KTLS,
to make a spelling error is something everyone does every now & then, but to make two in one post with the same word is something else. This is what I'm on about every time I rave on in a negative sense about australian academics & University.

teaching/ research positions..
KTLS,
As is rather obvious from my posts I'm nowhere near of academic persuasion hence my unflattering remarks re anything academia. That is not to say that I'm anti academic education, not by a long shot. Academic knowledge is vital to kick-off on life's journey. What is not needed & in fact hampers so much of what could be benevolent progress is those who have nothing more than academic education. No life experience or other acquired knowledge only what someone has taught them. i.e. they haven't come up with anything themselves & yet believe they're the ones who have the answers to society's everyday life. Academic education is not the be all & end all of knowledge & wisdom. It is merely one of the many links in the chain of life. We now have so many University graduates who, having satisfied an academic examiner, are dwiddling their thumbs because they're over qualified for menial tasks but too incompetent to perform a menial task. Trust me, I've seen this. So, why are they so incompetent ? Because they haven't been taught by competent lecturers. We need less incompetent lecturers & more competent ones, not simply more positions. More positions don't work or are things so bad already that we haven't enough proof yet.

Many of the first and second year subjects in an undergraduate degree do not require research acedemics, but rather good teaching staff to cover the basics which would be a waste of high level acedemics time.

A grade research acedemics are often not good educators, and are generally suited for those that have passed the first couple of years of more general study and have chosen to specialise.

Hiring large numbers of acedemics for the first year subjects is not only a waste of their time, but a poor service to the students and an inefficient use of the budget.

I hope the author is not researching or teaching English – or logic for that matter. She says:

“the website is the worst organised and slowest loading in the entire modern world”

How would she know that?

In the same sentence she says something is an “unbelievable fact”. As far as I know an “unbelievable fact” is an oxymoron.

Not satisfied with oxymora the author manages two tautologies in one short sentence.

“I think it's debatable that it is, personally, given the stupidity of many of the current measures of research activity now in use.”
She then repeats one of these tautologies in the sentence immediately following the one above.

This extravagant style tends to reduce credibility

Shadow Minister makes a valid point about first year and, to some extent, second year subjects. The Dawkins abolition of the CAEs was one of the most stupid things the Labor government did. David Jennings' argument is almost the same as that used to justify slavery in the Old South. Plantation agriculture was, supposedly, not viable without slavery, so the economy would be destroyed if the Abolitionists got their way. The exploitation of the black slaves was "a necessary sacrifice". A university obviously needs both teaching and research, but they don't need to be done by the same people, except at the higher levels.

First year University students need to be taught by people with minds trained to think critically and who are capable of evaluating advances in their discipline. There is in this thread a certain patronising attitude to first year students. When teaching such, it is necessary to be aware that an, admittedly small, number of students are very smart indeed – at times possessing minds sharper and more capable than one's own, albeit lacking the raw data and the experience.To draw out the best in these one needs to be very much on the cutting edge of one's own discipline and this IMHO implies a commitment to ongoing research.