RE: [aus-dotnet] Adelaide -> Why penguins don't explode

[Luke Thompson]

Hi Greg,

 

Is this thesis ‘Why penguins don't explode’ available online? Who wrote it? Can you post a link? I’d love to read it.

 

J

Luke

 

 

 

 

 

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From: peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Glavich
Sent: Friday, 16 September 2005 2:42 PM
To: dotnet@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [aus-dotnet] Adelaide [warning - long]

 

>> 3. Everyone needs to go to University

 

>> Sorry but this just isn't true.

 

Whew! I was worried for a sec. I have not been to Uni and thought I might have to throw in my IT job and get a job as a gigolo or something.... ;-)

 

Paul Glavich
Readify – Senior Consultant
M: +61 (0)413 0413 61

 

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From: peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Greg Low
Sent: Friday, 16 September 2005 12:19 PM
To: dotnet@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [aus-dotnet] Adelaide [warning - long]

Hi Guys,

 

I've spent a bit of time on both sides of the fence. There are lots of issues. Here are some:

 

1. Overseas Students

 

I constantly see people bemoaning the fact that our universities are full of overseas students. Often they feel that this must be removing places for local students. This is far from the truth. I spent 6 years as a Tech Services manager for an IT Faculty (one of the roles I had to fill while there as a lecturer). I can tell you that the vast majority of the resources ALL the students were using came from funds we received from overseas students. Without them, we'd have had almost no equipment, software, etc. The funding that came from the government for this was pathetic.

 

2. Universities having to be self-funding

 

As the funding for universities from the government doesn't even vaguely meet even the most basic requirements, the universities are being pushed to self-fund. That means that full-fee paying students are then very desirable. The worst example of this is the degradation of the Masters level courses. In the 1980's, to gain a Master's degree in an area required the following:

 

a) An undergraduate degree in the same area.

b) An honours degree in the area or completion of a Masters Qualifying course (to prove you could do the research work)

c) A course of about 3 years duration (or at least 4 year part time) in the subject area, mostly involving substantial research.

 

Today, because a "Masters" degree appears saleable, you can do one in 18 months part time without even an undergraduate degree in the same area. Sorry, but that's a joke and employers who don't look carefully at applicants with these degrees only have themselves to blame. An 18 month part-time course in an area different to your undergraduate area used to get you a Graduate Diploma in the area, not a Masters degree. It was also well understood in the universities that a Grad Dip was a lower educational status than an undergraduate degree in the same area. You would then have definitely had to do the Masters Qualifying course to move further.

 

3. Everyone needs to go to University

 

Sorry but this just isn't true. We've removed all the old technical colleges and colleges of education and pushed them all inside the university system. We've also given high-school students the expectation that everyone should be at university. This is nonsense. Universities should have had a higher-learning role, not a mass-education program role. The majority (and I don't suggest this lightly) of the students at universities in Australia today are incapable of the level of academic rigour that "should" be expected of universities.

 

Governments have tied funding to "completion rates". Universities have then assessed lecturers on "completion rates". How do you expect they'll respond to that?

 

I've been in course examiners' meetings where the reason being discussed for giving someone a "conceded pass" was the fact that their visa was running out and the shame and cost for the family back home if they failed. That should have no relevance.

 

We as a country have a major cultural cringe in academic areas. At high-school level, we take our best sports people, separate them from the crowd and put them into the AIS and cheer. Any suggestion that we take say the best physics or chemistry or maths students and do the same would be met with cries of "elitist thinking". Why is that? I know where the Qld Academy of Sports is. Doesn't it say something that we don't do the same for the sciences?

 

4. Pure research isn't funded

 

The Australian research grants council seems very hesitant to fund pure research. Why? Because again, they are very outcome driven. But outcome-driven research isn't research, it's development. We need both. I have a friend Shlomo who described it to me well. He said it's like a guy that didn't come home from the pub one night and everyone eventually went out looking for him. They found him walking round and round under a street light. When asked what he was doing, he said he'd lost his keys so they all helped look. When eventually they couldn't find them, they asked where he lost them. He said "back down there" pointing down the street and into the dark. They said "why are you looking here". He said "that's where the light is".

 

I've mentioned to people that the best research thesis title I've ever seen was one called "Why penguins don't explode". Great title but I'm sure I can imagine the headlines in the local papers if such a project was funded. "Bloody academics!". But it was fascinating. They used to think penguins only dived down about 20 metres under the water. This guy tracked them and found out they actually go down about 200 metres. What had him fascinated is how any creature could do that without imploding and conversely, how it could come screaming back up to the surface without exploding. That's pure research at its best. Might never amount to anything BUT it's also the area that entire industries can come out of. The country needs people like that if we are to have any future. If some bloke wants to spend his days down in the Antarctic doing that, I'll put in my 5c or whatever it takes to help him.

 

5. Selling research time

 

Driven by the need to self-fund, universities who on-sell their researchers time to organisations in other countries are patted on the back and told it's good "export income". Rubbish. We've then built a situation where the output from the best researchers in the country is already 100% owned by someone else. Do we really want that? It's unbelievably short-sighted.

 

6. Devalue teaching at all costs

 

Given the need to be mass-educators now, the universities also can't afford to pay the right staff. They are simply completely uncompetitive in any area that counts. The university unions also are to blame here. The nonsense that says a law lecturer should earn the same as one teaching creative dance because they are both "doing the same job" completely ignores commercial reality. In recent years, small loadings have been able to be applied in certain disciplines but it's way, way too little, way, way too late.

 

It's not just the universities though. Look at high-school teaching. I've got a cousin teaching secondary maths & sciences. Why does he teach that? It was the best thing his 750 TE score would get him in to (when Qld had a scoring system from a low of 660 to a high of 990). He couldn't make it into primary school teaching. Why did he get that TE score? Because he couldn't cope with the very subjects he's now teaching.

 

At most high-schools in the 50's and 60's, maths and science teachers had an undergraduate degree in the area that they were teaching in and did a diploma in education. Today, many of the people teaching these subjects have no real feeling for them at all. That's pretty scary for our kids.

 

I remember this came across very clearly to me one day when I was at the uni. Someone had posted two job ads side-by-side. One was for a park ranger. It said it preferred applicants to have an associate diploma in a relevant area. The other ad was for a post-grad researcher in molecular biology. Required a PhD and substantial research profile in genetics. The park ranger job paid around $43k. The post-grad researcher paid about $34k. (both 1980's dollars). And often at night, I'd see shows on TV discussing why we keep losing our brightest people to overseas companies. What a surprise.

 

The fascinating part is that with the self-funding mantra, the overseas company could probably hire the researcher via the university for a pittance more than he/she was being paid by the university, still own all the outcome and the university would get patted on the back for generating export income. <sigh>

 

And there's much, much more but enough for today...

 

Regards,

 

 

Greg

 

 

Dr Greg Low

Readify - Senior Consultant

M: +61 419 201 410

 

 

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From: peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Himanshu Desai
Sent: Friday, 16 September 2005 11:05 AM
To: dotnet@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [aus-dotnet] Adelaide

David,

 

  Do you know how easy it is to get a Master's degree in Melbourne for International Students?I have seen students with background (or bachelor's degree)  in Arts and Commerce got admissions in Masters programs without any entrance exams so it is hardly surprising to see Taxi drivers with degree.

 

I think the problem really lies with the university and their money -making scheme (do you know their qualifying criteria???) .All the major university including monash ,rmit ,swinburne are suffering from this.They need full fee paying students irrespective of anything and they are getting it easily.

 

Himanshu