Earlier this week he announced businesses, charities and potentially individuals will be able to buy university places (btw private schools are usually charities and he refused to deny they’d be able to buy places when asked in the Commons).

Today he announces – in an interview in the Independent – that universities should be able to reduce their fees during clearing in order to fill places. A ‘last minute reductions – everything must go’ style approach. Clearly that will create chaos for the applicants, UCAS and universities, and goes against what the Office of Fair Access have suggested.

In the same article he says:

“One thing that will be very important with the new structure is the quality of the teaching experience,” he said.

“I want to see universities competing not simply by saying ‘we’re charging £8,250 – down the road it’s £8,750’.

“I want them to be saying things like ‘With your academic work, there won’t be more than 30 people in seminars and lectures‘ and rather than just a vague promise of work experience they will say ‘we will offer two weeks in which you will do this, that and the other’.

As a lecturer, the idea that you can teach a quality seminar with 30 people in it is ludicrous. This guy doesn’t know very much about universities, yet he gets to decide how they are run.

Dave lines them all up each morning and tells them what their opinions will be today

This guy doesn’t know very much about universities, yet he gets to decide how they are run.

The call him Two Brains. He went to Christchurch, Oxford. Seminars do not exist – they have small group and often one-to-one tutoring at Oxbridge.

Broadly he’s saying – Oxbridge will remain elite, though rich people and public schools will be able to “reserve” places. The rest of you will have to be operated like training businesses.

Fundamnetally, the university model of requiring academics to teach (I know plenty of academics don’t teach and people like Mrs North don’t do research*) is flawed.

Employ researchers to do research. Employee lecturers/teaching fellows to teach. It should be the exception that people do both. That way, under and post grad students will get the teaching that they think justifies their course fees, and those doing research can be left alone by the demanding students.

*But she has had two plagiarising MSc students sent down 😯

More importantly, he doesn’t seem to understand the diff between lectures and seminars.

Employ researchers to do research. Employee lecturers/teaching fellows to teach. It should be the exception that people do both.

I couldn’t disagree more. Most lecturers teach and research, and (those in the social sciences at least) subscribe to research-led teaching. That is the highest quality teaching as it is driven by the quality research people are doing. Where i work, all our third year modules are based on an academic’s research area which means what we teach in lectures and (small!) seminars is influenced by the latest research in the field.

Creating a separation as you suggest would lead to the rest operating like training businesses.

This guy doesn’t know very much about universities, yet he gets to decide how they are run.

newsflash: politician found to be out of touch with the real world.

not really a surpise, is it!

He went to Christchurch, Oxford.

well there’s the problem right there see.
If he had gone to a decent university, like, say, Cambridge – we’d have a much brighter kind of minister 😉

Clearly that will create chaos for the applicants, UCAS and universities, and goes against what the Office of Fair Access have suggested.

depends on yr vision of the future – small state/free market economics would suggest that the only way to an “efficient” system is too allow people who want to spent money buying placing do it, having variable pricing to fill places would also mean that slack is taken up and those with less means would get some opportunity paid for by those willing to pay more – when all this works perfectly (!?) you don’t need UCAS and the Office of Fair Access so there is the small state payoff (think the argument actually goes that a market of this type fails when you have such external intervention) – approached from this viewpoint then what Willetts said yesterday makes perfect sense – problem is he didn’t disguise it enough

Employ researchers to do research. Employee lecturers/teaching fellows to teach. It should be the exception that people do both.

Strongly disagree, while some researches do better with no teaching for most it helps research. You revisit old subject areas improving your understanding, see thing from fresh perspectives e.t.c.

Omitn- that’s a poor suggestion to separate teaching and research, as the capt says. You have to expose students to at least some real, contmporary research questions using academics who are involved at the coal face.
Besides, the best researchers usually make the best teachers. Might not seem like it at times, and there are some shocking exceptions, but generally its true IME

Two brains indeed…

He may wel have two brains, but given that politicians efficiency rates run at less than 25% he doesnt even use half a brain – that is clear to see for anyone with more than half a brain.

it is shame the two brains dont communicate and explain the difference to each other

You have to expose students to at least some real, contmporary research questions using academics who are involved at the coal face.
Besides, the best researchers usually make the best teachers. Might not seem like it at times, and there are some shocking exceptions, but generally its true IME

Found the exact opposite when I worked at uni departent [psychology]. The reasearchers knew everything there was to know about a tiny little area [ attentional blink for example] but knew nothing about what had happened in other areas of field in the last 30 years outside their tiny specialism.
Teaching is a skill that requires more than you just being bright to deliver the goods

I haven’t much interest in (edit) arguing the point I made above, othert than to clarify my thinking:

Reasearch and teaching require two quite different skill sets. It is rare that people manage to make these overlap effectively.

