News broke yesterday, shattering and defying all expectation – the University of Cambridge did not succeed in its attempt in carrying forward a motion of no confidence against universities minister David Willets.
Actually that’s not technically true – it wasn’t the entire University. In fact it was only the governing body, the Regent House, which backed the motion after receiving a petition with 150 signatories. Those in the academic community were the only ones able to participate in this public censuring. In Regent House there are 4,500 academic and academic-related staff.
The vote was close. 681 voted in favour of the motion and exactly 681 voted against leading to a tie. Unlike in most contact sports, there is no second draw and the motion was abandoned – either you win the motion outright or you don’t win it at all.
Removing my instinctive conspiracy theory/PR stunt detecting hat for a second, just the numbers astound. 681/4500. That’s just over 15% of those eligible to vote voted against Mr Willetts. That’s hardly a great confidence knock is it?
This isn’t the first time that numbers fail to add up to a damning critique of the Government’s HE policies. At the University of Oxford’s legislative body last month the motion which successfully passed to censure Willetts won by only 283 votes. This group is made up of a large number of compulsory members as well as ‘all persons working in any university department or institution who hold posts on grades 8 and above’. Grade 8, for information, is approximately £36862 - £44016. That is a very large number indeed. Much larger than 283.
Leeds again has its data skewed: "There were many abstentions and even those who voted against the motion said they were unhappy about what was happening. They were just concerned if it was the right time and place to pass a motion," said a concerned academic. They are right to be concerned - I've taken issue with the number that didn't vote but how many voted against? How many abstained?
Only eight departments out of 95 at King’s College, London, have successfully passed a vote of no confidence. That’s less than 8%.
At Warwick University 1,062 lecturers and students have signed a petition on this subject – as of 2010 Warwick had 4,448 staff and 18,434 students. That’s a combined population of 22,882. That makes the percentage of Warwickians that have no confidence in David Willetts: just over 4%.
I accept that just proposing a vote of no confidence is bound to have sent shockwaves around BIS, but on closer examination it really is nothing more than not-very-impressive PR stunt. The percentages speak for themselves. Like RMT calling a tube strike with less than 10% of its base, if it is below a defined percentage of the eligible participants then it should surely not pass and should have very little impact on the business of governing. This smacks of a centrally orchestrated smear campaign strategy to me.
The autumn is when I predict it will all kick off. Students and staff will return full time and the real ramifications of a mis-communicated and vague HE White Paper will start to emerge. Once everyone is settled back, around about mid-October, the rhetoric will fly and emotions will run riot over an issue that deserves careful deliberation and academic debate, and not a spin-induced placard wielding frenzy.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Monday, 25 July 2011
Comment on 'Degrees of Value' by Professor Hall, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford.
Professor Hall is absolutely right – the value that is inherently expressed through a superficial glance at the KPIs is nothing short of painting over the cracks of a problem that is entrenched not just within the sector, but within the consciousness of the populace at large.
The financial reforms to the sector put funding in the hands of the student. But relatively little thought has been given to how the decisions are made that result in a student choosing where it is that they go to study – and therefore where the funding is allocated.
The KPIs follow concerns from many parts of the sector that there is not enough information to satiate the inevitable demand from prospective students and their parents. They seem to be made up of a variety of different surveys and statistical data that are already in existence without consideration about whether those sources need to be adapted at all.
Professor Hall makes a good example from the KPI about ‘student satisfaction’ being similar to the National Student Survey in only being based on the opinions of final years. Why not others? When you are a college student applying do you care about the opinion of third years? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s for the ‘not’ that data should be collated.
The discussion of SROIs is interesting – though I feel slightly uncomfortable with the unconscious assumption that the quality or value of higher education can be accurately summarised in monetary terms. Social mobility? Money. Employability? Money. It suggests an expectation that this is one of the most crucial factors to market when attempting to attract students. Can we not encourage a system or a tool of evaluation that expresses the value of higher education not in purely financial terms but in a format not totally subservient to the presumption that money matters more than education?
SROIs are interesting as a measure, though as with KPIs I think we have a way to go before either of them accurately provides the sort of rigorous detail that new students may require.
Is this reflex symptomatic of a guilty sector and a cautious government?
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Humble pie: witty satire or farcical buffoonery?
A new blog post discussing anarchism for PlatformTen following yesterday's antics with Murdoch and the now infamous pie splatting attempt:
http://www.platform10.org/2011/07/humble-pie-witty-satire-or-farcical-buffoonery-2/
http://www.platform10.org/2011/07/humble-pie-witty-satire-or-farcical-buffoonery-2/
Monday, 18 July 2011
What is the value of Higher Education?
I am currently in the process of conducting a piece of research for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations examining media perceptions of the value of higher education.
In order to help me with this, I wondered if you would mind taking a few minutes to complete a short survey which asks for your views on the way that universities have been portrayed in the media in the past year or so.
You can take the survey here.
Any and all responses would be appreciated. Please also feel free to send this to others who may be interested.
Please do feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Many thanks,
Mario Creatura
In order to help me with this, I wondered if you would mind taking a few minutes to complete a short survey which asks for your views on the way that universities have been portrayed in the media in the past year or so.
You can take the survey here.
Any and all responses would be appreciated. Please also feel free to send this to others who may be interested.
Please do feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Many thanks,
Mario Creatura
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Friday, 8 July 2011
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo
Slowly but surely, David Willetts’s hotly anticipated White Paper for Higher Education is dragging students out of the baby-seat and placing them firmly behind the wheel of one of the most important sectors to the British economy. Not only research funding direction, but ‘British’ brand ambassadors on graduation all add to the complex and varied impact of choosing to study a particular course at a particular institution.
