(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I just read an article on stuff.co.nz that the government plans to change course funding from the bums-on-seats method currently being used, where courses which attract higher numbers of students are more likely to continue to be funded. While this is theoretically great - because that approach involves chasing students, extremely competitive courses, and ultimately a huge loss of variety and broadness of course spectrum - I'm a little concerned about what they're changing it to.

Says the Stuff article, "[The Government] want[s] to change the emphasis from funding [courses] based on the number of students they attract to providing courses that are seen to be in the national interest." Adds Dr Cullen, "While academic freedom would be recognised, universities had acknowledged the public had a right to see taxpayers' money was used responsibly and strategically." That's okaaaaaay, although I am hesitant to say that Jo/e Public is the judge of what is a responsible use of funding - quite probably s/he would be perfectly happy with the continued loss of funding in the Arts degree, which suffers because people think it's useless (despite the fact that money from these popular courses is frequently used to fund expensive courses like Science and Engineering.) I don't like thinking that the value of so-called "useless" or "unpractical" courses like the poetry writing and reading course I'm taking is dependent for its continued existence on it being seen as valuable to the "national interest."

Sound alarmist? Maybe - surely the gvt can be trusted to keep its nose out of the Universities' choices? Except maybe not, because the article concludes: "The changes would be gradual not revolutionary and would steer universities into a greater partnership with business and their communities."

Um. Excuse me? Universities are supposed to be acting with the Business Roundtable now? But I don't wanna!

This move has been welcomed by the Otago University Students' Association and the NZ Vice-Chancellor's Committee (Headed by Roy Sharp, the busy little bee!) But that might have more to do with the $126 million in funding that comes with it, including some to help with the funding shift and some to help attract and retain staff to keep NZ universities competitive/respected internationally. I'd be interested to see what the New Zealand University Students' Association and the Association of University Staff have to say about it, but there's nothing yet. And maybe I am being paranoid and insane, but, yeesh, seriously, it does sound a little dodgy, right? It's not just me?

Comments

[blademistress.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I wonder if this is at all tied in with the general education courses the uni is now making students take.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I don't know? I've never been hit by one of those, although I did have to do a literacy test in first year (all eng and science students had to take it, even if they were also arts students and even if they had english up the wazoo in high school.) What kind of courses are they?

[blademistress.livejournal.com]

They came in the year after I started, but they're courses outside your degree to do with maths, history and possibly English, I think. The reasoning at the time was that you have students getting a kinda sucky education in the high schools and then doing a tightly focused degree, so this was to broaden out your knowledge. There was something about business interests in there as well, but I forgot it under the haze of 'money grubbing scum' I was thinking at the time.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

whoa, those do seem crazy although I can sorta see the point wrt: history, at least. But still. I don't know if they offer those here! But I dunno if that's related.

[kitsunerei88]

Wow, in Canada, it doesn't work out like that at ALL. . . ^^'' Personally, I'd be suspicious because "public interest" seems pretty, well, undefined to me. In Canada, the government gives public universities money based on how many students are attending that particular university, ie, The University of Toronto would get more the The University of Western Ontario because UofT has 70 000 students whereas UWO only has 30 000. . . And I think it's pretty much up to the universities to spend it how they like.

At UWO, I think that it's spread pretty much equally, because the cheapest classes are Arts and Humanities and Social Sci classes - Engineering tuition fees are nearly 1.5 to 2 times Science tuition, which is a few hundred bucks more than Social Sci tuition. --''

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree, I mean, public interest could mean whatever the university says is in the public interest or it could mean what the public thinks is in the public interest, and the first would be fine, good in fact, and the second would suck ass.

in re: the bums-on-seats method, pretty sure funding was sourse-bvy-course based on whichever courses get the most students - science and eng papers are fractionally more expensive though, yeah. I mjean, the kind of discretion this new thing implies could be fantastic. Last year we had a huge thing at my university because our islamic studies lecturer was laid off because her classes were so tiny. Under this new method she maybe could have said, hey, look, I know I don't have many people taking it but don't you think islamic studies is pretty important right now? Huh? Huh? And I think that's great because I think it is in the national interest to have as many different courses, the widest spectrum, as possible.

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does sound dodgy to me.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

me too. :-/

[angry-in-pink.livejournal.com]

"In the national interest?"...Business Round Table?

Excuse me?


*flails*

Is Dodgy indeed :/

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Well, okay, they didn't really say the bRoundtable. But what that co-operatingwith local businesses sounds like to me is pushing universityh more and more towards thast vocational training stuff and - seriously - the whole point of university is that it is not vocational. SIGH.

