Sadly we are seeing geography further education behaving just as
any other industry or service - a period of expansion is now folowed
by consolidation, as the bigger depts, more students, ie better
'brand names' scoop up more and more of the customers, ie
students, probably gaining some kind of economy of scale, which
shows not as cheaper prices (tution fees) but maybe as more
prdsstigious research, so attracting more students and so on.
We saw it with the buses as Stagecoach took over; we saw it with
the grocery trade as Asda etc took over, so what's new? We've
being seeing the commercialisation of FE for some time now
anyway.
This is bad for the same reason the dominance of the
supermarkets, or of a few transport companies is bad - because
some sectors are then missed out. When Lampeter Geog goes,
geog research, esp human geog, may suffer as funding constraints
often mean research is done not far from the parent uni. But then I
supose the powers that be have realised that not many humans live
near Lampeter.....
Hillary Shaw, P/G Geography, University of Leeds
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