That’s a lot of responsibility for a prospective student. The choices that a student makes, based on whatever reason, will determine the shape of the sector and will have national and potentially international ramifications that no-one can definitively predict.
Would a student choose a subject that has a low employability record? Would they pursue academia for the love of learning or will fees/media/family pressure force them down a path not of their natural preference?
The Classics Department at my alma mater, Royal Holloway College, has just announced that it will be dissolved and merged into a variety of other departments. Courses will be cut, redundancies will be made and research projects phased out. There are only 21 other ‘Classics/Ancient History’ universities left in Britain. As much as I understand the logic of shutting down departments that have little demand, the devil on my shoulder is shouting that students should be made to study certain subjects just because it’s darn well good for them to.
Is there any harm in that view? We are forced to study core subjects at Primary and Secondary level, why not once we reach the higher level? In Ann Mroz’s leader in this week’s Times Higher Education she decries the lack of consideration put into the White Paper into the nature of the choices facing prospective students. And rightly so. The motivation for going to university is many and varied but it is in the patterns that will inevitably emerge from these choices that will shut down avenues of academic pursuit simply due to a lack of perceived ‘popularity’.
If we gauge the necessity of publicly funding the future study of maths or PE at primary level based on a survey of its popularity with kids aged 5-11 then would those subjects still exist? If we asked reception level infants whether they prefer finger-painting or rote-learning phonics I wonder which they’d pick. Regardless of their preference society has decided that there are some items that all children must learn for their (and our) own good.
This used to be the way for a ‘classical’ education. Students at all levels and from all classes were required to study Latin, Greek. Most memorised the tragedies of Euripides and the ethics of Aristotle. Politics was taught through the lens of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues and ancient history was expressed through the tomes of Tacitus and Suetonius.
When did we decide what we must study now? How were those choices made? Was it an economic decision? Was it a humanitarian or democratic decision? Was it a lack of interest? What makes a student choice on the matter more considered than the state education curriculum?
The student experience and the labels that higher education will have to apply to itself to make it appealing will never satiate the plethora of differing student perceptions and requirements. The differences in motive are too many and too varied. Ann Mroz argues that HE is about discovering yourself and working out your options. To that end she quotes Professor Simon Blackburn (NB a philosopher) who says: “Expanding the understanding and imagination of students is a great task… It can be done only by people whose understandings and imagination are in good order, which is why good teaching and the desire to contribute to the subject go together”.
Ann and Simon are both spot on. Higher Education is for expanding your horizons. It is for tutors to pastorally support their tutees through an increasingly distracting, academically economic world. They are not only fulfilling the roles of academic mentors, but personal and careers guidance counsellors as well.
A love of the subject is essential for the honourable survival of higher education. Some subjects must be protected from the axe – if not for the preservation of swathes of knowledge then for rarity of their existence.
An extinct subject area is something we should avoid at all costs.
That’s a lot of responsibility for a prospective student. The choices that a student makes, based on whatever reason, will determine the shape of the sector and will have national and potentially international ramifications that no-one can definitively predict.
Would a student choose a subject that has a low employability record? Would they pursue academia for the love of learning or will fees/media/family pressure force them down a path not of their natural preference?
The Classics Department at my alma mater, Royal Holloway College, has just announced that it will be dissolved and merged into a variety of other departments. Courses will be cut, redundancies will be made and research projects phased out. There are only 21 other ‘Classics/Ancient History’ universities left in Britain. As much as I understand the logic of shutting down departments that have little demand, the devil on my shoulder is shouting that students should be made to study certain subjects just because it’s darn well good for them to.
Is there any harm in that view? We are forced to study core subjects at Primary and Secondary level, why not once we reach the higher level? In Ann Mroz’s leader in this week’s Times Higher Education she decries the lack of consideration put into the White Paper into the nature of the choices facing prospective students. And rightly so. The motivation for going to university is many and varied but it is in the patterns that will inevitably emerge from these choices that will shut down avenues of academic pursuit simply due to a lack of perceived ‘popularity’.
If we gauge the necessity of publicly funding the future study of maths or PE at primary level based on a survey of its popularity with kids aged 5-11 then would those subjects still exist? If we asked reception level infants whether they prefer finger-painting or rote-learning phonics I wonder which they’d pick. Regardless of their preference society has decided that there are some items that all children must learn for their (and our) own good.
This used to be the way for a ‘classical’ education. Students at all levels and from all classes were required to study Latin, Greek. Most memorised the tragedies of Euripides and the ethics of Aristotle. Politics was taught through the lens of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues and ancient history was expressed through the tomes of Tacitus and Suetonius.
When did we decide what we must study now? How were those choices made? Was it an economic decision? Was it a humanitarian or democratic decision? Was it a lack of interest? What makes a student choice on the matter more considered than the state education curriculum?
The student experience and the labels that higher education will have to apply to itself to make it appealing will never satiate the plethora of differing student perceptions and requirements. The differences in motive are too many and too varied. Ann Mroz argues that HE is about discovering yourself and working out your options. To that end she quotes Professor Simon Blackburn (NB a philosopher) who says: “Expanding the understanding and imagination of students is a great task… It can be done only by people whose understandings and imagination are in good order, which is why good teaching and the desire to contribute to the subject go together”.
Ann and Simon are both spot on. Higher Education is for expanding your horizons. It is for tutors to pastorally support their tutees through an increasingly distracting, academically economic world. They are not only fulfilling the roles of academic mentors, but personal and careers guidance counsellors as well.
A love of the subject is essential for the honourable survival of higher education. Some subjects must be protected from the axe – if not for the preservation of swathes of knowledge then for rarity of their existence.
An extinct subject area is something we should avoid at all costs.
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