“… Even more bizarre was the shock expressed by some market advocates when they discovered that, with a customer base consisting of 18-year olds who understood their own preferences, and parents who mostly knew very little), the market produced very little demand for anything that was hard and didn’t purport to offer training for a well-paid job …” (more)
[John Quiggin, Crooked Timber, 14 October]
“Chris Dillow makes a very important set of points regarding scientific research in the post reproduced below. We occasionally hear similar gibberish here, as in the phrase ‘research to retail’, which apart from the shared consonants is devoid of meaning but has the happy property of short-circuiting your synapses …” (more)
[Shane O'Mara, Irishscience, 11 September]
“Universities are being subjected to the same market-based, profit-driven policies that caused the crisis in the financial markets and face an increasing risk of a crisis in academic standards and credibility, David Robinson, Associate Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), stated at the IFUT seminar in Dublin. Mr Robinson warned that the drift in western countries towards commercialised universities and dubious quality providers must be resisted if universities are to preserve their function as reservoirs of research and innovation ….” (more)
[IFUT blog, 31 October]
“This beautiful square, right in the heart of Paris, opposite the city town hall, has been chosen by protesters (both students and professors) to stage a ‘ronde des obstines’, loosely translated as the hard-headed round. Since March 23, they protest against the university reform wanted by the Sarkozy government.” (picture)
[Whisperpress, 14 April]
“The Government’s universities department has promised to cut down on its use of jargon after being criticised for its ‘impenetrable’ language by a cross-party committee of MPs – but it has refused to stop describing students and others who use its services as ‘customers’. In January, a select committee accused the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills of producing badly written documents that were hard to understand. Last week, the department said it had ‘taken on board’ the comments of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee (IUSS). It said it intended to produce ‘more concise and more accessible’ work in future, ‘written in plain English’ …” (more)
[Rebecca Attwood, Times Higher Education, 9 April]
“The nation’s universities continued to be disrupted by strikes and protests against proposed teacher training reforms last week, while university presidents called for a year’s delay in introducing the changes to allow time for reflection and consultation. Lecturers, researchers and students turned out in force on Thursday, joining schoolteachers and other workers from the public and private sectors, in a day’s general strike in which up to a million and a half demonstrators marched in Paris and other towns nationwide against the government’s handling of the economy. Lecturers voted in January for a ‘total and unlimited’ strike with effect from 2 February. Since then the movement has grown, with universities closed or blocked, while academics stage protest actions such as workshops and lectures in public places, or refuse to carry out administrative duties …” (more)
[Jane Marshall, University World News, 22 March]
“As neo-liberal education reforms are planned across Europe, students in the continent have been taking to the streets leading to battles with riot police in several cities. On Wednesday morning, the day before the general strike over one million workers, students clashed with riot police in Paris after a demonstration over the university reforms. Universities across France have been barricaded and picketed for almost two months in a standoff over these higher education reforms. The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné yesterday reported that Sarkozy wanted student protests calmed by May, fearing echoes of the student-led protests of May 1968. Seven people were arrested and 80 injured in clashes in Barcelona between police and university students on Wednesday. The clashes occurred during two city-centre protests in the northeastern Spanish city after police forced students out of a university office they had occupied since November …” (more)
[Infoshop News, 20 March]
“Roused by mounting popular foment and bristling at the government’s proposed education reforms, tens of thousands of French university professors and students, including as many as 50,000 in Paris, took to the streets across the country on Tuesday. Of France’s 83 public universities, only 15 were untouched by the protests. ‘The government has to hear this anger that is founded upon our experience, upon our desire to achieve success in our research programs, to achieve success for the students,’ Jean Fabbri, head of SNESUP, the national union of higher learning, told Le Parisien as he marched in Paris. ‘They must, finally, retract the contested texts and open negotiations that have never, never taken place’ …” (more)
[Scott Sayare, outside-inside, 12 February]
“As Valérie Pécresse, Minister for Higher Education and Research, was last week announcing a €731 million economic boost to the sector, lecturers at universities throughout France were intensifying strike action against a planned change to the statute governing their employment. The ‘national coordination of higher education and research’ consisting of unions and other associations representing protesting academics had called for the strike to start last Monday. That afternoon nearly 400 academics, including delegates mandated by their universities, attended a meeting at the Sorbonne in Paris where a vote confirmed the call for ‘an unlimited and general strike’. During the week, staff at universities throughout the country organised general meetings to vote on protest action against Pécresse’s proposals to make their conditions of work more ‘flexible’ …” (more)
[Jane Marshall, University World News, 8 February]
“Universities across France experienced widespread disruptions today, in response to calls from faculty unions and student groups to protest plans for reforming the higher-education system. The government’s proposals provoked opposition from the outset, which intensified recently over moves to modify a law governing the hiring and promotion of researchers engaged in teaching. The change would allow universities to dictate how those staff members allocated their time between teaching and other activities. The main union representing higher-education instructors said in a news release that by midday at least 45% of teaching activities at France’s 83 universities had been affected by the strike …” (more)
[Aisha Labi, Chronicle, 2 February]
“Universities throughout France are set to close tomorrow, Monday 2 February, with lecturers starting an unlimited strike unless the government withdraws proposals to change their statute of employment. President Nicolas Sarkozy enraged researchers further by describing the national system of research as ‘disastrous’. The government’s Universities’ Freedoms and Responsibilities Law (LRU) transfers control over staff recruitment, salaries and tenure to university managements … Under the legislation a contentious decree amends the 1984 law that fixed the statutory conditions covering employment of university personnel, giving university presidents the right in future to ‘adjust’ their conditions of service …” (more)
[Jane Marshall, University World News, 1 February]
