Unis in Australia suffer from the same issue. When I was there the uni was constantly patting itself on the back for building more accommodation for international students and even then I thought to myself, this place doesn't seem to have the right priorities.
In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
201–210 of 248 posts
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#202This compounds some major long-term problems for education in the UK. 1. Their school systems are the most elitist/unequal in Europe [0] (from this TED talk [1]). There are many things I love about the UK but I can never go back as the school I send my child to now for free would cost £4000-6000 per year of post-tax income in the UK. 2. Because of underpaying teachers (In comparison to Belgium the mid-level art teach…
Honestly that's just kind of cute. Good private schools in the US regularly cost over $40,000 per year.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What's changed? Student numbers. Massive, monumental growth in student numbers. And the red tape that comes with that kind of size (as ever). Labour's push for 50% of school leavers to go to university, large swathes of new courses approved that would otherwise have been taught through vocational routes, increase in student applications vs places (in the UK you can apply [or at least could] for up to 6 places, one…
Thanks! > Student numbers I still don't quite see why overall growth must change the proportion so much. Maybe the extra complication of everyone applying to 20 places is a factor which doesn't scale. I don't know exactly how you fix that. Perhaps you should cap the number of applications an individual can make? Re complicated IT, again somehow needing to collaborate on departmental memos somehow wasn't an issue when…
> I still don't quite see why overall growth must change the proportion so much.
As a hypothetical, if you were a Dean and you had a £100k to have the greatest impact in the department: Do you employ 2 lecturers at £50k each to teach lectures, do admin and sort out research, or 1 lecturer at £55k, and take a bunch of their tasks away and give them to a research coordinator for £20k (who can support maybe 10 lecturers) and a research assistant for £25k (who can sit on panels, do research, and teach some classes, and support maybe 2 lecturers)?
Also, there are a finite number of world-class lecturers in any field - a lot of which would rather be researching than teaching, so making their time more efficient by basically taking away their "university" commitments to students (undergrads especially), give them more time to work on their projects, is almost the point.
> Maybe the extra complication of everyone applying to 20 places is a factor which doesn't scale. I don't know exactly how you fix that. Perhaps you should cap the number of applications an individual can make?
There is a cap (which I believe is 6). The issue is, that students never really used that many before. You'd have your preferred course, and then maybe a back up (or two tops) - now, students play the market. They used to accept their offers immediately too, now they wait until the day before the UCAS deadline to give themselves the most time (fair enough, but has an impact on universities across the board). This will bed in in the next few years, but you'd be amazed at how sharply this changed.
> Can't we change the rules of the game so that more of the pot goes to things which aren't obviously zero-sum?
One of the hidden effects of the university fees change was that a lot of the research funding was cut and expected to be derived from incoming students rather than distributed by government (hence why so much time now goes into external proposal writing and pandering to the last remaining government schemes with things like REF case studies). You now have to appeal to external funders more than internal ones, making the process more... processy. I've heard of some places not offering PhD places unless the subsidy was from an external source.
Also (and this is a damning indictment of universities tbh), universities have increased the overhead they charge to their staff from their research grants, to spend on capital projects, meaning they need to apply for more money, potentially making the process even harder.
> Why isn't this part of the NHS budget?
Is that a serious question? :) mental health provision in the NHS is notoriously woeful, and "best and brightest young adults" (not especially true when you consider the aim is for 50% to go there, that's not the best and brightest, that's half the bell curve. Also, quite a few mental health professionals really want the age of being an adult recognised as 25 as social dynamics have changed to make it closer to that than 18) put under artificial pressure with little money and no support network, having to identify mental health issues themselves, and then admit themselves to treatment units over... missed coursework deadlines?
True, having better mental health provision for students vs non-students is damning when you consider the social-economic issues behind university access, but as to my previous point about the Dean with cash to spend - at a university system level, the investment in students not killing themselves with dedicated support staff vs community or lecturer pastoral support is one they've balanced.
EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that some of the roles I've mentioned don't always eat up a full FTE over the course of a year. Lots of people work part-time, or roles that have peaks and troughs throughout a season, are supported by teams with different remits. Those wellbeing support staff will help with enrolment during September madness, research staff will help with internal comms, programme admins will help with market research, everyone helps plan open days and applicant visit days.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tough to do this within the constraints of academic freedom; if an institution wants to offer a new course and they need to get certification by an authority and find externals to mark it... well could stall things by years?
