Thursday, December 18, 2003

LRB re: HiEdBiz

hello tasty- "the populist language that dominates so much discussion in contemporary market democracies is not well adapted to justifying public expenditure in other than economic or utilitarian terms, and it is principally as a form of expenditure - a problematic or resented one - that universities now attract political and media attention." Exactly what it is "...the next step appears to be to turn them into limited companies".

->

"Even those statements which are clearly intended to be upbeat affirmations of their importance have a way of making you feel slightly ill. It is not simply the fact that no single institution could successfully achieve all the aims crammed into this unlovely paragraph, taken from the introductory chapter to the Government's White Paper, The Future of Higher Education:

We see a higher education sector which meets the needs of the economy in terms of trained people, research and technology transfer. At the same time it needs to enable all suitably qualified individuals to develop their potential both intellectually and personally, and to provide the necessary storehouse of expertise in science and technology, and the arts and humanities which defines our civilisation and culture.

[...]->

There are two sentences in that paragraph. The first, which is clear enough though not a thing of beauty, says that the main aim of universities is to turn out people and ideas capable of making money. The second, which is neither clear nor beautiful, says there are a lot of other points that it's traditional to mention in this connection, and that they're all good things too, in their way, and that the official with the glue-pot has been having a busy day, and that we've lost track of the subject of the verb in the last line, and that it may be time for another full stop."

there follows at length history of higher education / university culture