Aga,
 
I don’t know if I should be answering this but I need to clear these ideas up for a paper I must write on this so here are the incomplete ideas that are going around in my mind.
 
The knowledge that we deal with seems to be in three worlds.   The first of these worlds is the one dimensional knowledge that we carry over to undergraduates.   It is the factual knowledge that we find in all those first year text books that the students have to put to memory.   The second world is the world of the science in which we find the connections between the various constructs that we drilled in to the heads of the student in world 1.    This usually starts in the pre-master’s phase and is perfected in the master’s phase.   The third world is the level of the meta-science (above science) in which we start to link all the findings of the second world of knowledge in to one unified theory or model.    
 
The administrators don’t seem to have had the privilege of learning more than that which is taught in the first world so that is where they try to keep you.   In a Marxian way we become tied to a quality system which deals with the quantitative measures that can be recorded and understood.   These are such things as periods you stand in front of the class and the pass rates and the cost per unit of production.   The fact that you may educate the students rather than teach them is immaterial.    This started with Nixon’s managerial –ism where it was required of you, the academic to give account of your work.      If you said that you had developed three students to be able to think and act in the second world of knowledge it would not be understood.    To do this you would have to sit and debate/argue/ direct etc and this is not measureable until you give a cost accountant those tools to measure your output in this world.
 
So were are we?   Trapped in an economic biased educational system where the core value is not education but immediate financial viability (not sustainability of the economy).
 
Our output is millions of students who are capable of textbook knowledge and nothing else.
 
So where do I start?   I focus on the individual and the need of the individual and teach in a manner that allows the text book knowledge to be transferred in a more economical way so that I can focus on the “higher order” skills.    Why not use third years to mentor second years and those can mentor first years and you can teach the relationships between planning, monitoring and success through two sided debate rather than through one dimensional instruction.
 
You’re opening up a huge debate on how I can be economically more efficient as an academic and focus on my core business.
 
Susan Goff has sent you an interesting reading which indicates what students are looking for in this higher learning but have not yet identified it.   Another interesting reading is that of Gene Glass on Primary, Secondary and Meta-analysis of research.
 
Happy reading. (And I hope thinking and debating)
 
 
Graham Myers
Senior Lecturer
Department of Auditing and Taxation
Durban University of Technology
Tel +27+31+3735380
 
 
 

From: Practitioner-Researcher [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of aga yamin
Sent: 12 November 2011 09:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How can we improve universities' business performance?


Dear All

We are suffering from financial crises and are uncertain about the economy. This provides us with a base to rethink sustainably by introducing a mechanism that enhances the business performance of a higher education organisation like university.

How universities can improve their business performance? Any suggestions:

Regards

Aga

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