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The Forum > Article Comments > The corporate university > Comments

The corporate university : Comments

By Dilan Thampapillai, published 11/12/2009

Universities in transition. Don’t fear the corporate university - but question its governance structure.

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shadow minister,

fair enough on the "few generations ago". i missed that. however, my point stands, that there was a time when unis were both (substantially) egalitarian AND had standards. neither is now true.

the reason tertiary education is required for employment is pretty much because it is required. that is, employers demand it because they can, students are then forced to go to uni/tafe, and lecturers are forced to dumb down subjects for the huge increase in students, and the huge decrease in the standards of those students. the upshot is that zillions of students learn bugger all, for bugger all reason, at humongous expense to both the students and the society as a whole.

perhaps tafe et al is different from the major unis, though i question the quality of the vocational training. i've tutored a few such students, and they always seemed to be struggling with useless junk. not only was it useless, it was awfully presented and it was infested with jargon and pseudo-theory, to disguise the junkiness. for vocational purposes, that made it ultra-junk.

whatever for tafes, the major universities have been destroyed. they have given up the role of true learning, either for the discipline itself or for more vocational ends. instead, they are offering pseudo-intellectualism, pseudo-vocation, and childminding. at this stage, australian universities are simply a scam.
Posted by bushbasher, Monday, 14 December 2009 4:02:44 PM
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my comment is as a sole parent, whom has studied externally at UNE 1992-4, (internally) at ANU 1996-7, at UCAN 1999-2001, and now in 2009 at QUT, in a range of subject areas including arts and science.

the problems that younger academics are describing are critical, and we will all know about it when the job market starts to suffer the consequences of too many badly tertiary educated folk, and not enough folk who've been encouraged to develop excellence in manual labouring skills
Posted by doyouknowme, Monday, 21 December 2009 12:26:17 PM
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it is worth remembering that originally all universities were private, but that did not cause lower standards, and neither did free education, but perhaps the "clever country" ideology was too disconnected from the reality of how manual labour underpins the job market

corporatisation of our universities may wind up enabling more smaller private teaching institutions, run by folk who want to keep the standards high, and who attract students whom are either paying for it, or at the top rank exiting high school

its a big back step from the impetus of education for everybody, but, then again, perhaps not everybody wants the tertiary educations we've all become accustomed to believing in as necessary

perhaps the greater egalatarian notion, is that of paying academics no more than tradesmen
Posted by doyouknowme, Monday, 21 December 2009 12:35:25 PM
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The rise of mass tertiary education has meant that academically weaker students are gaining university entrance. At the same time universities have scrimped on tuition costs by increasing tutorial size, decreasing contact hours, using sessional staff to cover tutorials. The sessional staff are third and fourth year students which compares poorly to 15 years ago when CAEs hired professionals with industry experience to teach, tutor and run labs. Arguably the more experienced tutor is more knowledgeable but objectively students get far less help from lecturers and tutors than they did previously because helping students isn't a measurable KPI.

We know that unemployment statistics are underquoted and we know there is a problem with youth unemployment. I think that many university graduates from the old CAEs are unemployable in their field of study.

The TAFE system has cut costs by employing an army of sessional teachers. I think that many qualified TAFE teachers refuse to work in the system because of the appalling working conditions so that VCAT has been introduced in schools. The VCAT Teachers while experts in classroom management often lack the workplace skills and experience they are expected to impart to their students.
Posted by billie, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 7:39:19 AM
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The structure and administration of Governance in company environments is the first stage in our corporate university design school process. In each of our applications the outcome is different as the design school management process is driven by the dynamics of company strategy and organisational capacity and capability challenges. The Governance Board may or may not involve members from academic institutions depending upon current needs. However where that relationship is always addressed is in the blueprint strand of strategic alliances. Schola Vitae at www.corporateuniversity.org.uk
Posted by Schola Vitae, Thursday, 24 December 2009 1:05:21 AM
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