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‘Implode’ is probably the
correct term. From:
peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Greg Low I was trying to find it
earlier today. I fear he may have been required to "tone down" the
title... Regards, Greg Dr Greg
Low Readify - Senior
Consultant M: +61 419 201 410 From:
peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of 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 From:
peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Paul Glavich >> 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 From:
peter@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Greg Low 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 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 From: peter@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Himanshu
Desai 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
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