Daily Archives: December 21, 2011

Be a Happy Scrooge this Christmas

21 Wednesday Dec 2011

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I was reading Peg-o-Leg’s Ramblings blog post, a humorous entry about last-minute gift ideas for the Ebenezer’s amongst us. She provided some hilarious suggestions, such as a library book accompanied by a lecture on the benefits of recycling; or a simple key, preferrable an old one, and definitely not a car key, to that special person – indicating that some nooky is coming their way. But I’m an Ebenezer of frill, and I actually like my family, so therein lies the rub – I want to buy them cool stuff, but bah humbug to the usually inflated mark-ups. 

Nevertheless, I think I have found a solution, and I’d like to share it with my fellow “frill” seekers. The other day I was in a department store with wife, looking at a beautiful crystal tumbler and dec set for my brother, who I want to buy something that will last a while. The price however, almost sent me into a temporary, hypochondria-like mental condition. I asked the venerable shop assist if there was any way she could do me a better deal (like by about 2/3′s I was thinking). To my horror, she informed me that the price was already reduced, and I felt the onset of a migraine. What she said next, however, made the invisible light-bulb above my head flick on vigorously.

T&D set in question

She gave me a tip that will potentially save me hundreds of dollars. Her advice was to come to the store on Christmas Eve. The Boxing day sales start first thing on Boxing day morning, and so prices would have to be marked down on the evening of the 24th, before closing time - and she gave me another tip, that crystal tumbler and decanter set I wanted would be reduced from the already discounted price of $599 to $199!! The Scrooge inside me was doing the happy-dance.

So my advice to you all would be to head down to your local department store this Christmas Eve, maybe about an hour or so before closing, and see if you can get yourself a boxing day bargain, and embrace your Ebenezer inside of you while satisfying the need to give something lovely to someone special.

Footnote: Elsa and I went to the department store at six pm, after being told it would remain open a little later on Xmas eve. This was not the case, and it shut at 6pm on the dot. And while they may have done this to re-price everything, one can only speculate, and I still believe had we gotten their a little earlier, it could have been ours. As it was, we went away on holiday so we missed the boxing day sales, and all had been sold when we went back there on the weekend. Such is life.

Higher Education News Wrap Up 15 December to 21 December 2011

21 Wednesday Dec 2011

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Graduate Careers Australia survey report

Graduate Careers Australia released its annual survey data on graduate employment for 2011. (Summary of report here) Around 168,000 graduates participated in the survey, which extended to four months beyond graduation. Key finds are as below:

  • 76.6 per cent of the 2010 National Class found work by May 2011 – almost identical to the previous year (76.2 per cent);
  • In context: 85.2 per cent of graduates found full-time employment within four months of graduating in 2008;
  • Evidence that impact of GFC is lingering;
  • Median starting salary for graduates aged less than 25 increased by almost $1,000 to $50,000 p.a. Engineering bucked the trend, with graduates earning on average around $65,000;
  • Mining Engineering graduates were found to be the most successful group of students to find full-time employment after graduating (98.2 per cent). This was followed by Medicine (98 per cent) and Pharmacy (97.3 per cent).  About 85 per cent of Geology graduates found work within four months of graduating;
  • Women were more likely to find full-time work (76.8 per cent) than men (76.1 per cent) after graduating;
  • One in five graduates goes onto further studies.

Mining Engineers are the clear winners here. One can go further and propose that the 2 per cent not gainfully employed are either doing their gap year or pursuing further studies. Still, it remains a challenge to get students interested in a career in mining and more work needs to be done by myself and others to demonstrate the intensely awesome experiences (my boss’ term) they have on our programs, and in industry.

Murdoch’s new VC aims high

In this article, The Australian reporter Bernard Lane chats to Murdoch’s new VC, Richard Higgot about Murdoch’s direction next year. In summary, Higgot is looking to “slim down the curriculum” in order to boost research, and by default the central coffers.  He also feels that the University needs to revert back to its core research strengths. 

On the Education Management side of things Higgot wants to institute a flatter organisational structure, like one he successfully implemented at Warwick University, by reducing the size of Murdoch’s executive leadership team. It is suggested that Pro-vice chancellors will be left out.

Canberra Merger Canned

The plan to merge the University of Canberra and Canberra Institute of Technology appear to have been flushed south, along with UC’s alternative plan for a polytechnic. The Australian article speaks of a “confidential brief” sent to the two education provides, proposing “a new type of tertiary institution,” neither higher education nor VET, but would instead “produce a new range of course offerings which are not competency based but competency influenced.” While awaiting the outcome of the ACT’s decision, it looks more likely that instead of a merger or the UC’s polytechnic, it’s going to become some sort of joint-venture ensuring neither institute poaches into their educational space, i.e. higher education and VET.  

The Lomax-Smith base funding review

Further to the plethora of articles about the Lomax-Smith HE Base Funding Review, I found this article of interest on The Conversation website, titled Fairness of Higher Education Base Funding Review’s fee policy questioned. The article is based largely on the opinion of Grattan Institute’s HE program director, Andrew Norton, believes that the review’s dismissal of any argument supporting the current government practice of varying the level of support across disciplines as “the single weakest aspect of the report.”

What the review proposes is that all students should contribute 40% towards their total education debt, regardless of discipline or skills shortage associated with that discipline, e.g. mining engineering. The review asserts that program costs are not a motivating factor when prospective students select their higher education course – which reminded me of a Christopher Hitchen’s quote, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”  Under current arrangements, Engineering and Survey students contribute approximately $8,050 towards their placement annually. If the 40% contribution recommendation is to be taken up by Government, then these students will have to pay $9,613.20, an increase of around $1,500 per year.

