Alan Ryan, warden of New College, Oxford has been suggesting a new way of providing quality and opportunity within the University system. He argues in a recent edition of Time Higher Education that we should be adopting the California state model whereby students build up credits at collages etc and can than transfer into the University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles for their final two years. In a way this approach would take us back to the period when polytechnics delivered large amounts of the teaching with the HE sector and a few universities did the research. To paraphrase his argument he suggests that the quality of research in post 1992 universities is significantly lower than the traditional places like his own Oxford.
Of course it’s a sweeping generalisation that ignores much of the excellent research that goes on in ‘new universities’. Of course not having a research tradition that goes back a decade or two these universities are not always going to be in the same league as an institution such as Oxford that has built up its research over hundreds of years. Having said that there are many emerging disciplines where new universities excel, it would be easy to point to the few ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees such as surfing studies that Alan refers to, but there are also increasingly professionalized subjects such as Nursing and Midwifery that historically have not had the same tradition of research (most likely as they were things done traditionally by women and not men).
The traditional Universities maybe great if you want to study classics or Physics, but how do they compete on my avant-guard areas of Philosophy, the arts and research in vocational subject areas?It’s lazy thinking to judge a degrees worth or the research capability of a department or academic simply on their host institution. So often I hear academics coming out with sweeping statements such as “everyone from Hull are thickos” which was something I head an academic say in an admissions panel meeting. Alan’s attitude is patronizing and it’s somewhat elitist to suggest that “unless we distract everyone from doing what they usefully can – excellent teaching to an MA level – by pretending that every institution has to have PhD students for the sake of self-respect”. There are plenty of excellent researchers doing fantastic PhD’s in post 1992 universities, Alan Ryan may not like other Universities striving to produce excellent research but lets not let views like his influence the decision makers into cutting back research funding in the institutions he thinks would be better off teaching.
The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee have raised concerns over the Government’s plans to cut £100 Million from ELQ’s. ELQs are Equivalent or Lower degree qualifications. So for instance if you did a first degree in the Arts, only to end up with a tedious career spent working in admin, whilst dreaming of a meaningful existence then it will be a lot harder for you to go and take another Bachelor’s degree. I know someone who recently returned to study at University for a second bachelors degree in Physics, they have just secured a funded PhD position. Just goes to show the potential people have if they are given the opportunity to go back into education. The reality of these cuts could see the cost of tuition fees for ELQs rise over the next few years. Many people taking these degrees are mature students who are working part-time in the evening and paying their own fees (without the help of student loans) to better themselves. I really don’t see how this fits in with the government’s continued adult learning agenda. As far as I can see it will push education out of the reach of many working adults and bind people to the educational choices they made as a teenager.
I saw this article today, and wondered if perhaps the police haven’t got better things to do than investigating whether Chris Evans once took some Magic Mushrooms. The taking of some Pyschoactive Mushrooms has become an activity banned by the state, when they were made the widespread libery cap, and other Mushrooms from the Psilocybe genus class A drugs in 2005. Previously it was just the active chemical once extracted rather than the actual unprocessed mushroom that was illegal. Don’t worry it’s still legal to buy the spores and you can learn how to cultivate them here, as long as you don’t announce your plans on national radio it should be cool, or you could just go and pick some in the autumn. Before new labour classified them as a class A drug there was untold misery and destruction wrecked upon British society by scores of mushroom addicts trying to rob old pensioners, but then forgetting where they were, and mumbling something about an expanding fractals and hive mind consciousness. There are also rumours that many fields are supplying this dangerous drug to our otherwise pure and chastised youth, there are plans to lock these fields up in prison where they belong. The nation’s minds will then be free to understand important things like watching reality TV shows and operating spreadsheets without trying to question the talking microsoft paperclip as to where he (one assumes the gender in this instance) hid the caterpillar’s Hookah pipe.
PS Evan’s could be clever and say he was taking Fly agaric (amanita muscaria) which contains muscimol as the Pyschoactive ingredient rather than a mushroom containing Psiocybe such as Liberty Cap (Psilocybe Semilanceata). The former due to it’s less widespread uptake is still legal (at least until blog posts like this bring it to some officious killjoy’s attention). Of the two it it caries more risks as it can make you violently sick (although no recorded fatalities) as opposed to the later which is non-toxic. It also isn’t as much fun (apparently). Of course now these mushrooms are criminalized people wanted to take them will have to risk poisoning themselves by picking their own. Get some decent fields guides and go with someone who knows what they are eating please kids.
I’m far too busy at work at the moment to really do much of a post, but just quickly. Jacqui Smith was at it again trying to convince of us of the benifets of ID cards. Their softly softly catch the monkey approach means that the cards will be rolled out to various small groups (Airport workers apparently being amongst the first). Of course because Biometric fingerprint technology has been cracked this scheme is a big pile of shit.I was sad to hear via the metro (the source of many a blog post) about the death of Gary Gygax. This was the genius who created dungeons & dragons which is amongst the best role play games ever. Role playing is amongst the things I rate most highly as adds a realm of colour and make believe to our lives. I’m off to Spain this weekend, which will involve overcoming my mortal fear of flying. Still the rewards of Riojca await those who are brave. Then I’m back down to Brighton to hopefully get drunk with Geeklawyer. Something at which we both excel.
