The (largely) respected British institutions of law and academia
Sliding criminal justice
Jury-less criminal trials http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8453318.stm
and acquitted defendants paying some of their court fees.
I feel another rant brewing, though no time for it now.
Oh, academia is screwed too
Russell Group warning article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/universities-face-meltdown-britain-suffer
It has taken more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it to its knees.
From my experience of university leaders, they avoid catastrophising language even in extremely difficult financial or operating conditions, as it makes negotiating with government funders awkward. For a group of them to agree to use this kind of language in a public message, the situation must be really dire.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8453360.stm
Higher education minister David Lammy said spending on frontline teaching would be protected by savings on building and making efficiency measures. (Higher education minister David Lammy had also promised three months ago that universities teaching funding would not be cut at all.)
The thing is that universities have been making such savings and efficiency measures for years. In most institutions, the only options for 'efficiency' left are larger class sizes, fewer academics, fewer courses, poorer (more minimal, anyway) student support services and general support services, as they won't allow universities to take fewer students (which I think, with dropping some courses, would be the best way of managing the cuts while maintaining quality). While there are some courses I may not regret seeing the back of, fewer academics and those financially herded into front line teaching (largely undergraduates eating up time for research and publications) isn't going to add to quality, just turn universities into bigger grown-up schools. University isn't just about churning out students, and saleable innovations, its about churning out ideas and academics and giving both the space to develop.
See previous rants here
later edit
Mandelson responded I think the comments pick up on the points I felt he'd failed to address, glossed over, or simply left out, and ones I wouldn't have thought of. As this is long enough, I'm going to extract the mortal thrusts to Mandelson's line found among the comments in a separate post (for myself and for anyone interested but without the time or energy to plough through all the article's comments). In short, it was a poor response which not only failed to persuade me of the merits of his statements, but appeared too weak to constitute a genuine attempt at a rebuttal, possibly because he didn't have a stronger argument to make and just found it politically necessary to get some words in public for 'soundbite tennis in the media' purposes.
Jury-less criminal trials http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8453318.stm
and acquitted defendants paying some of their court fees.
I feel another rant brewing, though no time for it now.
Oh, academia is screwed too
Russell Group warning article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/universities-face-meltdown-britain-suffer
It has taken more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it to its knees.
From my experience of university leaders, they avoid catastrophising language even in extremely difficult financial or operating conditions, as it makes negotiating with government funders awkward. For a group of them to agree to use this kind of language in a public message, the situation must be really dire.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8453360.stm
Higher education minister David Lammy said spending on frontline teaching would be protected by savings on building and making efficiency measures. (Higher education minister David Lammy had also promised three months ago that universities teaching funding would not be cut at all.)
The thing is that universities have been making such savings and efficiency measures for years. In most institutions, the only options for 'efficiency' left are larger class sizes, fewer academics, fewer courses, poorer (more minimal, anyway) student support services and general support services, as they won't allow universities to take fewer students (which I think, with dropping some courses, would be the best way of managing the cuts while maintaining quality). While there are some courses I may not regret seeing the back of, fewer academics and those financially herded into front line teaching (largely undergraduates eating up time for research and publications) isn't going to add to quality, just turn universities into bigger grown-up schools. University isn't just about churning out students, and saleable innovations, its about churning out ideas and academics and giving both the space to develop.
See previous rants here
- UK HE http://a-llusive.livejournal.com/135078.html
- Hot Topics http://a-llusive.livejournal.com/129637.html
- Research http://a-llusive.livejournal.com/140979.html (after the cuts were announced, first two before)
later edit
Mandelson responded I think the comments pick up on the points I felt he'd failed to address, glossed over, or simply left out, and ones I wouldn't have thought of. As this is long enough, I'm going to extract the mortal thrusts to Mandelson's line found among the comments in a separate post (for myself and for anyone interested but without the time or energy to plough through all the article's comments). In short, it was a poor response which not only failed to persuade me of the merits of his statements, but appeared too weak to constitute a genuine attempt at a rebuttal, possibly because he didn't have a stronger argument to make and just found it politically necessary to get some words in public for 'soundbite tennis in the media' purposes.