By changing the institutions incentives, we've managed to destroy the educational value of the institutions themselves - because we no longer incentivise it.
[1]:https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2019/08/grea...
By changing the institutions incentives, we've managed to destroy the educational value of the institutions themselves - because we no longer incentivise it.
[1]:https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2019/08/grea...
All of this disappears in a moment if those two are separate.
But universities would resist that kicking and screaming to high heaven. Because it would not only undermine their 'great institution' claims, but educational routes that aren't universities would trump them (in terms of cost for attainment) in very short order.
Easier said than done. In more niche disciplines, the only people qualified to evaluate student attainment are other academics in the same discipline. At UK universities, grades are routinely reviewed by an "external examiner" from a separate institution. In my experience, the result of this additional scrutiny has usually be to put grades up rather than lower them.
> Easier said than done. In more niche disciplines, the only people qualified to evaluate student attainment are other academics in the same discipline.
It is actually done in quite a few places. And even when there is no non-academic alternative, at the very least the examiners could entirely come from a different university than the lecturers.
In Germany there is the concept of "Staatsexamen" where a government-run examination agency recruits examiners from representatives of the profession and academia.
I work in large-scale assessment, and can attest that we should hold a fairly skeptical/conservative position in the power of tests to get to the "real" skill level of prospective practitioners. All of the measures currently available are fairly weak at predicting outcomes.
I didn't know I would be solving problems.
Good that they teach math, but there's a giant disconnect between academia and industry.
How does this work in Canada in regards to professional licensing? In the US, it my understanding that getting an engineering license requires an accredited program and that majority of a reddit programs are 4 year bachelors degrees. Even most master degrees dont have the right accreditation.
In my state, a four year BS degree in an engineering discipline is an automatic accept, although a non-engineering but engineering-related degree is accepted with four years of experience working essentially as a PE's apprentice. And regardless of degree situation, six years of PE apprentice type work qualifies. The criteria are not set by the state gov but by a professional cert board.
So a BS in EE from an ABET approved school is an automatic accept to start stamping civil engineering sewer projects, which seems a little weird as if obtaining a neuroscience degree qualifies one to perform open heart surgery, but whatever. My BS in computer science is "engineering like" enough that a four year apprenticeship under a PE would qualify me, although I didn't pursue that path. My SiL's primary K12 educator degree would qualify her after six years of apprenticeship under a PE, hilariously implying her liberal arts degree counts negative two years toward learning to be a PE, LOL.
I know some PEs and the required written test is reportedly very easy if you recently graduated, virtually impossible the longer you've been focused tightly in one industry. Stealth ageism much like how CS jobs "require" algorithm whiteboarding.
My state is extremely interested in prior felony convictions as a criteria. Not sure why that's relevant in any fashion to PE stamp a civil engineering project. I don't know how common that weird fixation is, this might be doc dropping what state I live in?
Anyway, in summary, there are 49 other states with differing opinions.
If an industry wants its employees to receive a specific kind of training, it should pay for it.
I mostly agree with your cynicism, but this doesn't actually strike me as completely implausible. Phased differently, is it really so astonishing that with 30 years of research and development we can massively improve performance? Once Upon a Time, calculus was a super advanced thing that only the very most advanced students at University could do. Now we have high school students doing it on the regular. Other fields don't usually have the rate of improvement the Computing has, but everybody is making progress.
Same with grades and everything. Once student having it has advantage outside, the school that is more strict will have more students loosing those advantages.
And as for quality of education and knowledge, I honestly don't have a sense that careful knowledgeable thinkers would be favored by typical management.
The total value of any given degree might well go down, but where else are the employers who have always done graduate schemes going to hire people from? Captive market.
Gaming league tables drives almost all management decisions in UK universities, because it so directly affects the bottom line.