).

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#156

Post by patricius » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

c12 wrote: post #146

patricius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is a difference. You let others pay for your choices (studying). But it doesn't make it free.

Things like state funded healthcare are free at the point of care and education is free at the point of consumption. This doesn't mean they don't have costs associated with them as a whole but that for those actually using them they appear to have no personal cost.

Yes, and that is the great deceit of taxation and political resource allocation. Somebody still has to earn the money and bring about the resources and services used through the public sector. It seems to me a lot of people forget that, when they hail state funded services.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#157

Post by ItsMe000001 » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

patricius wrote: post #139

sykh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone says tuition is free or that healthcare is free what they mean is that using these services doesn’t cost out of pocket expenses and doesn’t lead to debt. In this sense those services are free.

Well, if we can redefine free to mean "I will let someone else pay for it" or "I will pay for it at some later date", then sure...

Also see what I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577

The vast majority of people who pay(ed) for actually pretty much everything are all dead. Because the reason for our exorbitant productivity in all sectors producing the essentials for live (compared with a base level thousands of years ago) is accumulated knowledge, culture and tools created by people long dead.

So relax, the expenses have long been paid. We are enjoying the inheritance mostly - and network effects of a huge human network in space and in time (that's the larger part). Let us use those network effects - they are not attributable to individuals. Nobody is taking anything away from you since you are not responsible in any way for those network effects. Nobody individually is, we are just darn lucky. People who sit in central network positions even more so, they can control and create A LOT of wealth - by controlling the human network. Which they did not create - just filling positions is not "creating the network". The idea and the culture where all developed by all of us (and the dead), and the state and the laws provide the structure that support it all.

Your productivity is the way it is because yo benefit from your location in this network! If you want to see what you alone can achieve go alone into the forest. Don't take any tools with you, even a hammer is high tech (steel!).

About "network effects": Compare what a million unconnected humans could achieve (a million mud huts? a million basic stone tools?) with the network output.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#158

Post by beojan » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #92

sergiosgc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense. It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality. I believe it is false. Curricula don't have to be easier if you have a large student body, and graduation requirements don't have to be lower. Taking in more students does not inhibit service quality, up to the capacity of the school, which can be easily scaled by hiring more…

It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality But it must be. An institution with AAA A-level students can teach more advanced material at a faster pace than one that admits EEEs. This is surely obvious, no? It doesn’t mean anyone is better or worse in a moral sense, it just means more or less academically able.

But that's easily solved by having institutions for multiple A* students, and other institutions for EEE students. Which is the way it actually is.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#159

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

terriblechat90 wrote: post #128

pjc50 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the massive administrations that are run by radical left-leaning activists essentially Name one of these people and provide an example [2 marks]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/03/02/eight-ten-b... Yes I know it's just the story not the report. A quick search shows plenty of examples. I'll have a link in a minute.

That's a reprinted press release from the Adam Smith institute. I'm still looking for the name of a specific person who can be deemed to (a) run a university administration (b) be a "radical left-winger", with an example of their behaviour or published works which qualifies them as such.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#160

Post by thedonkeycometh » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #75

thinkingemote wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've anecdotes from two university lecturers on different courses. They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees after all. What they report is horrifying: * Essay writing skills are lacking, "its at GCSE level" * Students contesting any form of criticism - they go via the official channels to argue why they should get a good grade. All schools are tied up in multiple trib…

>People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. // My lad is just in UK high-school but I'm surprised at how homework is set with no provision of resources and no mention of plagiarism or need to cite sources. The kids are basically expected to find their own sources, which is ridiculous - making them trust whatever Google gives them. Once they've been inculcated into…

My boys homework doesn't have a reminder about plagiarism or cheating, but his school handbook does.

We can't blame the teachers, when the children aren't going to libraries to do their homework and its not the responsibility of the teacher to show them how to use a search engine. They'll know already, its just they'll blame everyone but themselves for their poor attempts.