31 october 2012
There is a growing obsession with form over piece as well as nowhere is this some-more clear than in a diseased seductiveness taken with university rankings.
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THIS month outlines a 22nd year we have worked as an academic.
In which time, we have seen most changes in a university. There have been, of course, some improvements given those early days.
For a singular thing, record has transformed things for a better.
Let's take a outing down memory lane.
The really initial publication we wrote went through this rsther than painful process.
First, we had to go to a library as well as find a relevant cases as well as journal articles. Then carrying taken copious notes, we went behind to my bureau where we proceeded to write out my thoughts with an ancient device well known as a pen.
Having completed this task, we would send my scratching to a lovely lady in a general bureau downstairs whose pursuit pretension was "steno".
She would sort out what we wrote, give it behind to me to check as well as afterwards we would lapse it to her with any corrections. Finally, it would be placed into a slot made of paper well known as a hammered pouch as well as posted to a publisher.
Now, all cases as well as principle including most journals have been online. we sort my work myself (with a computer checking my spelling as well as grammar) as well as when we am finished we e-mail a stuff to a publisher.
All in a comfort of my bureau where we can fool around Flight of a Hamsters in in between constructing sentences filled with gems of wisdom.
I will be a initial to admit which we am quite old-fashioned in most ways, though we can definitely say which we do not miss a days prior to a Internet as well as Word.
Progress, unfortunately, is not alway! s positi ve. And it saddens me to say which over these last two decades we have seen changes which in my perspective ring! a genocide knell for aloft education.
In my opinion, a pass problem is which those who confirm a direction of our universities have lost track of a values which have to underpin these institutions in sequence for them to fool around a meaningful purpose in society.
There is a growing obsession with form over piece as well as nowhere is this some-more clear than in a diseased seductiveness taken with university rankings.
Politicians harp upon about it, so a Government creates it a priority. Because a Government wants aloft rankings, a vice-chancellors begin repetition about it too.
Rankings have turn a raison d'etre for universities.
The discerning fix afterwards becomes a holy grail, hence universities demeanour to a ranking criteria as well as they focus their efforts upon doing all they can to encounter those criteria.
This blinkered modus operandi afterwards leads to some seriously warped developments which ignore a principles which have been required for a proper foundations of truly good universities.
Academic autonomy is a singular of those principles.
A university is a formidable organisation. It is distinct a factory where there is by as well as vast a singular idea as well as customarily a singular method with which to grasp a pronounced idea with a most appropriate peculiarity as well as efficiency.
Even in a singular faculty, there have been most variations. Take, for example, a Faculty of Arts we have departments as diverse as English as well as Geography; Urban Planning as well as Gender Studies; International Studies as well as Indian Studies; a list goes on.
You can't possibly be laying down a singular criterion for peculiarity for such a diverse group. But which is what happened.
Nowadays, if we want to infer your quality, a usually approach we can do it, which is embr! aced by universities, is if we publish in a journals recognized by a ranking organisations.
It doesn't matter if we have been an English professor who publishes well-received novels, or if we have been a Gender Studies techer who uses you! r knowled! ge for women's activism.
What about a excellent arts? Shouldn't a creation of new ideas in dance as well as entertainment take precedence over an article in some problematic (but concurred by a rankers) journal which usually a handful of people will read?
Increasingly, a meditative of universities is it is our approach or a highway.
Such a top down approach cannot work since any educational unit in a university has its own imagination as well as its own worth system.
This has to be creditable since they themselves should know how to advance their fortify both in an academically as well as socially meaningful manner.
Autonomy brings with it a required coherence for any dialect as well as any educational to chart a required march which will improve themselves as well as their own disciplines.
And who should know improved what which march should be than those who have trained in which discipline.
I am not opposite a publishing of functions in creditable journals. we admit which they have been important to a advancement of educational thought.
What we am observant is which a farrago of academia equates to which there have been countless methods to establish quality. And a most appropriate approach to grasp peculiarity is by carrying loyal educational autonomy so which those who know most appropriate have been a ones who establish a approach to grasp a best. Read More @ Source
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