PSA: G Hinsliff universities article today

[poetryandwine]

In today’s Guardian, in print and online, Gaby Hinsliff has an article on the crisis being faced by UK universities. The title begins

’Universities are in free fall …’

and then the two versions differ slightly.
It currently appears on the front page of the (free) Guardian website.

The reason I thought this worth mentioning is that Hinsliff does an excellent job of briefly explaining the background and showing how the causes have fed on each other, from Brexit to greedy VCs to the interest rates rises to our confused social policy. The overview is very helpful.

The accounting firm PwC have just provided Universities UK with a sobering report on the financial future of the sector.

That's so depressing.

Picking up briefly on the presentation comments. I am being told as a programme lead to move away from written assignment assessments due to AI.

If however it involves a higher proportion of 'practical' modules like video production, casting etc. Then it's not really 'degree' level study. It's not to say that these things are useless, or require less intelligence/study. Simply that they're not the sort of knowledge expected from a 'degree' as opposed to something else. Writing one dissertation at the end doesn't make up for the rest

So Art and Design eh? Except British design graduates are headhunted from overseas as they are the best in the world.

Why is design less degree worthy than Maths ? Except it uses Maths🙄

This probably needed to be said. However IIRC the government did drive the Value Added component I referred to up thread.

At the time I was on a committee reviewing the distribution of degree classifications at my university, which skewed low. We recalibrated, partly to stay competitive - although we were not yet losing out - but IIRC to comply with the government’s Value Added concerns. We don’t pay much attention to the league tables; for one thing they conflict with each other. We do pay a lot of attention to components the government looks at carefully, like the NSS.

Ironically the government - which is now rightly concerned with degree inflation - opened a can of worms with this. Then some league tables added it.

Value added is a Guardian league table metric. Not a Gov one - never has been.

Not in the last 20 years anyway! (Wasn't really involved in policy before that!)

Thanks, @titchy . So much for one of the few supposed instances of university leadership. I don’t usually get muddled like that and I apologise

Yes this - back to more oral viva-type assessments and exam hall finals or making things. I had a student last year make a board game for his assessment - it was brilliant and needed a deep understanding of the subject to make it and make it accessible. My favourite ever assignment!

The wage bill of some universities is in the region of 5 million a week. Not sure how much of that is academic pay but I do think the business side of universities has expanded a lot once we were supposed to be a business/make a profit. And of course, student support has significantly increased.

What doesn't? Even cooking uses maths. So does knitting, should there be a knitting degree too?
You cherry picked my post - the first bit already explained my opinion, regarding what I think constitutes a degree-worthy subject. I don't need to repeat it you can go back and read since you quoted from it. I also stated that a subject not being 'degree worthy' does NOT mean that it is useless. It simply means that the qualifications needed don't have to be shoehorned into a degree.

Of course in 2024 because everything has been turned into a degree, someone who wants to do design HAS to do one. But before them, people like Clarice Cliff studied in specialist institutions that didn't have degree awarding powers. Are you saying that the current crop are much better and higher achieving, solely because they have a 'degree' instead of some other NVQ Level 6 qualification?

As a PP said, other countries like Germany have distinct academic and professional paths, with equal respect for both. Instead, here in the UK, we seem to have lost all respect for anything other than a degree. What is so special about it over other qualifications?

'Not academic' doesn't mean 'unworthy'. there are two dictionary definitions of the word 'academic'. One means 'relating to education'. The other, to theoretical over practical interest. Everyone has gotten really upset over things not being a degree because of the first definition. Not a degree, not academic, hence less worthy. When really, it should be about the second definition.

PwC notes 40% of English and Northern Irish universities (plus 36% of Scottish ones, operating under a different fee system) are expected to go into the red this year, adding that “it may be inevitable that there is some loss of provision”

Quite scary really. Not just for the staff who will lose their jobs and the students who may find they’ve wasted two years at a university which doesn’t open for their final year so they’re left with nothing. But it has the potential to impact on the economy both nationally and locally.

The city I live in for example will be a ghost town if the university closes. The university must be the biggest employer in the city, academics, professional service support staff, porters, security, accommodation staff. But the shops and the restaurants are kept alive by the tens of thousands of students. If they leave then the bars and restaurants will close, H&M will shut their branch, ditto many other shops. Many people who see themselves as nothing to do with the university will lose their jobs. Local people who maybe bought a house to rent out to students suddenly find themselves with no tenants. Then there’s a load of landlords with no income wanting to offload their houses and the property market dips significantly locally. Ok if you’re a first time buyer but not so good if suddenly you’re in negative equity. The ripples will reach far.

@buffetbuffalo Knitting uses counting. Not maths.

I didn't say they were though. I said they might be.

Yes I know that Norse Studies is available at Cambridge.

I suspect you are touchy because the subject you teach is often criticised as being a weak subject when we know it isn't

No, I meant UCL which was the example in the article.

I didn't mean you were sneering but that saying Norse and a course that's been at HW for years were somehow weird is a bit ignorant of the writers.

