By Michael Stratford. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities on Wednesday took issue with certain parts of the Obama administration's proposed college ratings system -- but recommended an alternative approach that embraces some of its key principles, including linking colleges' performance to how much student aid money they receive. While praising the goals of the Obama administration's rating system, the group's president, Peter McPherson, said in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan that the ratings system would produce “misleading information and perhaps create perverse incentives.” Read more...25 janvier 2014
Ratings Alternative
By Michael Stratford. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities on Wednesday took issue with certain parts of the Obama administration's proposed college ratings system -- but recommended an alternative approach that embraces some of its key principles, including linking colleges' performance to how much student aid money they receive. While praising the goals of the Obama administration's rating system, the group's president, Peter McPherson, said in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan that the ratings system would produce “misleading information and perhaps create perverse incentives.” Read more...Everything in Moderation
By Carl Straumsheim. A professor's plan to let students in his Coursera massive open online course moderate themselves went awry over the holidays as the conversation, in his words, “very quickly disintegrated into a snakepit of personal venom, religious bigotry and thinly disguised calls for violence.” But some students have accused him of abusive and tyrannical behavior in his attempts to restore civility. The 10-week course, titled “Constitutional Struggles in the Muslim World,” is taught by Ebrahim Afsah, associate professor of public international law at the University of Copenhagen. His experiences highlight an important challenge that the scale of MOOCs presents: How do you wrangle tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of students into staying on topic? A traditional face-to-face course might fare well with one or two troublemakers, but those interruptions are magnified when enrollment reaches the thousands -- especially if those students can post anonymously. Read more...The Humanities Are an Existentialism
By Dan Edelstein. Whether or not the humanities are truly in crisis, the current debates around them have a certain gun-to-the-head quality. “This is why you -- student, parent, Republican senator -- shouldn’t pull the trigger,” their promoters plead. “We deserve to live; we’re good productive citizens; we, too, contribute to the economy, national security, democracy, etc.” Most of these reasons are perfectly accurate. But it is nonetheless surprising that, in the face of what is depicted as an existential crisis, most believers shy away from existential claims (with some exceptions). And by not defending the humanities on their own turf, we risk alienating the very people on whose support the long-term survival of our disciplines depend: students. Read more...The market is up and running – now where will it take us?
By Emran Mian. Arguing the case for market forces in higher education will become harder if a university looks likely to fail, warns Emran Mian. The figures released this week by Ucas on 2013 student acceptances clearly show that demand has recovered following the introduction of higher tuition fees. As Mary Curnock Cook, the Ucas chief executive, put it, “more of those who were 18 in 2012 have now started university than those who were 18 in either 2010 or 2011”. Read more...Discord in France
By Clea Caulcutt for Times Higher Education. The French Ministry of Higher Education and Research is trying to bridge the gap between universities and the corporate world. But its latest venture, an advisory group on curriculum reform headed by business leaders, is rubbing some academics up the wrong way. “We cannot stand by and watch our youth fall victim to the economic crisis,” says Françoise Gri, co-president of the advisory group, Sup’Emploi, and chief executive of the tourism firm Pierre et Vacances. “It’s a national challenge: France can emerge from the fray of global competition thanks to the skills and qualifications of its people.”
Sup’Emploi, which features representatives from higher education and business, was created in December 2013 to work on guidelines to help universities adapt to the needs of a changing economy. Read more...
Postgraduate courses face ‘perfect storm’
By . Taught postgraduate courses are facing a “perfect storm” caused by drops in student numbers and a fall in institution income. That is the view of Mick Fuller, chair of the UK Council for Graduate Education and head of Plymouth University’s graduate school. Professor Fuller, who was speaking at a Westminster Higher Education Forum on 23 January, said institutions were now less able to cross subsidise master’s provision because of the squeeze on undergraduate numbers. Read more...Universities ‘face planning problems’ with grant letter delay
By John Morgan. Universities face “difficulties” in planning student recruitment because of a row in government on whether to scrap funding for the poorest students. The Higher Education Funding Council for England today announced that the delay in the annual grant letter means the announcement of universities’ 2014-15 student number controls, along with the publication of a key access strategy, have been postponed. Hefce adds that it appreciates the delays “may cause some difficulties for your institution”. Read more...
Universities chief attacks 'damaging' planned budget cut
By Graeme Paton. The head of Universities UK urges the Government to abandon "damaging" proposals to scrap hundreds of millions of pounds from the higher education budget. Planned cuts to university funding will be “very damaging” to the future of the higher education system in England, a leading vice-chancellor has warned. The Government should “step back” from making further reductions to budgets amid fears the move will damage universities’ global standing, it was claimed. Read more...Greater emphasis needed on vocational education
By Hans van Mourik Broekman. Social mobility is hampered by a failure to prepare young people for pathways other than university, says Hans van Mourik Broekman. Dr Anthony Seldon is an impressive and irrepressible headmaster. His contributions to the debate about social mobility in the UK and its relationship to the divide between independent and state schools have been extensive and are always thought provoking.His vision of education is enriched by his broad scholarship and his experiences in both the state and independent sector. If every head in the country were as public spirited and energetic as Dr Seldon, our country’s lacklustre educational performance would be greatly improved. Read more...
University education: the timeless debate
By Josie Gurney-Read. Novelist Evelyn Waugh once asked whether university education was a sound investment; eighty years later and Eleanor Doughty asks the same. In the Daily Mail on 21 June 1930, novelist Evelyn Waugh asked the question ‘Was Oxford Worth While?’ The author left Hertford College in the summer of 1924 without a degree, and shortly before the article’s conception, had published his second novel Vile Bodies. "Is the money spent on university education a sound capital investment?" he ponders, echoing my sentiments. Ask an employer and the immediate answer is probably yes. Who in their right mind would go through it all otherwise?
Though universities have extended, and education’s net is fit to burst, the same questions crop up eighty-four years later. "Is there a corresponding increase in the graduate’s earning capacity?" Waugh asks, of having gone to university.According to David Willetts, there is. He is adamant that university is "still one of the best routes to a good job and rewarding career". Read more...
