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andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2011-01-14 11:01 am
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Interesting Links for 14-1-2011

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andrewducker: (Default)

[personal profile] andrewducker 2011-01-14 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh For Fuck's Sake.

Do people not think about the consequences of their actions at all?

If I was one of those groups I'd have been very tempted to get lawyers involved.

[identity profile] robhu.livejournal.com 2011-01-14 07:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah... but we were all wide eyed teenagers, and had no thought of things like legal action.
andrewducker: (Default)

[personal profile] andrewducker 2011-01-14 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
About the only positive thing I can see coming out of making people pay for their degrees is that they might feel that the service they get isn't good enough, and demand better, and possibly have a legal right to it.

[identity profile] robhu.livejournal.com 2011-01-14 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
As you know I work in an academic institution, and so we get a lot of people from teaching academia come to work with us.

A former lecturer (from a prestigious university) joined a few days ago, and he said the big effect of tuition fees was that students expect you to actually teach them and they expect the teaching to be good now.

I got the impression he (or perhaps his colleagues) weren't very interested in teaching and just wanted to do research, so they saw this as a bit of a bad thing.

He was saying that the issue would become more acute as tuition fees go up to 6-9K.

Interestingly he also said that if the grades fall at all from one year to the next it is viewed as a failure of the lecturer, and that if anyone fails a module it is considered to be a failing of the lecturer (he implied it'd be investigated).

[identity profile] draconid.livejournal.com 2011-01-14 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)
I remember when I was at university (the year before fees) we had a lecturer who was absolutely rubbish and practically all of us failed his module the one year (so of course they upped the grades of everyone to give us a better average). We'd complained bitterly all through the term to no affect, although I believe they took him off the module the following year. If we'd paid fees we'd have protested more, I'm sure.

The lecturer is still there at the university some 12 years later, because he's got some renown (and useful links) in the worldwide science community. I shudder to think about the education, or lack of it, he's giving to the students.

[identity profile] robhu.livejournal.com 2011-01-14 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Perhaps part of the problem is that many academics are good at research but not good at teaching, and they're expected to do both.
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