I was meant to be speaking at this today:
However, the event has been cancelled at short notice.
The hope is to rearrange this in the new year. I will look forward to it.
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Well, I hope this event does take place and that it is streamed.
Me too for that matter.
The Chair is my MP. We rarely know what he does. He is called Liddell-stranger by some.
Despite this he got 62% in the election.
Hopefully this will change.
One aspect of their tax policy of which I definitely approve is the withdrawal of charitable status from “public” (ie. private) schools. Private school education is a major plank of reinforcing privilege in the UK, and I don’t see why the rest of us should subsidise that.
When it comes to abolishing the charitable status of private schools I am often left wondering why universities have charitable status either? They are charging students for their education and most of them do little work that you could instinctively describe as “charitable”.
Why are universities subsidised by the taxpayer and what do they do to deserve their charitable status?
They are at least open to all and 50% go
Students used to be charged nothing. That sounds quite charitable. Universities are open to anyone who can pass the entrance requirements, fee paying is not taken into consideration. Universities carry out a huge amount of important (and, admittedly unimportant) research.
I have no problem with universities having charitable status. I’m not entirely sure about some of the ex-polys, some of which do little to benefit society.
I am not sure what is wrong with ex polys
Some are excellent
“Students used to be charged nothing. That sounds quite charitable.”
Students were charged nothing, but the LEA was normally paying the fees. That isn’t charitable it is a business transaction.
“Universities are open to anyone who can pass the entrance requirements, fee paying is not taken into consideration.”
It is definitely taken into consideration if you want to take up the place. At that point somebody is going to want to know how you are paying the fees.
I think you are being somewhat pedantic
@ Cyndy Hodgson
I have 3 degrees from Oxford, PCL/Westminster Uni, and the ICSL (Inns of Court School of Law), a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies from Middlesbrough Poly/University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the London University Institute of Education.
I also attended the University of Thessalonika (language gap attendance from Oxford), and the Metsovio Polytechnic University of Athens, doing research.
I don’t say this to show off, but to set out my experience of Higher Education, in various institutions, as a background to my comments about the Polytechnic/University issue.
So, ignoring the Metsovio Polytechnic University of Athens, or rather, using it as an excellent example of my main thesis, which is that the real issue is less the label/type of institution and more the teaching relationship that matters.
For my relationship to the Metsovio Polytechnic University of Athens, was entirely personal between me as a researcher, and my supervisor, who happened also to be the subject of my research – the Greek novelist, playwright, poet, scholar and essayist, Pantelís Prevelákis (accents for stressed syllable).
So, my personal encounters with Pantelís Prevelákis were the main driver of my research, which I carried out in the National Library in Athens.
And the same was true at the other academic institutions: the quality of lecturers, and of lectures/seminars, plus the quality of the libraries and access to materials were the two things, or two of the things, that mattered.
And I can say that there was good and bad in all the institutions, irrespective of labels.
And as Richard has said, I found that to be true of the Polytechnics I attended, both of which are now Universities: both had good Libraries, both had some very good and also some very poor, lecturers, which was equally true of the Universities I attended.
And that will be true of the Polytechnics turned Universities, so that the remaining question is that of purpose and environment.
The purpose of a Polytechnic was more practical, multipurpose, intercurricular, where that of a University was one of pure pursuit of knowledge and understanding in an academic environment.
This, of course, mirrored rhe GCE/CSE split in the Secondary sector, with the same result, driven by UK (and especially English) class consciousness and system, with the Polytechnics consequently regarded as inferior, and their consequent desire to increase their status by becoming Universities = the emergence of GCSE’s , to abolish the GCE/CSE divide.
This contains two ironies. The first is that many CSE’s were superior to many GCE’s, many of the former relying on coursework and research, not what was far too often a memory test and speed of writing test in the case of GCE’s.
And equally, many Polytechnics were actually superior to many Universities in their flexibility of both delivery (sandwich courses, day release, accreditation within, and across, institutions) and intercurricular offer (modularity and “mix and match”) and it would have been better had THEY led the debate, rather than the other way round.
Ironically, Cambridge University has long been a semi-Polytechnic, at least in the “modularity and “mix and match” sense.
I was once hitchhiking to Cambridge from Oxford, and got a lift (under false pretenses, as it turned out, because my Lincoln College Oxford scarf closely resembled that of his Pembroke College Cambridge scarf!!).
This man had been up at Cambridge before WW2, and had earned his BA by doing a year of one subject, a 2nd year of a second subject, and a 3rd year of a third subject – I think they were English, History and Law. Effectively this was a modular degree, an intercurricular General Studies degree.
So there’s the first irony – the teacher and the taught, who should have been the example for whom – was the wrong way round, due to the inequality of esteem over the Polytechnic/University divide.
The second irony is that, just as Polytechnics have become Universities, so Universities have taken on more of the Polytechnic ethos in terms of modularity and intercurricularity, while the portability of accreditation now stretches across the whole of academia, both domestic and foreign, (all within Thatcher’s preposterous demand that academia became more business-like, when it was British industry and management that should have been learning from the excellence of British Higher and Further Education’s clarity of mission and method).
This leaves this key question: have the Polytechnics lost out in any way through their conversion to Universities? For I fear they may have sacrificed some of their pluses by taking on University modes of operation – perhaps less focus on their skills-based modus operandi, moving towards the disinterested pursuit of knowledge and understanding of an academic University education?
Related to this is the issue of research: these days the experts called in to assist and comment in documentary programmes are not drawn exclusively from the Russell Group, but are very often from new Universities that were formerly Polytechnics or non-University institutions, such as Teacher Training Colleges.
These should be sufficient proof to establish equality of esteem as a reality, providing each institution has quality lecturers, quality libraries, and quality research, all within a working environment of academic freedom.
My experience, and belief, is that many of the new Universities do meet the challenge, and come up to the mark
I wholeheartedly agree
We need different types of education for both students and teachers because they are not all the same either and so variety is essential
I feel there can be an over emphasis on the abstract but confess I think there is too little of that in accountancy
There is a low a risk that interdisciplinary matters are being lost
But overall the university sector works, although there is room for improvement (there always is)
Just on the interdisciplinary bit, it is remarkable how many leading scientists (the sort who win major prizes, or at a more prosaic level, the sort that are interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili on the Life Scientific and have made real, demonstrable advancements in knowledge) come from a mixed background. It is rare that someone does a subject at A-level, first degree, second degree, research, professor level. They all start in one discipline, and drift into a second or third discipline as research interests and job or funding opportunities take them. And they bring the particular knowledge and methods and insight from subject 1 and apply it to subject 2 in a new and interesting way that the subject 2 experts never could. It is almost always at the boundaries between two subjects that the really interesting and unexpected developments are found. I’m pretty sure the same must be true of the social sciences and the humanities. New insights do not come from redoing the same things in the same ways.
And while our universities may be doing ok at present, the UK has fallen further behind on further and vocational education.
Much to agree with
I went to PCL/University of Westminster to do my housing degree from 1994.
I started wide eyed on a Foundation Level access degree in the Built Environment faculty.
It was the making of me – an A level drop out in my teens – as a mature student. I got my first work in housing through the School of Housing and the work experience set me up for dissertation in my Housing BA. The standards they expected made me pull my socks up but also the feedback and help in getting ‘there’ was substantial. If you were up for it you got pushed and supported.
I did my MBA at the University of Derby – one of the must un-stuffy learning institutions of higher learning I can think of. But all my lecturers had done the job they were teaching – some had even done the course we were on.
I’ve had a really good experience at both of these new university’s and I would not consider myself to be brightest or the best.
Proving why ex Polys work