Higher Education

[jondwhite]

From Network 54

Quote:

George Monbiot bemoans the corruption of the education system, particularly universities, in the Guardian, but, like all left liberals misses the point. Individuals acting in their own self-interest cannot change the system, and most of them cannot even see what their interests as a class are to make real change happen.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/city-corporates-destroy-best-minds

This comment from a reader on the article is quite enlightening.

"This was a though-provoking piece and I applaud the sentiment but the charges of naivete can hardly be avoided, can they?

You ask why the universities don't influence their students to avoid big business and finance? That completely ignores the fact that the business model has infected our universities to an extraordinary degree. Far from Cardinal Newman's ideal alma mater (the very notion of a university being considered a 'soul mother'!), they are now places run by management consultants, with staff harried by having to meet student satisfaction targets, targets for 'public engagement', targets for what is laughably called 'research', the very meaning of which word has changed – no longer the thoughtful, trial-and-error advancement of knowledge, but something that can be submitted to the REF in order that the university can secure funding. Universities essentially acquiescing in what is a Higher Education Ponzi scheme. And students are themselves customers, consumers of their educational experience, and consequently there is, inevitably, a problem with grade inflation: they are paying for their degree and they expect to get the marks they think they deserve.

Our young people are 'got at' from a very early age by the marketers, the money-men, via the saturation of social media, which inserts itself between the young person and their closest carers, those people whose job it is to foster that idealism, those values. There is no part of our lives that is untouched by this corruption."

Any thoughts on this?

Quote:

From one perspective it is ironic that 50 or 60 years ago it was tories who were arguing that HE should involve the pure pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, while lefties like the then Anthony Wedgwood Benn were arguing for a higher education that engaged with social realities and economic needs. Now it is the tories who disparage "useless" subjects in the humanities and social sciences, and who believe (perhaps correctly) that if HE involves accruing a massive debt then students will start to choose subjects that seem likely to allow them to earn enough money to pay this debt off. But 50 years ago I think that under 10% of the UK population went to university or equivalent, and now it is over 40%.

Of course the claim that university education was the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake was never more than a half truth. Universities – especially Oxbridge – also played an ideological role, training "leaders for the country and the commonwealth."

What needs to be added about the present situation is that even on its own terms, tory policy fails. The replacement of grants by loans has not saved money; there was a report last year that suggested that the new system is costing more money than the old one. Choosing a marketable subject does not guarantee a well-paid job, especially if you are with a non-Russell-group university. Sometimes students with humanities or social science degrees are more "marketable" because their qualifications do not point them in just one direction. And any academic will tell you than New Public Management has not made universities more efficient, it has made them less democratic institutions run by very high-paid individuals who are in it for the money, along with "representatives of the community" (ie businessmen, not trades unionsts) who bring "realism" to academia.

There is a possibly apocryphal anecdote from a decade or so ago about a group of Japanese academics who were being taken around a British university, and who were told proudly that the university was introducing new forms of management based on business models. One of the visitors replied: "Why do this? Your universities are world class, whereas your industries are a disaster." It's a good question, whether or not it was ever really uttered.

[rodshaw]

Universities being increasingly run on business models goes hand in hand with the direct encroachment of businesses themselves.How long before we see the Tesco Manchester Met or King's BP College London?

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