No class at all
19/05/2010 3:40:00 p.m.
FOR hairy-chested barbarism, this has to take the prize. With honours.
A few days ago, the ruling council of Victoria University decided there was a clever way to deal with a perceived “resource” shortage on campus: simply ditch 1500 students.
The 1500 were all eagerly waiting to start their degrees this year. And to rub salt into the wound, the 1500 rejects are all local kids.
In contrast, top-dollar foreign students can keep coming in whatever numbers they want. They used to call universities places of higher learning. Today, make that hire learning (foreign currencies preferred).
I’d love to know just what “resources” they were short of. But we’ll never know because the council shut the doors to the public while this extraordinary decision was being taken. And 1500 apprentice students will never know a lot of things, period.
Human beings should be viewed as precious “resources” too. Unfortunately for us, these young “resources” will now realise their potential in overseas economies.
It’s all very well the government investing $300 mil in this week’s Budget into “science”; meanwhile the lab’s on fire up at Vic. Bean-counters are running amok.
There’s something very UN-scientific, clueless, untutored and unimaginative about chopping students. It is a poor advertisement for an organisation that’s supposed to advance the human intellect.
No one is saying there are no economic pressures to deal with, but the true test of our ideas, our entrepreneurial worth, is how we confront scarcity. And a big university should not be lacking in ideas.
I suspect if the Council bothered to consult its own staff (if not students) they would discover more survival strategies than they knew existed.
If they think there is a shortage of staff, lecture rooms, or books, they’re out of touch with modern life. Local students already view classes on podcasts. They have computers, no?
In the UK, for at least 40 years students in the Open University have attended lectures by watching them on TV from home. One single lecturer can inspire a million students at the same time.
Back in the day when I was a cherub-faced student with long, black curly hair (I had hair then) they used to have a big concrete rendition of Victoria University’s coat of arms inset into one of the walls.
It was shiny and friendly to look at it, I think because the grounds staff used to enjoy painting it each year with glossy pastel colours. It was the sort of thing you just had to touch as you walked by.
Even the university’s motto in Latin (this was in the days before the disease of Plain English had infected our society) could be felt with your fingertips. I don’t think they promote that motto any more. It’s probably considered quaint or even “communist” by the current junta: “Sapientia magis auro desideranda”.
Wisdom is more to be desired than gold. Those days are gone. Welcome to the Victorian Perversity of Wellington.
A few days ago, the ruling council of Victoria University decided there was a clever way to deal with a perceived “resource” shortage on campus: simply ditch 1500 students.
The 1500 were all eagerly waiting to start their degrees this year. And to rub salt into the wound, the 1500 rejects are all local kids.
In contrast, top-dollar foreign students can keep coming in whatever numbers they want. They used to call universities places of higher learning. Today, make that hire learning (foreign currencies preferred).
I’d love to know just what “resources” they were short of. But we’ll never know because the council shut the doors to the public while this extraordinary decision was being taken. And 1500 apprentice students will never know a lot of things, period.
Human beings should be viewed as precious “resources” too. Unfortunately for us, these young “resources” will now realise their potential in overseas economies.
It’s all very well the government investing $300 mil in this week’s Budget into “science”; meanwhile the lab’s on fire up at Vic. Bean-counters are running amok.
There’s something very UN-scientific, clueless, untutored and unimaginative about chopping students. It is a poor advertisement for an organisation that’s supposed to advance the human intellect.
No one is saying there are no economic pressures to deal with, but the true test of our ideas, our entrepreneurial worth, is how we confront scarcity. And a big university should not be lacking in ideas.
I suspect if the Council bothered to consult its own staff (if not students) they would discover more survival strategies than they knew existed.
If they think there is a shortage of staff, lecture rooms, or books, they’re out of touch with modern life. Local students already view classes on podcasts. They have computers, no?
In the UK, for at least 40 years students in the Open University have attended lectures by watching them on TV from home. One single lecturer can inspire a million students at the same time.
Back in the day when I was a cherub-faced student with long, black curly hair (I had hair then) they used to have a big concrete rendition of Victoria University’s coat of arms inset into one of the walls.
It was shiny and friendly to look at it, I think because the grounds staff used to enjoy painting it each year with glossy pastel colours. It was the sort of thing you just had to touch as you walked by.
Even the university’s motto in Latin (this was in the days before the disease of Plain English had infected our society) could be felt with your fingertips. I don’t think they promote that motto any more. It’s probably considered quaint or even “communist” by the current junta: “Sapientia magis auro desideranda”.
Wisdom is more to be desired than gold. Those days are gone. Welcome to the Victorian Perversity of Wellington.
