Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Neil Williams wrote:
wrote:

Indeed! The graduate tax is so obviously the right way to do it that
i'm utterly baffled by the lack of support for it amongst politicians.
Well, okay, i'm not, since, as you say, it wouldn't be popular. It
would also be a bit dodgy making it retrospective, and if it wasn't,
we'd have to wait quite a while before it started to pay out.

Probably for the same reason that they're so averse to raising the top
rate of income tax - they want people to stay in Britain and make more
money.

Agreed - to an extent. Remember that if a graduate becomes a high
earner, they're paying more income tax anyway!

Absolutely, and there is an argument that if the government is correct in
saying that graduates earn more, then they'll also pay more tax, and so
fund their own education through general taxation without any mucking
about with fees etc. Of course, this is (a) too subtle for the average
education secretary to understand,

That assumes the problem is with the education department, which seems
highly unlikely.

(b) a waste of a perfectly good
opportunity for the Treasury to wring yet more revenue out of the public

....without raising taxes, which seems to be quite an obsession!

and (c) not true anyway, since demand for graduates isn't elastic enough
to absorb millions more of them

That's true in the short term, but probably not in the long term.

(even if they were of the same quality as
current ones, which they wouldn't be).

Doesn't that depend on the universities rather than the number of
students?

Christ, i sound like a right Daily Mail reader, don't i?

YMTTICPC!

The general taxation approach is also a little unfair on people who don't
go to university but still become high earners.

Only if you believe that capitalism is fair. Those who recognise its
unfairness have no problem with providing assistance to those who need
it.

Applying it retrospectively would be *seriously* dodgy, mind, not so
much for those like myself who paid no fees and received a grant, but
more for those who have paid the current levels of fees. To apply a
graduate tax fairly if retrospectively would mean you'd have to level
the playing field for everyone it applied to before doing so, meaning
that you'd have to refund a lot of tuition fees, and pay out "grants"
(or take them back from people who got them).

What about people with degrees from overseas universities?

That would be doable, i think. Probably more expensive than it's worth,
though.

Regarding the 50% target, I believe this is absolutely wrong.

Yes, of course - as does anyone with more than two brain cells to rub
together.

How many are the Taiwanese rubbing together? UIVMM the figure there is
well above 50%.

Equally, things like apprenticeships and vocational training (possibly
through a resurrected technical college system) should be encouraged and
funded to a significant extent instead

The government seems to have little objection to funding colleges, as
they see it as a good way of reducing unemployment statistics.
Unfortunately many of the courses there are of little practical use.

- and like in Germany this should not be looked down on in any way.

Ditto.

All of which requires a huge change in attitudes, sadly - as was mentioned
earlier, employers need to learn that a degree doesn't really mean
anything,

That depends on what kind of degree it is. An engineering degree means a
great deal.

and the populace need to stop seeing university as some sort of
essential badge of middleclasshood. A gigantic renaissance of
apprenticeships and the like would be a start.

Indeed it would, but I don't think the decline in the number of
apprenticeships has much to do with the rise in the number of university
places. AIUI a lot of it's due to downsizing - employees are now too
busy to train apprentices.

It's ironic that the highest qualifications we have, doctorates, are
essentially apprenticeships:

That depends where you do them.

i've apprenticed myself to my supervisor to
learn to be a scientist, and will spend three years basically being a pair
of hands for her (albeit an increasingly autonomous pair of hands) and
learning the trade. The clinical part of a medical degree and legal
pupillages are very much the same.

And that's very good when student numbers are high, as the lecturers can
put the postgrad students in charge of some of the tutorials.

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Neil Williams wrote:
wrote:

Indeed! The graduate tax is so obviously the right way to do it
that i'm utterly baffled by the lack of support for it amongst
politicians. Well, okay, i'm not, since, as you say, it wouldn't be
popular. It would also be a bit dodgy making it retrospective, and
if it wasn't, we'd have to wait quite a while before it started to
pay out.

Probably for the same reason that they're so averse to raising the top
rate of income tax - they want people to stay in Britain and make more
money.

Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating in
their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...

Agreed - to an extent. Remember that if a graduate becomes a high
earner, they're paying more income tax anyway!

