Thanks for the compliments, Col Rouge, and also the advice. Indeed, I can believe also you are a man of letters. As for me, in my old age, I was told by an American teacher I had natural insight - but we know insight is never natural but only gained through reading which my part German mother always encouraged me to do, even though at the time I preferred to be a good bush horseman or rather just a boy.

It is very interesting, Col, you mentioning Adam Smith as not truly understanding the true market worth of public utilities, even though he is still regarded as the father of Laissez-faire. You also enlightened me about British rail being always private instead of owned by the government. Yet as one who remembers the middle 1920s in our wheatbelt town of Dalwallinu, the farmers had to cart their grain mainly by horse-drawn wagons over 45 miles to Watheroo on the Midland Railway. In fact, the only way our farmers on the Wongan Mullewa route could get a railway was for the government to pay for it. I guess the economic lesson, Col, is that privatisation in early settled areas mostly needs government to buy in first, as my father, a former Labor man continually reminded us.

Regards,

George C, WA - Bushbred

I agree that academics should be sought, nurtured and provided with tenure by universities. However, I am also in the position where our local university is severely understaffed with Academics or even qualified lecturers. In some subjects tutorials are taken by senior under-grad students.

I find this difficult to understand, particularly in those subjects which attract the highest HECS/FEE help band, with 200-250 students. it appears that the University is using the funds derived from this course to subsidise the less costly subjects, whilst leaving the highest payers under-resourced.

This indicates a significant problem, being that it is very difficult to attract suitably qualified Academics to positions paying much less than they would attract with their qualifications on the open market. The result of which is that the persons most suited to joining the academia, are the ones least likely to be attracted to the payscale.

Unfortunately the result is that other employers offer top dollar, for those scholars that have demonstrated the capacity to undertake post-graduate scholarship. Until the universities in this country can compete with these employers, in terms of both money and incentives, the standard of Academics in this country will continue to fall.

Aaron

Tara, A very idealistic set of goals for quality Higher Education. I agree with most of what you say. However, I don't see how the requirement for a teaching diploma is going to expand research time, quality or output?

I too was taught by passionate, entertaining, inclusive and socially committed, University lecturers whose reflections on life stimulated me to examine my own and interrogate the entire Western tradition. I'm dubious that a teaching diploma could ever compare with the constant love of learning I gained from emulating them.

I also confess to a PhD but am genuinely amazed by the anti-intellectualism amongst some of the posts. Why do we Australians do this? Americans are successful capitalists but they don't seem to have this Australian antipathy towards University learning. Many of their corporate elite still do Liberal Arts degrees not the "real world" subjects, like I.T and business that we fill our Universities with. I guess it indicates that our leaders are comfortable with the middle-management role we've carved out for ourselves in the new international division of labour. Comfortable mediocrity. Does it surprise you that a few academics will follow this lead?

There is the issue of whether or not Universities are primarily for teaching or for research, but if Universities have become “lazy” and “mediocre”, then they do not represent much value for money for the taxpayer, or for the students

In the area of research, quality of research could be measured by the number of citations, articles or book published etc, but quality of research could also be measured by the number of patents obtained, as good quality research would often produce some type of useful product or device that is first patented and then manufactured for sale. Minimal quality of research would eventually equate to minimal patents being obtained.

It would be interesting to see data relating to
-the number of patents obtained by Australian universities as compared to other research organisations or private companies.
-the number of patents obtained by Australian universities now compared to the past.

In the area of teaching:- If a university lecturer does not need formal qualifications in teaching then this could be unique, as TAFE colleges normally require their teachers to have formal teaching qualifications, and many private companies now require their supervisors and staff to have formal training qualifications (which can be obtained through a “train the trainer” type course).

However it is not greatly necessary for a university student to have a subject “lecturer”, as many university students undertake correspondence courses, and never attend a subject lecture, nor do they ever see, hear or directly contact the lecturer of that subject. What these students do require are good subject notes that are normally provided by a subject teacher, and those subject notes then replace the verbal type lectures traditionally given by a lecturer. If the notes provided by the subject teacher are written well enough, they can be superior to any traditional type lecture that is delivered verbally.

As an added bonus, the subject notes can be developed by a combined group of experts on that subject, which means that any biases or prejudices from one person are likely reduced, and the subject notes would be more likely accurate.

Holding forth on all the things that are wrong with our universities is a popular sport that seems to bring forth all our personal foibles and biasses, often ill-informed by actual information.

I was surprised to read that 'the value and importance of academics holding a PhD has declined.' The university managements that I know are dead keen on every new recurit having one. Too much so, IMHO - the greatest teachers I have come across in my 30 years of studying and working in universities didn't have one (although I do).

I'm also surprised that Tara takes us to task for not having an RAE, but fails to mention that the Commonwealth is far down the track of developing one, in this case called an RQF - my university is already preparing for it, and I suspect hers will be too.

I agree that teacher training is a good idea. But I'm sceptical that we can improve standards by expecting every academic to be a brilliant teacher and a brilliant researcher as well. Some can do both equally well, but most will favour either one or the other.

So to my mind the right approach is to favour diversity. Let's have some academics who do more teaching than research, some who do more research than teaching, and some who are ambidextrous. And let's create career paths for all three types.

I write in (somewhat late) response to Tara Brabazon's article.
Brabazon's piece is commendable to the extent that it both takes
seriously, and proposes ways of improving university teaching in
the Australian context. Teaching is an issue that is often (in many ways) devalued in our universities and by scholarship committees, so
bravo Tara for taking it on.

I do, however, have a number of suggestions/points to add to Dr
Brabazon's. The first concerns the aforementioned devaluation (or
under-appreciation, to use a somewhat less harsh term) of
teaching within universities. I do believe further measures are
required to ensure that teaching is taken more seriously in an
academic context. This could mean scholarship committees taking
teaching experience of postgrads more seriously when they apply
(at the moment, these committees seem more interested in counting
refereed articles. Fair enough, but teaching doesn't seem to get
a look-in).

Secondly, in terms of the academic requiring a PhD... A
tough one. I write 'tough' because there are disciplines (i.e. engineering, law, medicine) where 'on-the-job' experience is equally -if in some respects more - valuable than the doctoral thesis.

Overall, though, some thought-provoking material here. Well done, Tara!