RE: [xmca] Fwd: Value(s) and Higher Education

[Colette Murphy <c.a.murphy@qub.ac.uk>]

Yes I am also a beneficiary of 8 years of free full-time higher education (hons degree, PhD & PGCE) which would have been impossible if our family needed to fund any of it. I have 6 brothers & sisters - we are all very close in age - all of whom hold at least a first degree (3 have PhDs & 3 Masters) - we are the first people in our extended family ever to be educated beyond school.
My experience is that the expt failed in that the working class who became educated asked questions, agitated and shifted society around a bit. People like me had (and many used) a voice and disrupted the control of government, priests, etc. We were educated to protest. My belief is that Thatcher decided to put an end to this - introducing accoutability, individuality and marketisation. 
What I see from that time on is an extension of this process to retain an 'underclass' fed by x-factor etc who will do the jobs no one else wants to. I've become a cynic who is utterly depressed by the direction of higher education in the UK. My own professionalism is diminished - I am subject to being manged by administrators who just slow up things I want to do by unnecessary bureaucracy and I am now forced to 'manage' part-time tutors who work with me, whom I always saw as colleagues - I now have to draw up contracts for them!
Worst of all is that I see students in schools from backgrounds similar to my own who will have NO CHANCE!!!
I just hope that in my work I will leave a mark to demonstrate that the policy that allowed people like me to make judgements because we were educated to do so benefits society & should be tried again.

Dr Colette Murphy
Senior Lecturer
School of Education
69 University St
Queen's University
Belfast BT7 1HL

tel: 02890975953
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: 02 January 2011 05:46
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: Value(s) and Higher Education

The depth of the depravity described in this review is shocking. Britain
was once the paragon of free  universal public service, and has now been
dragged down to a level even worse than Oz or the USA. How far can this
process go? In his PhD thesis in 1968, James Coleman suggested that
although every citizen was entitled to a vote, people ought to be
allowed to sell their vote on the market, much like the "education
voucher" of which Milton Friedman was an early advocate.

The irony is that the elimination of the ethos of free, universal
education as a public good, is offered in diect response to the utter
failure of the market to regulate financial investment. Why on Earth do
these people think the market will do a better job of regulating learning?

Andy

mike cole wrote:
> For more of the story check out the most recent NY Review of books
> or get an English colleague to forward a summary document. Before long its
> going to be in a convenience store near you, or perhaps a Walmart.
> mike
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Frank Kessel <kesfam@pdq.net>
> Date: Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 8:18 PM
> Subject: Value(s) and Higher Education
>
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>
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*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
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