[ANPPOM-Lista] nossas universidades tornaram-se fábricas

Carlos Palombini cpalombini em gmail.com
Qua Nov 14 12:14:05 BRST 2012


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.

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.

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".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675360/Our-universities-have-become-factories.html

'Our universities have become factories' 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.
  [image: Council for the Defence of British Universities: universities
have become 'enterprises analogous to factories'.]
 Council for the Defence of British Universities: universities have become
'enterprises analogous to factories'. Photo: Alamy

By Gordon Campbell, Council for the Defence of British Universities

7:00AM GMT 14 Nov 2012

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.

We are now, in the eyes of government, nationalised businesses that exist
to serve the economy. The Universities
Minister<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675113/Education-is-a-great-British-export-industry.html>now
reports to the Business Secretary, not his counterpart in the
Department for Education.

   - *Universities Minister David Willetts: 'Education is a great British
   export industry'*<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9675113/Education-is-a-great-British-export-industry.html>

 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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

*Professor Gordon Campbell FBA is a member of the Council for the Defence
of British Universities <http://cdbu.org.uk/> steering committee. He is
Professor of Renaissance Studies at University of Leicester. *
*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".
*
-- 
carlos palombini
www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011
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