Why not just privatise universities? British (certainly English) universities are in deep trouble. These troubles appear to stem from a variety of sources. Students are increasingly packed into classrooms with inadequate teaching materials and exposed to tired lecturers or teaching assistants, for instance. Expanded 'foundation' and foreign-language programmes hoover up students and then cruelly dump them once money has been extracted. Academics are notoriously underpaid. Even if they can raise their heads above huge amounts of pointless research, many academics have never had an original thought and react badly to any presentation of one. Debate amongst students and professors, and tolerance, and civility, has given way to indifference. It is only a matter of time until lawyers start inventing suits which will create a climate of samizdat fear and reinforce the chilling strictures of the professional left and the fogeyish right. And all the time, serious laboratories, librarie...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.