A deadly new meme weapon has been unleashed into the world. Yes it’s Assud, the Jew-eating rabbit. You may scoff and say, “Hey I’m no Jew, Assud can’t get me” but I predict it’s only a matter of time before we see the likes of Floppy, the Christian eating rabbit; Dodo, the Hindu-eating rabbit, and Cuthbert the Quaker-Munching Bunny. Yes no faith is safe from having young minds turn against them by these fiends.
On the plus side, Israeli scientist are working flat out to prepare a special version of Watership down where Assud’s rabbit warren gets dug up by an armored CAT. Nice.
It’s sad to see that the associated goons at the keeptonyblairforpm have seen fit to launch a DOS attack against Geeklawyer’s blog. The illogical mistake that some of these people make is to think that it’s acceptable to censor text that they don’t like. As if they are the law themselves. It’s tempting to shut down this site using the same methods, but that would only make me as low as them. I also give them the decency to say what they think, despite disagreeing with it.
They honestly think that by making a joke about how assassinating Tony Blair would be good PR for the ragheads is some kind of moral outrage! They really remind me that the reactions some Muslims’ had to the Danish cartoons, it seems that the west has its own fundamentalist.
The past couple of days have seen a renewed interest in the examination of the UK’s Drug Laws. This has been precipitated in part, because the government has ordered the advisory council on the misuse of drugs (ACMD) to report on the issue. As with most independent reports, the government has already publicly stated it’s intentions before the report has been published. To re-grade Cannabis to a class B, only a few years after they down graded it to class C. New evidence that supposedly links the drug to mental health problems is cited as one of the reasons (see my previous post). However since cannabis has been re-classed as class C it’s use has continued to decline,with just 21% of 16-24 year olds using it compared to 28% a decade ago. As such it could well be argued that down grading the drug has been a success because of the overall fall in people using it. Of course there could well be other factors, but the point is that it has risen, so down grading the drug is unlikely to have resulted in a rise of it’s use.
The other reason is the notion that Cannabis is a lot stronger these days. It is true that certain hybridized strains are more potent. However due to the illegality of the trade there is no authority to enforce the strength of the drug. If the cannabis trade was decimalized in this country it might allow people to grow weaker strains of the drug at home rather than relying on their dealer who will be supplying stronger strains. These stronger strains produce a higher yield of THC which makes growing them more profitable for the illegal dealers. Decriminalization and regulation of the drug trade is something that is needed now more than ever. Unfortunately the government seems to be taking a step backwards in pursuing the already failed method of prohibition. I wonder if it ever occurs to them that it’s prohabition that can lead to strong and dangerous drugs being produced and alduterated supplies that cam kill people.
Spot on with it’s timing the BBC aired a Horizon on Tuesday night, in which a group of experts had set about grading twenty of the most popular drugs in their scales of harm. Perhaps unsurprising for those with experience in taking drugs, knowing drug users or working in rehab, many of the illegal drugs were lower on the scale of harm than the legal ones. What the program highlighted was how out of date our drugs law’s are in the UK. These laws have often developed in previous reactionary periods, where a fear over the cultural and political movements associated with drug use has lead to a moral panic amongst the conservative aspects of society. Again I get the feeling that the current climate of fear and the desire for a sense of security will allow these conservative forces to once again try and renew their efforts of prohibition.
I’m enjoying a rather humorous flame war that has developed between Geeklawyer and some sado Blarite. I’ve always wondered who these people were who voted for Blair, and now I’ve discovered one of them. They are trying to get Geek put on trial under a neo-labour anti-terror law. For some reason they have got it into their head that the police have nothing better, and therefore need to spend their time locking people up for such reasonable suggestions that Islamic extremist would gain more respect if they took out Blair. I can imagine it now, bands of Blairite vigilantes patrolling the internet against the ‘enemy within’, sharing their moral outrage with each other (along with their kiddie photos). Meanwhile the rest of us can engage in a new sport of Blarite baiting.
I was somewhat perplexed to read that one in four Brits thinks Winston Churchill was a myth. I don’t know why this shocked me quite so much considering that everyday I meet people who hold completely stupid views. I guess there must be people who voted for Blair, so if people are that dumb, then maybe one in four thinking Churchill is a myth isn’t so shocking. Perhaps rather than thinking these people didn’t exist, they were actually making a clever philosophical comment about the way in which historiography creates myths about famous people. I mean are not all of our identities part myth and part reality? Will people think Blair was fictional in years to come? Is this what his legacy will be? Maybe he was just a horrible nightmare? Blast, I feel an existential crisis coming on.