Changes in charges to students if their contributions (Grattan Institute 2011)

In this article, Norton suggests that a range of “rational arguments” could support the continuation of differential subsidies. He bases the argument around:

1). How much the student is charged for their course;

2). How much public good their subsequent work involved; and,

3). How much they’re likely to earn performing it.

For example, one might argue that based on the likely earnings and public good of a teacher, that their University fees be supported by the continuation of differential subsides. That sounds fair enough, as it is well known teachers are under-paid, over-worked and have to put up with brats like me for eight hours a day – sounds less like a profession and more like a sentence. On the other hand, what about the more contentious professions such as Mining Engineering (MEs), whose social good is celebrated by the Milton Friedman types on the right, but lamented by the Planet Ark’ers on the left: The Australian Liberal Party thinks they’re great while the Greens are probably planning a final solution for ME’s as we speak.

Norton’s argument has merit, but using his yardstick appears ladden in subjective reasoning and by dint does not seem practical in my mind – although the tone in which he sets seems reasonable.

TAFE in the spot light

The Productivity Commission’s recently released report on the VET sector has cast serious doubt as to the current modelling under which TAFE’s operate. Several reports discuss the paper:

VET not delivering: Productivity Commission

The Productivity Commission, in its freshly pressed report, has slammed the VET sector,   saying that “state based VET systems are failing across the board, from quality control to competition rates,” and that they are failing to communicate training options to students well enough. The report’s major findings are listed below:

  • Only around 40 per cent of VET students are studying a Certificate III and above.
  • Close to 2/3 of those in Certification III drop out.
  • Among graduates of the Certificate III, “a signification proportion” already have a matching qualification.
  • Victoria leads the way in expanding a deregulated system, which means opening the market to private providers, which has resulted in enrolments 40 per cent higher than 2008. NSW, Queensland and South Australia are looking into adopting a similar system.
  • The report endorses the COAG Reform Council’s finding that qualification targets are unrealistic with the allotted 1.75 billion over 5 years from 2012.

The Commission began venting its frustration with the VET sector in May 2011, when it slammed the industry for allowing up to 40 per cent of TAFE teaching staff to train and assess students without proper credentials, namely the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. The Commission warned back then that this situation could impact efforts to easy the current skills shortage. The Commission also reported that the industry was experiencing severe teaching shortages in numeracy and literacy, and subjects linked to the resources and mining sector.

Background articles can be found below:

Untrained TAFE staff block Julia Gillard’s education push

Report downgrades VET teachers

Skills shortage stoush: can the trainers train?

Student Assessment re-think

It seems that higher education providers are re-thinking how they measure key-performance indicators.

Course Experience Questionnaire showing its age

A discussion paper on reviewing the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), has questioned its validity in light of a new survey, called the University Experience Survey (UES). The CEQ is a survey for new graduates while the UES is for first-year students. A key proposal here is that the two surveys be made uniform to better understand the student experience. The article proposes that, “to be relevant to the MyUniversities website and inform student study choices, the CEQ would potentially have to extend its reporting of results down to the level of field of education and focus more on surveying students than graduates.

Uni performance assessment must include discipline content

The next re-think lies in how the Universities access themselves. According to the article, the government is planning to introduce a modified version of the US Collegiate Learning Assessment Test (CLA) in its new model of “performance reporting,” to be published on MyUniversity from 2012. According to the CLA website:

CLA Assessment Services provide a means for measuring an institution’s contribution to the development of key higher order competencies, including the effects of changes to curriculum and pedagogy.  To gauge summative performance authentically, the CLA presents realistic problems that require students to analyze complex materials and determine the relevance to the task and credibility.  Students’ written responses to the tasks are evaluated to assess their abilities to think critically, reason analytically, solve problems and communicate clearly and cogently.  Scores are aggregated to the institutional level to provide a signal to the institution about how their students as a whole are performing.

The Education sector is generally concerned by the proposed cost of the CLA test, and that it would have to be phased-in by discipline. A discussion paper from the former Department of Education and Work Place Relations acknowledges sector concerns.

New program to drive links with (manufacturing) industry

In the latest issue (vol. 21, p.6) of Campus Review it tells of the Industrial Transformation Research Program that is set to advance $249 million in funding for engineering cadets, industry training for PhD students and research hubs to boost competition and innovation in Australia’s manufacturing sector. According to Innovation Minister Kim Carr, the program is designed to encourage cooperation between university and industry. More than 1,000 engineering cadets (from materials science, nanotechnology, communications, chemical engineering and biotechnology) will be provided over the next four years under the plan. The money will also pay for industry doctorial and post-doctorial research centres for up to 600 researches each year.

This is great for them. They’ve been feeling a bit ignored of late, and a bit unhappy by their lot. You see, while the manufacturing industry is in decline in Australia, the mining industry is moving from strength to strength. The mining industry’s relationship with the manufacturing unions is a bit like that of North and South Korea…. the Mining industry being the South, plodding along and doing well. Manufacturing feels a bit ignored and falling behind, so from time to time makes noise, tries to poke sticks at the mining industry and blames everyone else for their woes. They’ve even started up a campaign, poking fun at the Mining PR campaign, This is Our Story, with their own copyright infringed versions, This the real story. While the Manufacturing Union is punching in the dark and not really sure on who they should direct their anger on, I did find them somewhat humours, but totally ill-informed… they should be spending their money on more important initiatives, such as the Industrial Transformation Research Program.

 

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