Absolutely, and there is an argument that if the government is correct
in saying that graduates earn more, then they'll also pay more tax,
and so fund their own education through general taxation without any
mucking about with fees etc. Of course, this is [...] (c) not true
anyway, since demand for graduates isn't elastic enough to absorb
millions more of them

That's true in the short term, but probably not in the long term.

Possibly true, definitely irrelevant - the policy we're talking about is
about a short-term increase in student numbers.

(even if they were of the same quality as current ones, which they
wouldn't be).

Doesn't that depend on the universities rather than the number of
students?

I don't think so. I tend to think that growth in student numbers means a
reduction in the standard of entry; i think most of the people who are
really up to university-level academic study already go to university
(along with a lot of people who aren't), so any further growth is going to
be from less academically capable students, who can't end up as highly
educated as the more capable students.

Christ, i sound like a right Daily Mail reader, don't i?

YMTTICPC!

WTFDTM?

The general taxation approach is also a little unfair on people who don't
go to university but still become high earners.

Only if you believe that capitalism is fair. Those who recognise its
unfairness have no problem with providing assistance to those who need
it.

I have no illusions about capitalism (well, maybe some), and no problem
with redistribution, but i do think it could be unfair: if two people
achieve the same level of income, but one's benefited from extensive
assistance from the state (in the shape of education) and the other
hasn't, surely it's not fair to take the same amount of tax from both?
That just seems like common sense (still in Daily Mail mode here!).

Applying it retrospectively would be *seriously* dodgy, mind, not so
much for those like myself who paid no fees and received a grant,
but more for those who have paid the current levels of fees. To
apply a graduate tax fairly if retrospectively would mean you'd have
to level the playing field for everyone it applied to before doing
so, meaning that you'd have to refund a lot of tuition fees, and pay
out "grants" (or take them back from people who got them).

What about people with degrees from overseas universities?

Internment camps.

Regarding the 50% target, I believe this is absolutely wrong.

Yes, of course - as does anyone with more than two brain cells to rub
together.

How many are the Taiwanese rubbing together? UIVMM the figure there is
well above 50%.

Really? I evidently need to go and read up on the Taiwanese education
system.

- and like in Germany this should not be looked down on in any way.

Ditto.

All of which requires a huge change in attitudes, sadly - as was mentioned
earlier, employers need to learn that a degree doesn't really mean
anything,

That depends on what kind of degree it is. An engineering degree means a
great deal.

An engineering degree certainly means more to an engineering company than
an english degree does to a management consultancy, granted. However, i'm
not convinced that it means as much as you might think; in the sciences,
at least, an undergraduate degree *does not* teach you to be a scientist,
it just lays a lot of groundwork (more than necessary, really) for the
next step, the PhD, which is where you really learn your trade. I would
guess it's the same for engineering - you don't walk out of your
graduation ceremony an engineer, you're just now qualified to start
learning to be an engineer. This is certainly true in software
engineering, but that might be a bit of a special case, since academic
departments typically teach theoretically-oriented 'computer science',
which is rather far removed from practice.

and the populace need to stop seeing university as some sort of
essential badge of middleclasshood. A gigantic renaissance of
apprenticeships and the like would be a start.

Indeed it would, but I don't think the decline in the number of
apprenticeships has much to do with the rise in the number of university
places. AIUI a lot of it's due to downsizing - employees are now too
busy to train apprentices.

Good point. Did the government subsidise apprenticeships? If they paid the
same amount as they do to educate university students, would they be
economical for companies?

It's ironic that the highest qualifications we have, doctorates, are
essentially apprenticeships:

That depends where you do them.

How so?

i've apprenticed myself to my supervisor to learn to be a scientist,
and will spend three years basically being a pair of hands for her
(albeit an increasingly autonomous pair of hands) and learning the
trade. The clinical part of a medical degree and legal pupillages are
very much the same.

And that's very good when student numbers are high, as the lecturers can
put the postgrad students in charge of some of the tutorials.

They'd better bloody not, i tell you!

tom

--
It's worth remembering that if you chain a thousand monkeys to a thousand typewriters, they will all eventually die of starvation. -- themanwhofellasleep

In message , at
17:11:29 on Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Tom Anderson
remarked:
Probably for the same reason that they're so averse to raising the top
rate of income tax - they want people to stay in Britain and make more
money.

Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating in
their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...

100K+ people a year emigrating, some of them must be professionals (50%
if Labour had its way).
--
Roland Perry

In message ,
Tom Anderson writes
Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating
in their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...
I can't verify this (and would be interested to see if anyone can) but
didn't something of that sort actually *happen* in the early seventies?

--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message , at 18:53:19 on Tue,
1 Feb 2005, Ian Jelf remarked:
Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating
in their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...
I can't verify this (and would be interested to see if anyone can) but
didn't something of that sort actually *happen* in the early seventies?

There was a well publicised "brain drain", mainly to the USA.
--
Roland Perry

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Neil Williams wrote:
wrote:

Indeed! The graduate tax is so obviously the right way to do it
that i'm utterly baffled by the lack of support for it amongst
politicians. Well, okay, i'm not, since, as you say, it wouldn't be
popular. It would also be a bit dodgy making it retrospective, and
if it wasn't, we'd have to wait quite a while before it started to
pay out.

Probably for the same reason that they're so averse to raising the top
rate of income tax - they want people to stay in Britain and make more
money.

Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating in
their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...

Not in their tens of thousands, but the number would probably be high
enough to significantly reduce (if not cancel out) the economic benefit.

Agreed - to an extent. Remember that if a graduate becomes a high
earner, they're paying more income tax anyway!

Absolutely, and there is an argument that if the government is correct
in saying that graduates earn more, then they'll also pay more tax,
and so fund their own education through general taxation without any
mucking about with fees etc. Of course, this is [...] (c) not true
anyway, since demand for graduates isn't elastic enough to absorb
millions more of them

That's true in the short term, but probably not in the long term.

Possibly true, definitely irrelevant - the policy we're talking about is
about a short-term increase in student numbers.

Unless that's followed by a decrease in student numbers, it will become
a long term increase.

(even if they were of the same quality as current ones, which they
wouldn't be).

Doesn't that depend on the universities rather than the number of
students?

I don't think so. I tend to think that growth in student numbers means a
reduction in the standard of entry; i think most of the people who are
really up to university-level academic study already go to university
(along with a lot of people who aren't), so any further growth is going to
be from less academically capable students, who can't end up as highly
educated as the more capable students.

Your argument has three flaws: firstly, you're assuming that capability
isn't itself rising. Secondly, academic performance does not equate to
capability. Thridly, even if some less capable students are getting
accepted, that doesn't mean that they're passing the university courses.

Christ, i sound like a right Daily Mail reader, don't i?

YMTTICPC!

WTFDTM?

You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment!

AFAIK that response is originally attributed to Francis Urqhart (the
rightwing anti hero who's prime minister) in To Play The King.

The general taxation approach is also a little unfair on people who don't
go to university but still become high earners.

Only if you believe that capitalism is fair. Those who recognise its
unfairness have no problem with providing assistance to those who need
it.

I have no illusions about capitalism (well, maybe some), and no problem
with redistribution, but i do think it could be unfair: if two people
achieve the same level of income, but one's benefited from extensive
assistance from the state (in the shape of education) and the other
hasn't, surely it's not fair to take the same amount of tax from both?
That just seems like common sense (still in Daily Mail mode here!).

It is fair if both have the OPPORTUNITY to benefit from extensive
assistance from the state - whether they take it is up to them.

Applying it retrospectively would be *seriously* dodgy, mind, not so
much for those like myself who paid no fees and received a grant,
but more for those who have paid the current levels of fees. To
apply a graduate tax fairly if retrospectively would mean you'd have
to level the playing field for everyone it applied to before doing
so, meaning that you'd have to refund a lot of tuition fees, and pay
out "grants" (or take them back from people who got them).

What about people with degrees from overseas universities?

Internment camps.

What have you got against overseas universities?

Regarding the 50% target, I believe this is absolutely wrong.

Yes, of course - as does anyone with more than two brain cells to rub
together.

How many are the Taiwanese rubbing together? UIVMM the figure there is
well above 50%.

Really? I evidently need to go and read up on the Taiwanese education
system.

'Tis an example of the public sector being high quality and adequately
funded.