[angry-in-pink.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If I was in a more coherant mood I would have said something like that. But what ever happened to "knowledge for the sake of knowledge?" . Meh.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I know, eh. :-/

[rewihendrix.livejournal.com]

to me it sounds good. but then again, i'm doing one of those extremely competitive courses that would most probably come under the category of high public interest.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*sticks out tongue at you* how goes life? do you survive? email me sometime!

[rewihendrix.livejournal.com]

i'm very good at the mo. ellie's up for the weekend. how about you? is your phone working again? i sent you txts and you didn't reply.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad you're good, tell ellie hi! I'm OK, thinking pretty intensely about maybe finishing up uni at the end of this year or next year, I dunno... maybe doing an internship with the gvt this summer... depends if I get one or not.

naw, my phone ain't working right now, email instead!

Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Oh deary deary me. Myself I'm generally a fan of the let-the-students-choose method of determining funding - after all, students are themselves a reasonable cross section of the 'nation' (or, to prevent this from degenerating into yet another discussion of nationalism vs anti-nationalism, the 'general public'), particularly the section of the nation that is willing to take university courses. As long as there is some way to resurrect a course that undergoes a temporary lull of interest, I don't really see a problem.

And don't you think you're being a bit alarmist? Aren't you in favour of universities having a partnership with communities, if not businesses?

Actually I think it's silly to have a reaction to this statement at all - 'work more closely with businesses and communities' is, like 'in the national interest', the policy statement equivalent of 'have a nice day' - it's meaningless unless you know what the writer's understanding of the national interest or a community is.

Re: Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Myself I'm generally a fan of the let-the-students-choose method of determining funding - after all, students are themselves a reasonable cross section of the 'nation' (or, to prevent this from degenerating into yet another discussion of nationalism vs anti-nationalism, the 'general public')

Except I personally don't think that the importance of an area is normally in line with the number of students who want to take it. I think there are plenty of small courses - like the aforementioned islamic studies - which are vital but don't necessarily need to be taken by 500 first years, whereas we have eng and med degrees that need to be taken by lots of students so we can have, for e.g., doctors and engineers. So sometimes there's a correlation and sometimes there isn't, but the problem is that the smaller disciplines get less funding to the extent that some of them just don't get run altogether.

And don't you think you're being a bit alarmist? ...'work more closely with businesses and communities' is, like 'in the national interest', the policy statement equivalent of 'have a nice day' - it's meaningless unless you know what the writer's understanding of the national interest or a community is.

Sure, and that's why I noted that I might be being paranoid. But my problem with those phrases is that they are, as you said, open to interpretation - and some of those interpretations are, IMO, very sticky indeed.

Re: Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Sure, and that's why I noted that I might be being paranoid. But my problem with those phrases is that they are, as you said, open to interpretation - and some of those interpretations are, IMO, very sticky indeed.

A shame it's hard to get some more information on exactly what is meant on this one. I can see what you're saying, I just wonder why this invocation of these shibboleths makes you feel edgy but the dozens of others that occur virtually every time the government opens its proverbial mouth don't.

Except I personally don't think that the importance of an area is normally in line with the number of students who want to take it. I think there are plenty of small courses - like the aforementioned islamic studies - which are vital but don't necessarily need to be taken by 500 first years, whereas we have eng and med degrees that need to be taken by lots of students so we can have, for e.g., doctors and engineers. So sometimes there's a correlation and sometimes there isn't, but the problem is that the smaller disciplines get less funding to the extent that some of them just don't get run altogether.

Well, this rather depends on the idea that the existence of a course benefits anybody other than the people who study it. I'm sceptical. I mean, to pick up your example I'm not convinced that people taking Islamic studies creates some sort of shared good, let alone that it is 'vital'. I'm trying to think of a different example, but when I think of the University courses that I consider to do the most to elevate an individual's thinking to a higher level, I can't really say I feel that the lives of anybody who wouldn't have taken them in the first place would be the poorer for not having access to them.

One could, of course, look at it from a perspective that is generally more in keeping with the ethos of personal choice, that of individual rights - that is, that I, as an individual, have a right to be able to study Islam in a University envrionment if I want to, regardless of whether or not nobody else wants to study it, providing I'm prepared to make the same sacrifices that other students make - time, money and registration. Leaving aside the objection that this would be a manifesto for students to write their own courses (which actually sounds pretty cool to me), this comes down to the old problem of the bling bling - it's cheaper per student to run a large course than a small one, and a large number of small courses could get hella expensive hella fast. So while what you are calling for is defensible, it can't be depicted as the status quo, since the status quo just doesn't deliver and isn't designed to deliver that much funding to Universities.

All this, of course, refers pretty much exclusively to undergraduate courses; from what I understand of my own tentative probings into the post grad world, things work quite a lot closer to the 'write your own course' model.