Há algum tempo, a universidade de Cambridge anunciou o lançamento de um plano de demissões voluntárias, e também, que a média de alunos em sala de aula passaria de seis para doze.<br><br>No artigo abaixo, Gordon Campbell, da Academia Britânica, diz que começou sua carreira com uma média de dois alunos em sala de aula, hoje são treze.<br>
<br>Não me queixo, pessoalmente: tenho trinta, e espera-se que eu passe para sessenta. Entendi finalmente o novo slogan de minha instituição: "além dos padrões".<br><br><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675360/Our-universities-have-become-factories.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675360/Our-universities-have-become-factories.html</a><br>
<br><h1>'Our universities have become factories'</h1>
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A coalition of leading academics and peers gathered last night to launch the
Council for the Defence of British Universities. Founding committee member
Gordon Campbell explains what is at stake.
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<span class="caption">Council for the Defence of British Universities: universities have become 'enterprises analogous to factories'.</span> <span class="credit">Photo: Alamy</span></div>
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By <span rel="author">Gordon Campbell</span>, <span>Council for the Defence of British Universities</span></p>
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<p class="publishedDate">7:00AM GMT 14 Nov 2012</p>
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For many years I have worked at one of the 40 or so universities that describe
themselves as a top-20 university. And when I entered the profession,
universities – though largely independent of government – were part of the
education sector.
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We are now, in the eyes of government, nationalised businesses that exist to
serve the economy. The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675113/Education-is-a-great-British-export-industry.html">Universities
Minister</a> now reports to the Business Secretary, not his counterpart in
the Department for Education.
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<ul class="storylist"><li><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675113/Education-is-a-great-British-export-industry.html"><strong>Universities
Minister David Willetts: 'Education is a great British export industry'</strong></a></li></ul>
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In that time, life has changed utterly for academics and students alike. The
value of teaching has been downgraded without mercy, because it attracts no
differential funding. When I arrived at my university, we taught our
undergraduates in groups of two; the numbers have gradually increased, and
now we teach them in groups of 13. This is an efficiency gain.
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But despite these larger classes, which are typical of the sector, standards
have risen steadily: when I started we gave a first every other year, and
now we give a substantial number of firsts every year. As at other
universities, we are urged to give still more firsts in order to be
competitive.
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We also receive weekly injunctions to apply for grants that those of us in the
humanities do not need – grants that will buy us out of teaching, which can
be done by an increasingly casualised workforce. Our ability to procure
grants is central to our survival as academics. In other words, the value of
our research is assessed by the amount of taxpayers' money it has cost.
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So how has this happened? The inappropriate notion that we are businesses was
first mooted in the Jarratt Report of 1985, in which we learned that our
universities were enterprises analogous to factories and that academics were
charged with 'delivering' education, and in that capacity subject to key
performance indicators. Students were deemed to be the products of this
manufacturing process, and these products were marketed to employers.
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At a later stage, when fees were introduced, students ceased to be products
and became customers. As enterprises, our universities were expected to
compete against each other. They were also expected to be properly led, and
so Vice-Chancellors and Principals acquired executive powers, senates and
councils were purged of troublesome academics, and large numbers of managers
were hired.
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University councils were reformed to resemble boards of directors, mostly
populated by people from a business background; they are people of good will
who work pro bono, but apart from the chair and treasurer, the complexities
of the modern university are beyond the understanding of most members, and
they share a tendency to see universities as Mr Romney viewed the US – as a
business in need of downsizing.
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And the hand of government has become gradually heavier. Funding agencies,
quality agencies and more recently the Office of Fair Access have been
introduced to monitor all aspects of universities' activities.
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<p>
What, as Chernyshevsky and Lenin said, is to be done? It is not enough to cry
shame on governments that tax knowledge and heap bureaucracy on academics,
or indeed on Vice-Chancellors and Principals who describe themselves as
CEOs, pack our universities with managers, and devote their energy to
manipulating league tables and chasing brightly-coloured baubles.
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<p>
We need, in the first instance, to articulate what has gone wrong, to
understand how one of the world's greatest systems of universities has come
to be threatened by managerialism and oppressive layers of bureaucracy, a
plight that puzzles and disconcerts our academic colleagues all over Europe
and the Anglophone world.
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<p>
Then we will need policies to commend to this government and its successors,
policies based on careful consideration and wide consultation, policies that
will return the universities to academics and students, affirm the value of
education for citizenship and proclaim the primacy of teaching and research.
That is why this Council has been created.
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<p>
<strong>Professor Gordon Campbell FBA is a member of the <a href="http://cdbu.org.uk/" target="_blank">Council
for the Defence of British Universities</a> steering committee. He is
Professor of Renaissance Studies at University of Leicester.
</strong></p></div></div></div></div><i>PS Humor britânico: no trem entre Londres e Oxford, o professor A encontra o professor B, recém nomeado pela Universidade de Oxford, e pergunta: "Como vão as coisas?". O professor B responde: "Vão indo: tenho que dar uma aula, mas não é todos os anos".<br>
</i><br>-- <br><div>carlos palombini<br></div><a href="http://www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011" target="_blank">www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011</a><br>
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