New info for universities

Getting a degree is an challenging academic experience. To make sure that you can meet the standards, you must be able to reach certain academic targets. If you don't meet them, then you don't get into university - it should be as simple as that. Well, that's the theoretical view - problems with money can get in the way, but most cases where students do get are related to previous academic or professional achievement.

However, to get into universities in 2008, there will be an extra hurdle to go over:

"The admissions service, UCAS, also says its form for 2008 entry will ask applicants about their ethnicity and whether they have been in council care."

In the same BBC News article, it mentions that "vice-chancellors and ministers believe it helps widen participation". The president of Universities UK - a group comprising of university vice-chancellors says:

"All Universities UK members place a high priority on widening participation. It is therefore useful for a university to have at its disposal a wide range of information to build up a full and rounded view of an applicant. It allows institutions to understand more about how the applicant got to where they are, and their potential."

Why should a potential student's non-academic background have a bearing on admissions though? You shouldn't be given an unfair advantage if you're poorer than someone else - that's a form of discrimination. Jonathan Shepard, of the Independent Schools Council thinks the same way:

"...this information is of no relevance to admissions tutors - who are looking at candidates, not at parents - and should not be disclosed to universities..."

Wes Streeting, the Vice-President (Education) for the National Union of Students believes that it is a "knee-jerk reaction" to call this "social engineering" and "positive discrimination". Mike Baker, education correspondent for BBC News believes that statements made by the media are hyperbole. In this article, he creates a scenario where a student is picked solely because they are an ethnic minority and the parents left education at 16.

The scenario is unrealistic - even I agree with that. However, there is the possibility that there could be two students of equal academic merit and one place remaining on a course. If that were the case, one could get in ahead of another because they have high acadmeic standards and their parents left education at 16. That is more believable and worrying. Is it right that the decision should be made like that? I don't think so.

Trust is an issue here and in most cases, the scenario I illustrated above might not happen. However, if the possibility is there it could happen somewhere.

There are some universities who believe this is a bad thing though. 8 of the 20 Russell Group members questioned or condemned the moves (Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College London, Nottingham and University College London). In this Daily Telegraph article, the following is mentioned:

"Imperial College, London, said it ran a number of activities to help persuade pupils to go on to study science, technology and medicine.

"However, academic merit must be the main criterion," said a spokesman"

I think it's bad and so do other people, including some heavyweights in the education sector. However, some people thinks it will help the widening participation initiative and the opinions expressed by some sections of the media are hyperbole. What do you think?

Honorary Degrees

Something I have been able to do as a sabbatical officer at my student union is go to degree ceremonies. I graduated off the platform at the City Hall in July and attended six others in that week. I attended four more this week. Although work piles up at my office as a result of these, I wouldn't want to miss them. It gives me a chance to see my friends graduate.

One thing that you often see at degree ceremonies is the presentation of honorary degrees. According to Wikipedia, these are defined as:

"An honorary degree is an academic degree awarded to an individual as a decoration, rather than as the result of matriculating and studying for several years. An honorary degree may be conferred by an institution that the recipient never attended. The degree itself may be a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree — the last being by far the most common. Usually the degree is conferred with great pomp and ceremony as a way of honoring a famous or distinguished visitor's valuable contribution to society. The university derives benefits by association with the person's status and so enhances its networking and publicity."

I strongly disagree with this type of degree for several reasons. A degree is an academic qualification that is awarded after several years of hard study at an academic institution. It shows that an individual has gained the knowledge and skills that should allow them to have a chance of getting a good job.

Honorary degrees are awarded to people who have already had great success and not necessarily as a result of academic achievement. They might not even have studied at the institution previously. The last bit of the above quote annoys me too. They gain publicity from what is often non-academic achievement. They should be gaining publicity from the quality of degree courses, the facilities and student experience and the standard of jobs the students get afterwards - nothing more than that.

Yes, the people that are awarded these 'degrees' have usually made a massive contribution to society, but do they need a degree to recognise that? I don't think so. Why not name an award or building after the person? If that's not possible and there's nothing else of a suitable stature that can be done - then simply do nothing.

