Mercurius, I for one thought your writing to be extremely practical and well argued - except for the flowery academic "big" words. But then, hey, if you can use them, why not? Go for it.

I'm disappointed that others didn't comment. You ARE onto something with this point of view, I believe, although I don't think you'll get much support from the "ivory tower sandstone set".

But naturally of course you are correct.

The problem as I see it, is that higher education is in a quandary, created by Paul Keating and his "clever country" and also promoted by John Howard ever since. That is, that everyone (especially grrls) must get a degree education and so academia has become the new TAFE for HR, PR and communications chicks and the like. All the boundaries have been blurred. The hallowed halls of higher education have become the corridors of the stunningly mediocre. All very sad.

And of course, the universities are all doing it to pay their bills.

Higher education has to extract itself out of the commonplace and do what they're really supposed to do - concentrate on academics, not rubbish liberal arts courses posing as higher education, pumping out assembly line graduates to maintain turnover.

Whatever, that's their problem and not mine. Perhaps universities should be looking at developing a third, higher tier of education for those truly, near genius and gifted elite.

That way, TAFE for the trades, uni for the middle class white and pink collar workers and a third wrung of education for those damn serious brainiacs and boffins, who really do change the world for everyone's benefit.

Perhaps then, when newbies enter the workforce, they might be appropriately trained and not have heads full of impractical academic fluff, which is really only applicable to those dedicated to becoming highly revered career academics of significant quality.

This is an article that deserves greater interest, well argued and in itself reflective.

Where are all the comments from the "opportunity school" advocates and critics. Most remember reflective teachers as role models, even when not good subject teachers. Wish there were more comments the philosophy is sound.
Thankyou fluff