In essence, the role of universities is becoming increasingly polarised – the pressures on funding for research, and the expectations of under and post graduates in terms of getting perceived value for money in terms of teaching are pushing those skillsets apart.

Research is driven by competition for a dwindling pot of funds. Teaching has become a real political football over the last few years – degrees are no longer seen as a means of receiving a broad educational experience, but as training. Listen to the language of politicians – they talk about education to skill up the populace for work.

And let’s not kid ourselves that the majority of what is taught on undergraduate degrees and cash-cow taught masters is anywhere near the envelope pushing level of some research. It is largely repetitive, and driven by the need to crete a course that will attract paying students. I’d be worried if any lecturer was genuinely developing their existing knowledge through teaching.

If universities are going to find themselves under this continued pressure to do so much more with so much less, they are going to have to look at how they deliver decent research and attractive teaching to the vast majority of people who aren’t in the least bit bothered about department’s research ratings (how does that affect the quality of teaching idiot undergrads?).

Of all the academics I know, there are a small handful I’d task with explaining complex ideas to uninterested 18 year olds.

Those who can do both well – brilliant, but I reckon you’re in the gifted minority and will probably be forced to choose, at some point, which path you’ll follow (teaching or research).

It seems to me that what’s happening is Dave and George are concentrating on the ‘no-plan-B’ devastation of the economy, and all the minions are being left to wing it, relying purely on right wing ‘think-tanks’ who are all clearly completely bonkers.

But… Note how quickly Dave hangs them out to dry when the public recoils in horror at the ideas being floated by the swivel-eyed lunatics.

Michael Gove’s ‘will we/won’t we’ school exam reforms? Andrew Lansleys Health reforms and now this

None of it will make it into legislation.

They’re literally thinking out loud. Lest we forget: the Tories went into the election with virtually no manifesto. this wasb ecause Dave basically had no concrete policies other than ‘not being Gordon Brown’ It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that this would be the end result

On the research / teaching debate.

My profession Nursing has become mainly taught in universities and thus the teachers have the pressure to do research. The net effect is loads of rubbish research that does not further knowledge and vast confusion.

There is for example 30 different ways to assess someone for pressure sore risk, none properly validated however teh main method is use is perfectly adequate – there is no need for more.

This is just part and parcel of the marketisation of education, demoralising teachers and attempting to differentiate and dumb-down aspects of teachers’ work. His latest bright spark is cut-price fees on the clearing house offers. I despair of this man and he is seen as the best they have to offer for this ministry. Perhaps it is a reflection of the brain size of those who describe him as ‘two brains’.
The Tory councillor I had on my doorstep last week could barely construct a sentence.

ourmaninthenorth – Member
I haven’t much interest in (edit) arguing the point I made above, othert than to clarify my thinking:

Reasearch and teaching require two quite different skill sets. It is rare that people manage to make these overlap effectively.

I don’t recognise that at all in the part of academia i work in. As Garry says the best researchers are usually the best lecturers. It is rare people can’t combine the two effectively. Given the importance of dissertations, students would be pretty annoyed if the person guiding them through the research process didn’t know what they were talking about from first hand experience.

In essence, the role of universities is becoming increasingly polarised – the pressures on funding for research, and the expectations of under and post graduates in terms of getting perceived value for money in terms of teaching are pushing those skillsets apart.

Research is driven by competition for a dwindling pot of funds. Teaching has become a real political football over the last few years – degrees are no longer seen as a means of receiving a broad educational experience, but as training. Listen to the language of politicians – they talk about education to skill up the populace for work.

Research isn’t just done through research grants. There is loads being done using internal monies and without funding.

And let’s not kid ourselves that the majority of what is taught on undergraduate degrees and cash-cow taught masters is anywhere near the envelope pushing level of some research. It is largely repetitive, and driven by the need to crete a course that will attract paying students.

That’s insulting frankly. I have to change my third year module every year to keep up with the changing field. I have to change less for second year courses, and less again for first year module, but the integration of new ideas into the curriculum is essential.[/quote]

If universities are going to find themselves under this continued pressure to do so much more with so much less, they are going to have to look at how they deliver decent research and attractive teaching to the vast majority of people who aren’t in the least bit bothered about department’s research ratings (how does that affect the quality of teaching idiot undergrads?).

Of all the academics I know, there are a small handful I’d task with explaining complex ideas to uninterested 18 year olds.

Those who can do both well – brilliant, but I reckon you’re in the gifted minority and will probably be forced to choose, at some point, which path you’ll follow (teaching or research).

Perhaps you know the wrong academics.