According to this page, Nelson Mandela has been awarded 28 honrary degrees/doctorates. That doesn't include all the fellowships he's been awarded too. Kermit the Frog was once awarded an honorary doctorate from Southampton College - part of Long Island University. Ediburgh University even awarded one to Robert Mugabe (although there are plans to strip him of that title). Pierluigi Collina was even awarded one by the University of Hull - he was a football referee, not an academic. All those examples completely devalue something which thousands of students work hard to get every year.

MIT don't award honorary degrees. They are an example of a highly successful and respected institution getting along fine without them. They derive their reputation and publicity from a strong academic record.

Anyway - that's what I think - what do you think?

Technorati tags: Academia, Honrary degrees, Universities, Graduations

An opening about Oxford

Higher education has become a big part of my life. I have a degree and now work in part of the HE sector. I created this blog because of that. The first thing I want to comment on is something that happened in the news recently which relates to the University of Oxford.

Dr. John Hood, who is the vice-chancellor at the university, submitted plans to change the council structure so that there would be more lay-members and they would then have more of a control over matters such as finances. This caused outrage amongst some members as it would be a massive change in the ancient university's governance. There was a long debate and it resulted in a humiliating defeat for Dr. Hood when it went to a vote. This story was reported in such places as the BBC news website and the Guardian Unlimited website.

I then noticed a post about this on the Mortar Board, which is an education blog on the Guardian Unlimited site. The paragraphs which provoked my initial comment were the first two:

"Where now for Oxford? Dons today decisively rejected plans by the vice-chancellor John Hood to modernise the running of the ancient university.

By a clear majority they expressed dislike of his proposal for a ruling council with a majority of outsiders from business, to bring Oxford into line with every other university in the UK except Cambridge."

and the last one:

"We must hope for an outbreak of Christmas goodwill in the university - after all there is far too much important scholarly work to be done to get distracted by who sits on what committee."

I must admit that my initial response was a little reactionary, but it also got the basis of my point across. However, people disagreed with what I posted. I wasn't surprised - you can't make everyone agree with you. Some of the points did seem overly opinionated and just plain wrong though. One person posted:

"What may - or may not,'work' for lesser Universities is not good enough for the very best.

Our younger son, educated at the local state comprehensive and the local sixth form college, is a graduate of Oxford and we are absolutely delighted with the way the University is, and has been for a long time."

Hmmm - 'the best'? I thought to myself, 'let's examine that statement'. The University of Oxford has been regarded as one of the top universities for a while now, but how good is it? The Times does the 'Good University Guide' every year and publishes rankings based on a series of criteria. Oxford appears at the top of the 2007 table, but then I looked at the figures more closely. According to the table, it doesn't have the highest average spend on facilities, the highest completion rate, the highest ranking for entry requirements, isn't the best for career prospects, doesn't have the best student:staff ratio and has no mark for student satisfaction. As it boycotted the National Student Survey that's another way we can't judge satisfaction.

Yes, it might have the highest number of degrees classed as 1st or 2:1, but academic achievement isn't the only thing that is considered by employers now. 'Soft' skills such as interpersonal skills and things that make you a well-rounded person are much more important (the career prospects figure is an indicator of this). In reality, while it might be the best in terms of degree results, I don't think it's the best overall. This response didn't seem to relate to the article anyway. It just seemed to be posted because I was disagreeing with something Oxford did.

Getting back to the point of the article, someone posted:

"Congratulations to Oxford academics for resisting the tendency to "modernise". i.e. change a university from a self governing community of academics (well sort of!) into a business"

I'm sorry - this is just a ridiculous statement. Competition is getting much stronger nowadays (especially post-1992). Therefore it's important that a universities markets itself properly and has a strong grip on it's finances. It's important to get the funding required to provide high quality facilities to attract the students as well as providing good teaching quality. It's important that a university has a business aspect to it so that it can make the correct investments and make best use of it's funding. You have to accept at least some modernisations to stay with or keep ahead of the competition. It is standard practice to have a council structure like Dr. Hood was proposing and that standard has (mostly) worked for a number of years. Why do they assume it will fail at Oxford?

I'd like to hear people's opinions on this.