david, my insults were not really for dilan, but for the thugs who have destroyed australian universities. but if dilan raised some interesting points i honestly missed them.

i don't think dilan is any happier than me with the current sham. but i don't see what he's offering as a solution, except a fantasy of *good* corporate governance. i don't see how his good governance would work. more importantly, i see no way to get there from here.

the first step is not a better corporate model. the first step is sanity. this would involve the acknowledgement that a university's production cannot even remotely be measured by crass production numbers, by the number of degrees awarded, the number of refereed articles published, or the number of companies pleased.

once there's an agreement on this, *then* we can discuss governance. but i don't see anyone powerful who is interested in anything but scam production measures. i repeat, the beneficiaries of the current barbarism are hucksters and little hitlers. and it's not just that they're winning: they've won.

I think you're just being harsh for the sake of it. At least he has the guts to say something. Dilan has cleverly pointed out the hypocrisy of the people who are now running universities like they are companies but who don't want to be subject to scrutiny that goes with running a company.

Considering that only a few generations ago the universities were elitist finishing schools producing a handful of productive citizens, and focusing on classical educational for the governing elite.

Now universities are being pushed to produce the most skilled graduates for the tax dollar often with lower quality inputs thanks to public education.

Lillian, Sowat, and bushbasher look back with myopic hindsight to system that produced so little for so few.

david, i explained myself. believe what you like.

shadow minister, the "elitist" universities i went to didn't charge fees.

The corporatisation of higher education was the death knell for quality education.

The profiteer corporate mentality has ruined the commonsense in education by removing the tiers or layers of education as Gorufus mentioned earlier. ie. Education tailored to the needs of various employment sectors as well as to higher learning. It is a bit like a one-stop shop for education - roll up, roll up get your degree here today only two for one, but there's more! - Education R' Us incorporated.

We spin the idea of a more educated society but in reality we have dumbed down our higher education institutions to allow access to those who have not earned a place on merit. Add to that the pressure on lecturers/tutors to pass paying students makes a mockery of the whole system.

What were we thinking?

Bushbasher,

As I was talking about several generations ago, either you are very old or misread my post.

Universities and TAFEs are now both geared towards tertiary vocational education at the undergraduate level, and the desire for standardised education is not only from the corporate side, but also from the prospective students.

Tertiary education is a requirement for almost all employment and HSC is seldom sufficient.

The higher level acedemia is generally left to post graduate studies where higher levels of innovation are encouraged.