- and like in Germany this should not be looked down on in any way.

Ditto.

All of which requires a huge change in attitudes, sadly - as was mentioned
earlier, employers need to learn that a degree doesn't really mean
anything,

That depends on what kind of degree it is. An engineering degree means a
great deal.

An engineering degree certainly means more to an engineering company than
an english degree does to a management consultancy, granted. However, i'm
not convinced that it means as much as you might think; in the sciences,
at least, an undergraduate degree *does not* teach you to be a scientist,
it just lays a lot of groundwork (more than necessary, really) for the
next step, the PhD, which is where you really learn your trade. I would
guess it's the same for engineering - you don't walk out of your
graduation ceremony an engineer, you're just now qualified to start
learning to be an engineer. This is certainly true in software
engineering, but that might be a bit of a special case, since academic
departments typically teach theoretically-oriented 'computer science',
which is rather far removed from practice.

No, you do walk out of your graduation ceremony as an engineer, although
in this part of the world you don't graduate until you've got at least 8
weeks of industrial experience.

and the populace need to stop seeing university as some sort of
essential badge of middleclasshood. A gigantic renaissance of
apprenticeships and the like would be a start.

Indeed it would, but I don't think the decline in the number of
apprenticeships has much to do with the rise in the number of university
places. AIUI a lot of it's due to downsizing - employees are now too
busy to train apprentices.

Good point. Did the government subsidise apprenticeships? If they paid the
same amount as they do to educate university students, would they be
economical for companies?

Probably, but I can't imagine the government being willing to fork out
that much money.

It's ironic that the highest qualifications we have, doctorates, are
essentially apprenticeships:

That depends where you do them.

How so?

IIRC they're not like that at the Open University.

i've apprenticed myself to my supervisor to learn to be a scientist,
and will spend three years basically being a pair of hands for her
(albeit an increasingly autonomous pair of hands) and learning the
trade. The clinical part of a medical degree and legal pupillages are
very much the same.

And that's very good when student numbers are high, as the lecturers can
put the postgrad students in charge of some of the tutorials.

They'd better bloody not, i tell you!

Why not?

Do all the lecturers run all the tutorials and practicals themselve in
your part of the world?

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 18:53:19 on Tue,
1 Feb 2005, Ian Jelf remarked:
Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating
in their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...

I can't verify this (and would be interested to see if anyone can) but
didn't something of that sort actually *happen* in the early seventies?

There was a well publicised "brain drain", mainly to the USA.

Ah yes, i've heard of that. It seems to have been in the 50s and early
60s, rather than the 70s. I'm not at all familiar with it, but i get the
impression that it was less to do with tax and more to do with the fact
that the austerity-era British economy, with technological industries in a
complete state, wasn't at all hospitable for scientists and engineers. I'd
really like to see some authoritative research on it; a bit of googling
doesn't turn much up.

But yes, it seems higher taxes could have repercussions i hadn't
considered.

tom

--
now you're under control and now you do what we told you

On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Neil Williams wrote:
wrote:

Indeed! The graduate tax is so obviously the right way to do it
that i'm utterly baffled by the lack of support for it amongst
politicians. Well, okay, i'm not, since, as you say, it wouldn't be
popular. It would also be a bit dodgy making it retrospective, and
if it wasn't, we'd have to wait quite a while before it started to
pay out.

Probably for the same reason that they're so averse to raising the top
rate of income tax - they want people to stay in Britain and make more
money.

Hmmph. Would that really happen? I can't see professionals emigrating in
their tens of thousands to avoid a bit of tax ...

Not in their tens of thousands, but the number would probably be high
enough to significantly reduce (if not cancel out) the economic benefit.

Could well be.

Agreed - to an extent. Remember that if a graduate becomes a high
earner, they're paying more income tax anyway!

Absolutely, and there is an argument that if the government is correct
in saying that graduates earn more, then they'll also pay more tax,
and so fund their own education through general taxation without any
mucking about with fees etc. Of course, this is [...] (c) not true
anyway, since demand for graduates isn't elastic enough to absorb
millions more of them

That's true in the short term, but probably not in the long term.

Possibly true, definitely irrelevant - the policy we're talking about is
about a short-term increase in student numbers.

