Allan....

You've been reading the Guardian to much!
OK we are underpaid and under resourced, but one thing I can do for my
students - and thereby ultimately myself - is teach them to research
and to learn, then I don't have to do much else other than sit back (OK
I exaggerate somewhat) and let them do the work! The consequences of
not helping them to develop these skills is far more hard work for me.

Philippa Ashton
(a backswoods person please!)
Staffordshire University




On Fri, 24 May 2002 15:12:58 +0100 "R. Allan Reese"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> In my essay yesterday, I netioned that good research training is labourintensive. Today's radio news featured a report that "productivity" in
> NHS hospitals has gone down over the past five years. This was, however,
> explained by (a) junior doctors having their hours reduced so they stay
> awake, (b) more complicated operations now taking longer, and (c) patients
> actually getting better quality treatment.
>
> The moral is to make the important measurable. When the "market rules"
> philosophy was applied unthinkingly, the whole emphasis was on getting
> patients off the premises as quickly as possible. This would maximize the
> perceived recorded number of treatments and throughput of patients.
> Politicians and managers did not care that the same patient might be
> re-admitted within days because of complications - two treatments meant
> twice the productivity. I *hope* today's headline will be seen as
> misleading, and that "patient improvement" is more important than "units
> treated". I hope!
>
> The equivalence with education, the pressure to get "more bums on seats"
> at "lower unit of resource" is obvious. Perversely, we are told that
> "lifelong learning" is evidenced by continued attendance at training,
> rather than by developing an attitude of self-development. Education is
> an industry now aiming to create a dependency culture. Margaret Hodge
> (UK's Minister for HE) recently told an AUT national meeting that the
> policy is explicitly to remove the distinction between FE and HE. I
> think that is bad for both. Robin Cook said on the radio yesterday that
> voters should note that youth unemployment has been eliminated - of
> course, because they are all now called students.
>
> There is an obvious crisis looming. The first students are just
> graduating with the full three years' student loan to repay. These are
> also the group being told they must save more towards a personal pension,
> must be prepared to pay more for health care, must pay more for their own
> children's education. Current policies are premised on continuous
> economic growth, and I see the student loan "company" being among the
> first casualties.
>
> R. Allan Reese Email: [log in to unmask]