Where has Monika been for the last ten years? I have been retired from Edith Cowan University for five years. For at least ten years before that I had to endure detailed student assessmenrts for EVERY unit I taught. DEETYA made the process even more stringent as the years rolled by. Regardless of whether the students were aware enough to pass any judgement whatsoever, university lecturers had to endure some degree of odium from the diasaffected and the incompetent.

There were endless experiments to make common evaluation tools which were to be used across the board. How stupid is that? You can't comapare oranges and apples. Nevermind, I don't have to be involved any more.

What worries me is the political implications in all of her suggestions. Even worse when the ideas are based on profound ignorance.

Alan

It is all very well to suggest academics who either do not wish to teach or who are not good teachers are employed as researchers. The problem with this is that research positions are temporay as they rely on "soft money" ie research grants to fund them. Lecturing positions are more often permanant ie tenured. This makes a huge difference with regard to income and job permanency in an age of mortgages and self-funded retirement.

It's my understanding that university salaries and progression are primarily, if not solely, based on research output rather than teaching excellence (ie publish or perish).

Unless there is a connection between teaching excellence and salaries and progression then no amount of training and evaluation is likely to improve teaching. Lecturers will, for their own sake, give emphasis to research over teaching.

Expecting others to pursue a goal without reward is doomed to fail, in my view.

I'm a little mystified by this debate as an ex chair of three school boards in Perth.

I was schooled from 10-17 by scholarship in the UK. Each of our heads of Dept at school had a minimum of a Masters Degree, some Phd. It is only in recent years that I've recognised the quality of this schooling. During the same time that I've seen our universities divorced from the English tertiary tradition of the multiple Mastered lecturer of undergaduates, and the wont to go "all the way with USA."

It is my opinion that this move have has accellerated our backslide in both the tertiary arena and in our high schools. Perhaps it has something to do with government (political) intervention. During the past four decades the politicians have also tampered with apprentices, a system that worked for a thousand years and produced the cultural structural highlight of civilisation that is Europe.

Answer seems simple to me, post HECS, if its fee-for-service, then as a student

1. one should not pay for rubbish lectures by the phd allegedly educated whom have not the intellecual breadth of the old Don, and

2. all heads of dept in high schools MUST get a Masters to gain a full increment of pay, and the govt pays their costs at university.

Jim

Mark my words, the most educated are not the best teachers or lecturers.

We want go getters who have respect out in the world, either by runs on the board or profile, and a PHD and the like is useless in determining this.

It just means they could hang out for a couple more years and had no incentive to hit the real world until later. These people are also never the brightest and rarely the best communicators.

Forget the qualifications, you either have it or you dont, give them a theory and a practical exam of the highest order and if they pass, PHD or not, let them teach.

Academia is the mark of those out of touch with society and the marketplace. Why else would they fathom a life of mediocrity, not for them being afraid to take the bull by the horns in the real world? They need to feel important and cannot risk loosing it, they research often trivial matters and dont make best use of their resources.

As for schools, the only people i know that have ever chosen teaching was those that had poor marks by comparison. No teacher ever told me how the world worked, and they do not teach you to be successful as they do not know themselves, that is where the problem lies.

I have great respect for those with best intentions at heart when teaching. I dont respect those that dont realise that every day they can effect peoples lives permanently, shape futures, and create or destroy dreams.

JanS, you appear to be suggesting that we should be continuing to employ poor teaching staff, because the job suits their life style.
You are not alone, of course, the same situation applies in our high schools.
Is it any wonder that the general public have come to consider universities as "feather beds for incompetents".
The system will have to get rid of a lot of drunks, & no hopers, with tenure, if its to reclaim the respect it once took for granted.
Hasbeen