Unless that's followed by a decrease in student numbers, it will become
a long term increase.

And until demand increases enough to catch up with it, we'll have a
short-, medium- and long-term surplus of graduates!

(even if they were of the same quality as current ones, which they
wouldn't be).

Doesn't that depend on the universities rather than the number of
students?

I don't think so. I tend to think that growth in student numbers means a
reduction in the standard of entry; i think most of the people who are
really up to university-level academic study already go to university
(along with a lot of people who aren't), so any further growth is going to
be from less academically capable students, who can't end up as highly
educated as the more capable students.

Your argument has three flaws: firstly, you're assuming that capability
isn't itself rising.

I am. Am i wrong?

Secondly, academic performance does not equate to capability.

No, but i don't see how that's relevant. Certainly, we can't predict who
will do well at university, so some people who won't go, and some who
would don't, but that's sadly inevitable. It's not an argument for sending
more people - in fact, if you do send more, i suspect you'll be sending
more who won't than who will. Or am i misunderstanding you?

Thridly, even if some less capable students are getting accepted, that
doesn't mean that they're passing the university courses.

True, but if so, it seems rather futile for them to be going to
university. When the government talks about sending millions more people
to university, i rather think they mean to get degrees, not to drop out!

In support of my argument, i'd point to the results we've seen so far:
every successive generation of universities has had lower standards than
previous ones. Oxbridge, red-bricks, glass-and-steels, ex-polys. I don't
think i'm just being an elitist snob here; get some finals papers and
compare the level of the questions, or compare the Research Assessment
Exercise scores (and make the admittedly iffy assumption that the quality
of research corresponds to the quality of graduates).

Christ, i sound like a right Daily Mail reader, don't i?

YMTTICPC!

WTFDTM?

You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment!

AFAIK that response is originally attributed to Francis Urqhart (the
rightwing anti hero who's prime minister) in To Play The King.

Reading that, i suddenly had visions of Sir Humphrey Appleby saying it. I
think this is creative recollection, though.

The general taxation approach is also a little unfair on people
who don't go to university but still become high earners.

Only if you believe that capitalism is fair. Those who recognise its
unfairness have no problem with providing assistance to those who
need it.

I have no illusions about capitalism (well, maybe some), and no
problem with redistribution, but i do think it could be unfair: if two
people achieve the same level of income, but one's benefited from
extensive assistance from the state (in the shape of education) and
the other hasn't, surely it's not fair to take the same amount of tax
from both? That just seems like common sense (still in Daily Mail mode
here!).

It is fair if both have the OPPORTUNITY to benefit from extensive
assistance from the state - whether they take it is up to them.

That's an interesting way of looking at it - i'd certainly agree if you
used that argument about healthcare, so perhaps i should agree here too.

Applying it retrospectively would be *seriously* dodgy, mind, not so
much for those like myself who paid no fees and received a grant,
but more for those who have paid the current levels of fees. To
apply a graduate tax fairly if retrospectively would mean you'd have
to level the playing field for everyone it applied to before doing
so, meaning that you'd have to refund a lot of tuition fees, and pay
out "grants" (or take them back from people who got them).

What about people with degrees from overseas universities?

Internment camps.

What have you got against overseas universities?

Flippant remarks.

Seriously, i don't know how this scheme would work in detail. There's also
the problem of people with degrees from British universities who then
emigrate.

Regarding the 50% target, I believe this is absolutely wrong.

Yes, of course - as does anyone with more than two brain cells to rub
together.

How many are the Taiwanese rubbing together? UIVMM the figure there is
well above 50%.

Really? I evidently need to go and read up on the Taiwanese education
system.

'Tis an example of the public sector being high quality and adequately
funded.

The very idea!

- and like in Germany this should not be looked down on in any way.

Ditto.

All of which requires a huge change in attitudes, sadly - as was
mentioned earlier, employers need to learn that a degree doesn't
really mean anything,

That depends on what kind of degree it is. An engineering degree means a
great deal.

