Dear Friend,
Despite that salutation, I can’t be found on Facebook nor can you follow me on Twitter, BUT you CAN read my book:
Australian Universities: A Portrait of Decline
which lays bare the corruption of our institutions of higher learning as a result of 20 years of rampant managerialism, baseless education theory and overt government interference.
As part of the education sector, you owe it to yourself and your students to revive the system while there are still signs of life.
Please use the link below to download your FREE digital copy. Feel free to pass this email on to anyone you know who might also be interested.
http://www.australianuniversities.id.au/
Best of Reading.
Sincerely,
Donald Meyers
Not another VC had to resign from an Australian university! Thats shameful! It was enough that a certain VC's daughter, whoops, so sorry, I mean close relative, got into medical school with Daddy's help and Daddy had to piss off early. Must not mention the facts in polite Queensland Greggory Terrace conversation. OK if its one of those wretched foreign people who are not quite the right colour. Put them in goal, but neopotism is what we are good at and thats what we do best.
Sounds familiar. I saw it all first hand at one of the Queensland unis at their Graduate Schools of Mis-Management. Overseas uni programs enrolling students who could not speak English, giving degrees away like rolls of toilet paper and then blaming those "terrible foreign people" in Asia for financial mismanagement of all the crap "educational" programs. They aways seem to blame the terrible foreign people in Queensland when things go wrong, instead of themselves with their total incompetence. Look at Queensland health - first we had the Dr Pattel "Dr Death" fiasco, then the Prince Joel Barlow saga. Why is it that the funny little foreign guys always end up in goal while the totally incompetent local people, supposedly responsible for running the show, always get off Scott free.
I think there are quality issues with maths/science and language literacy in high school, but who knows? That is a problem in itself.
Worked in English as a Foreign Language teaching offshore and was exposed to various quality control, performance evaluation and professional development mechanism or inputs, Australia (universities)? Zero, mostly qualification and input evaluation e.g. teaching materials.
Have been working in international education market development, (digital) marketing, recruitment and student welfare offshore and onshore due to following reasons we now refuse to deal with (most) university and TAFE international administrators, as an Australian I view their international activity as pure travel rorting.
They call themselves marketers or recruiters but they have neither marketing strategies nor digital skills, but approved "international travel plans" to hand out brochures, pester agents/consultants and outsource arbitrary or unrealistic recruitment KPIs to agents/consultants (at immense cost i.e. travel, accommodation, daily allowances and opportunity costs of not being on campus dealing with relevant student feedback, and offshore agent requests.... e.g. $250-500 million per year?).
One VC was forced to resign after his colleagues refused to sign off on his travel expenses (conflict of interest is rife through out state sector), $600,000 over three years...... tip of the iceberg...... but it is one area where the government should not be blocked by "autonomy"
Australian universities need to restore some rigor in the hard core traditional sciences. Some of the smaller regionl universities have already closed down their programs in physics and chemistry. Even for the programs remaining at larger institutions there is a big reduction in time spent on laboratory work. The last couple of scientific glassblowers in Australia will soon retire. No labs, no support technical staff, not much happening at all - unless you go to China. Yet the crazy politicians are halucinating about Australia becoming the "engine room of Asia". China's quarry would be a more accurate description. I would like to know what chemical substance these politicians have been using. Unfortunately there are no laboratories equipped to give any answers.
Likewise at home, starting from the top:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/6/our-planet-saving-science-lobbyist-the-integrity-of-the-australian-academy-of-science
That's what it needs MfT, but they will have to get some balance into the MSM or they will be demonised to death.
More modern academic corruption. As usual, it's not the principle involved, it's the money that counts:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/16/another-skeptical-university-professor-fired-related-to-carbs-pm2-5-air-pollution-regulation-scandal/
"To get a complete picture it would also be necessary to add the role of the media in shaping public debate and public policy and what else?"
Yes Jen, I was asking much of Donald Meyers paper and acknowledge that.
In terms of what else Meyers refers to managerialism in Universities, and Garth Paltridge and Art Raiche refer to the same thing when they talk about the CSIRO in their respective books.
But even they are not alone.The public sectors have undergone a lot of transformations in the last 20 years.CEO's under contract at three times the permanent public servants salaries hasnt seen any significant improvements... that anyone can notice.
Many of these high level contract appointments are to accommodate the usual corporate psychopaths, only this time they have blatant political connections.
Methods of selecting key staff is as hit and miss as it ever was. Merit is secondary.
Some appointees say some the most air headed nonsense imagineable. Here is one of many examples of recent origin
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2011-04-04/australias-csiro-calls-for-carbon-tax/219280
Activism is rampant everywhere one looks. Even Gergis of the dud paper fame is now identified as having activist connections..and of course Karoly's connections to the WWF are well known.
One can only live in hope that the next federal election will see a preparedness on the part of whoever wins, to clean out of these barnacles on the backside of progress.
Good one John!
A good dose of reality as opposed to their romantic ideals about 'mother nature' would not hurt a lot of the 'over protected' young urban environmentalists.
It's not all bad though.
The larger number of tertiary educated who go out into the real world or start work in the business world or who work in jobs where they're required to be accountable is probably one of the reasons why there are so many so called sceptics who keep asking intelligent questions.
Most of them were taught statistical analysis and can use spreadsheets, computer models and computer graphics.
They can spot the difference when real time data does not match the projections.