You already see this with courses around nursing and healthcare which need to be QA'd by external bodies like the local commissioning authorities. It does delay it, but not by as much as some of the internal processes that need to happen. There might be more enterprising universities that launch courses quickly (and would probably still reserve the right to do it with things like masters courses), but most undergrad…
For an entire degree program I agree, I've seen lots of agonising about these and many roadblocks. But for a module many universities are pretty agile right now - much to the student's benefit.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
It’s not a redefining of terms. People abuse language and speak in ways that aren’t necessarily technically correct. For instance many times a person will say “fine” when asked how they are doing even if they really aren’t doing fine. Here fine is mostly used as an acknowledgement of the other person's greeting. I gave an interpretation of what people really mean by “education is free”. If you wish to argue that peop…
> It appears surprising to you that not everyone is precise in what they say. Sometimes people say what they mean and sometimes they mean what they say. But lots of times they don’t. If this is a surprise to you then I implore you to reconsider your understanding of the nature of human communication.
I am aware what people mean when they call a public service free. I meant to remind people that the cost does not disappear, which is not obvious to everyone.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see any incompatibility there? Seems like in 137 he's saying that he doesn't want to sacrifice individuality and creativity for the sake of maintaining a banal existence that doesn't deviate from the norm out of fear. He's accepting the risks that come with making his opinions public, and challenging assumptions that he should just shut up, in part because he has confidence in the validity of his beliefs and…
> he doesn't want to sacrifice individuality and creativity for the sake of maintaining a banal existence that doesn't deviate from the norm out of fear Exactly. Just apply that to the fear of running afoul of draconian speech codes designed to reduce the amount of "offence" people experience.
"Don't be a jerk" doesn't seem draconian to me. The people I see whining about their speech having consequences (ie, Milo) are usually aiming to offend. They aren't running into obscure codes, they're being jerks for fun and profit.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Academic staff has a harder time reaching tenure. Tenure in the US sense doesn't exist in the UK academic system. Lecturers/researchers with permanent contracts have the same employment rights as those in the private sector.
Yes, but, the whole of the UK permanent workforce gets tenure in the US sense after, I think, the first year of employment. As do most EU countries. Long may it remain so. The Tories abolished tenure in the UK sense which roughly removed the right not to be made redundant but didn't affect the standard employment right not to be fired "just because".
In 2012, under George Osborne, it was changed so that it is permissible for an employee to be unfairly dismissed in your first two years of employment.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 5. Did the government make everyone smarter or lower standards you ask? I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I think that moving from 3.4% to 50% University population has possibly diluted the fraction of geniuses within academia but greatly increased the number of geniuses within academia and improved education and academia as a whole. (in all honesty, this is not about the UK) No you can't. I mean how can yo…
If I understand you correctly. Nobody had run a 4 minute mile before Roger Bannister. Now lots of people have so standards must have dropped.
How is that in any way equivalent to your claim, which just so we're clear, is that now 50% of the population (and implied even near 100%) now has the intellectual standards that only 3% of the population had a mere 20 years ago ?
One reason for ever improving records is that we just further explore the long tail of human performance. A decent number of factors that get this one event going would be coincidences, and because we keep and keep and keep trying people get ever closer to perfect.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Listening to Jonathan Haidt its pretty scary stuff. Don't listen to it then. By the way the, UK isn't the same as the US, our problems aren't necessarily the same as yours.
Ignorance is bliss.
Don't listen to the media and you are uninformed, listen to the media and you are misinformed. I know which I prefer.
Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a cost on society, not on the individual pupil, just like how the education is a gain to the society at large, while the individual effort of the individual may seem negligble. So of course it's free. You are not paying. And you don't pay it over taxes, society does. Think of it this way: If you didn't go to university, and just learned on your own, then you still pay the same taxes if you reach the same income…
> It's a cost on society, not on the individual pupil, just like how the education is a gain to the society at large, while the individual effort of the individual may seem negligble. What is society in this sense but a collection of many individuals that pay, through taxes, to a common pool? Perhaps society gains, perhaps it does not. We can never know. The services are still paid for. > So of course it's free. You…
You must be American. People have laid out how this "free" services, like education or healthcare, can lead to a more productive, fairer society (e.g. less people off work sick, because they go and get treatment sooner, and recover sooner). Or why do you think tech companies offer good health care? Out of the kindness of their heart? No, because having people worry about basic needs and not get medical treatment when they need it is counter-productive.
But it seems like all you care about is how many taxes you pay, and how much you get back for it. Fair enough, if you're selfish and have no compassion for your fellow countrymen and the next generation that much, we won't be able to sway you.