An engineering degree certainly means more to an engineering company
than an english degree does to a management consultancy, granted.
However, i'm not convinced that it means as much as you might think;
in the sciences, at least, an undergraduate degree *does not* teach
you to be a scientist, it just lays a lot of groundwork (more than
necessary, really) for the next step, the PhD, which is where you
really learn your trade. I would guess it's the same for engineering -
you don't walk out of your graduation ceremony an engineer, you're
just now qualified to start learning to be an engineer. This is
certainly true in software engineering, but that might be a bit of a
special case, since academic departments typically teach
theoretically-oriented 'computer science', which is rather far removed
from practice.

No, you do walk out of your graduation ceremony as an engineer, although
in this part of the world you don't graduate until you've got at least 8
weeks of industrial experience.

Wow. Eight weeks doesn't seem like a lot - maybe this engineering lark is
easier than i thought! Rather, i suspect that engineering is one of the
rare disciplines (the only one?) where university teaching is actually
practical (in the sense of 'useful', not in the sense of 'things you do
with your hands').

and the populace need to stop seeing university as some sort of
essential badge of middleclasshood. A gigantic renaissance of
apprenticeships and the like would be a start.

Indeed it would, but I don't think the decline in the number of
apprenticeships has much to do with the rise in the number of university
places. AIUI a lot of it's due to downsizing - employees are now too
busy to train apprentices.

Good point. Did the government subsidise apprenticeships? If they paid the
same amount as they do to educate university students, would they be
economical for companies?

Probably, but I can't imagine the government being willing to fork out
that much money.

But why not? Given the choice between spending however many thousand on
teaching someone a load of academic codswallop they'll never use and
spending it on immediately useful practical knowledge, why _not_ fork out?

It's ironic that the highest qualifications we have, doctorates, are
essentially apprenticeships:

That depends where you do them.

How so?

IIRC they're not like that at the Open University.

Ah. What are they like, then?

It also occurs to me that arts and humanities PhDs are quite different to
those in science - students have very little contact with their
supervisors, and basically make their own way. I'm not sure that this is a
good way to do it, mind you ...

i've apprenticed myself to my supervisor to learn to be a scientist,
and will spend three years basically being a pair of hands for her
(albeit an increasingly autonomous pair of hands) and learning the
trade. The clinical part of a medical degree and legal pupillages are
very much the same.

And that's very good when student numbers are high, as the lecturers can
put the postgrad students in charge of some of the tutorials.

They'd better bloody not, i tell you!

Why not?

I've got enough on my plate without having to teach undergrads as well!

Do all the lecturers run all the tutorials and practicals themselve in
your part of the world?

No - you're quite right that grad students are an important part of the
teaching force. Which is fine, as long as none of those grad students are
me.

tom

--
now you're under control and now you do what we told you

On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 02:18:10 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

And that's very good when student numbers are high, as the
lecturers can
put the postgrad students in charge of some of the tutorials.

They'd better bloody not, i tell you!

Why not?

I've got enough on my plate without having to teach undergrads as well!

Do all the lecturers run all the tutorials and practicals themselve in
your part of the world?

No - you're quite right that grad students are an important part of the
teaching force. Which is fine, as long as none of those grad students are
me.

Problem is, in my experience, the quality of teaching by PhD students is
far inferior to that by lecturers. In my students union days, the number
of complaints about the former was far, far higher than the latter.

On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, James Farrar wrote:

On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 02:18:10 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

And that's very good when student numbers are high, as the
lecturers can put the postgrad students in charge of some of the
tutorials.

They'd better bloody not, i tell you!

Why not?

I've got enough on my plate without having to teach undergrads as well!

Do all the lecturers run all the tutorials and practicals themselve
in your part of the world?

No - you're quite right that grad students are an important part of
the teaching force. Which is fine, as long as none of those grad
students are me.

Problem is, in my experience, the quality of teaching by PhD students is
far inferior to that by lecturers. In my students union days, the number
of complaints about the former was far, far higher than the latter.

True. However, given that the number of lecturers is limited, the choice,
for some classes at least, is between teaching by students and no teaching
at all.

When i was an undergraduate, we had quite a bit of teaching from graduate
students in our first year (classes and tutorials, not actual lectures),
then purely lecturers after that. I think this is a good approach - the
stuff in the first year is so basic that it can be handled perfectly well
by more junior people.

tom

--
That's no moon!