I had to admire the students from Manchester who decided they were fed up with poor teaching and complained. This is the first high profile case we have seen, but I suspect it wont be the last. Not if universities continue to focus on research and research funding for their overblown self importance at the expense of ordinary fee-paying students.
I notice from the article, reproduced below that the university chose to blame lecturers for not being good enough, despite having to go through an interview process and probably a teaching presentation. Of course they would blame the lecturer, you cry, they would hardly blame their emphasis on money by any means and go hang the students.
My university sent round an email the other week saying that they were fully focused on REF in terms of the quality of work submitted and on external funding. I did not see anything about teaching in there, and, to be honest, I have never seen an email encouraging us all to focus on our teaching and learning abilities. Either it is assumed we are all brilliant, or they do not really care. If they did care, they would not send round documents asking us to specify days we are unavailable for teaching because we are researching, acting as external consultants or out somewhere making money for the university.
I for one hope more works turn, it is about time these money focused bods got a kick up the rear.
POOR TEACHING FORCES UNIVERSITY TO CUT STUDENTS
Jack Grimston
ONE of Britain’s biggest universities is to reduce its intake of students by 1,000 and hire more than 100 extra academics to tackle complaints about sub-standard teaching and overcrowding.
The move by Manchester, which has more than 28,000 undergraduates and is a member of the Russell Group of elite research universities, comes as` its vice-chancellor admitted that students were dissatisfied with the teaching they were receiving.
The move provides evidence that higher fees are making students more vocal in their criticism of perceived poor standards: t will add to existing concerns that some academics view the teaching of undergraduates as a second-class activity compared with research.
Critics say the funding system provides many incentives for high-quality research but few for teaching.
During a meeting with students last month, the vice-chancellor, Dame Nancy Rothwell, admitted: “The most important [reason for dissatisfaction] is cultural. A small proportion of staff clearly do not think that students are important.”
Rothwell acknowledged problems with student numbers, poor organisation of lecture times and the attitude of some staff, saying ‘those “who don’t like: students should not be here”.
Manchester, which will charge fees of £9,000 a year from this autumn, will lower its intake from 8,736 in 2010 to 7,544 by 2014, a 14% fall. The additional academics are intended to reduce the number of students served by each staff member.
It is also spending more than £30m on refurbishing its library and building new teaching facilities.
Leeds University is considering a. reduction in student numbers of up to 5% this year, in part to improve educational standards.
Poor teaching at Manchester, which has three Nobel prize winners on its staff, has dragged the university down the league tables. It is rated sixth for research out of 122 institutions in the Sunday Times University Guide but only 110th for teaching, giving it an overall ranking of equal 37th.
Rothwell heard grievances from about 100 undergraduates and the meeting was reported in the student newspaper, the Mancunion.
Sunday times 08/01/12