I wasn't actually being touchy!

Well l did my design degree in 1983. But there you go.

And it had a fair bit of maths in it, not just ‘counting’ Lots of geometry and area.

My friend did another design course. They had to have maths lessons as part of their course.

Knitting in industry uses maths not counting. Calculating tensions/ weights/. The first ‘computers’ were knitting machines in the Industrial Revolution that used punch cards. So much advanced maths used in patterns.

Product and automotive design does NOT use counting.

Design is a STEM subject. But not worthy of a degree eh?

A quick search reveals at least 4 degrees in knitting...

Yeah. I was a knitwear designer. Loads of maths. Not my area of study initially, but switched over.

Theres so much technical stuff in design. And it’s all maths and science.

Counting is not to be looked down upon.

Clever ways to count is s thriving area of mathematical research, with many open problems. It is called combinatorics.

First of all, I have no idea why you even mentioned 'art and design' when I was talking about media studies/media-related degrees, and used the examples of video production and casting.

Secondly, the point here isn't whether something is 'technical'. It's whether it should be delivered as a degree. Both my fields are an example. Computer science - most degrees teach theory. MA lot of the very technical stuff we do isn't in any degree, there are professional qualifications and actually, a lot of the people who pass don't even have related degrees. Or any degree at all. So many old-timers who worked their way up after leaving school, they were the initial driving force behind many of the standards, pieces of code that runs on millions of computers today. Similarly, for accounting, you still have to pass the professional exams. There is little difference between a school leaver, and a graduate who has done them after. And the exams have a lot of technical detail.

Flipping it on its head, nobody would argue that plumbers, mechanics, electricians etc need a degree. At the same time their jobs are extremely technical too! They are qualified. Obviously. It's just not a DEGREE with capital letters.

You're really proving my point about people not respecting other educational pathways by getting arsey and upset regarding constitutes a degree. Why do you think that something not being a degree means it isn't worthy of respect? Why shouldn't there be alternative paths?

Well the point is that nothing should be looked down upon.
Yet, everyone thinks only a degree is worthy of respect. Nothing else matters.

I don’t. I want to see many pathways to both economic success and social acceptance

But, as the comments show, many others don't. If something is said as being not a 'degree subject' people automatically assume it isn't worthy of respect, being looked down upon, blah2.

Personally I think the whole HE model should be looked at holistically. Not just what a degree is and isn't, but how can we make education a continuous process, etc.

Having spent a lot of time in the States and Australia, where many HE institutions offer single modules, flexible learning pathways for a low cost I was surprised to find that similar doesn't really exist in the UK. There's the OU, PT degrees, and a myriad of qualifications that are quite opaque unless you know what you're doing. And even the first two are much more expensive compared to their counterparts in other countries.

Buffet it was you that originally mentioned knitting as a joke subject for a degree, when you assumed that it didn't exist..

I teach film studios. Video production is an entirely relevant, established and worthy degree available at many universities. It is not just technical: there is also academic study. Students I have taught wo have done this degree have also, importantly in the field, gained work experience and connections. Unless one lives in very specific parts of the country and until the film industry stops being quite such a closed shop this is one of the most important ways to get in. A degree gives you the time to learn how to uses different types of equipment, to build skills, to learn from experts, to build a portfolio, and to understand the underpinning theory of film and film aesthetics and auteurship.

In France, filmmaking has always been academic and film directors and DOPs are expected to have academic qualifications form institutions which are considered very elite. This causes access problems in itself but it is not somehow newfangled to have degrees in media and media production. They are not one of the 'new' degrees that have popped up in the last 15 years.

I wouldn't opine on computer science as it is something I know nothing about, and I would suggest you don't attempt to offer thoughts on video production.

ps don't know where you got the casting bit from. I have not seen a degree in casting.

There needs to be an acceptance that not all these worthy careers need degrees! They never did and they don’t now. I also know Christopher Nolan has a degree in English Lit from UCL. So careers are not dependent upon specific degrees in many arts subjects. A friend of DDs also directs commercials. Degree in English too. Many of these jobs have a fluid intake and people are not specialist trained but learn as they go along. Many creative roles don’t need degrees. My DD has a Diploma. Does the same work as degree holders. She also actually has a job! Not down to level of qualification but because she’s very good at what she does. Creatives are all about quality, not a degree.

I very much like the idea of short course extended learning for adults. Lots of the unis on the list have not been universities very long. Gaby H is wrong to suggest the RG group have “ stolen “ their subjects. It’s totally the other way round. 40 years ago polys didn’t offer the “academic “ subjects offered by the RG unis. Now they do. The old polys have moved too far away from employment qualifications and probably ditched HNC type qualifications completely.

We also need to remember the uni sector greatly expanded under John Major and David Cameron. Blair just wanted the unis to fill up with full time undergrads. Not people like me who did HNCs back in the day. We were like the modern day apprentice. I think this type of course needs to be given greater prominence but there’s definitely a need for a rethink about what some of these unis are actually for!