Universities – defective Browne Report, dumbing down
Repercussions of destructive UK Budget-cuts unfairly penalising youth
Analogy:- Worrying about Titanic’s fuel consumption whilst sinking
Starting a chill-out session yesterday with Ken Follett’s ‘Lie Down With Lions’ had, by page 9 & 10, Jane & Ellis in clinch mode –
‘ ................... She rolled on top of him, letting her full weight rest on his body. Her damp skin clung to his. He wrapped her arms around her small body and hugged her as he thrust deep inside her. She sensed that his climax was coming, and she lifted her head and …………..’
………………………. and then the TV, playing softly in the background, cut through the word-gobbling as BBC News switched to debate on Browne’s Report and the effect it was having on students. As student & analysis comments continued, warning bells rang in the head – what’s being said doesn’t seem to tie up
Follett’s dramatic ‘hot’ moment was totally destroyed – so the book was slung aside and a search on the web for Browne’s Report yielded the following downloads.
http://hereview.independent.gov.uk/hereview/2010/10/press-pack-the-browne-report/,
see: The Report & Executive Summary download options.
A quick scan through these documents raised even more warning bells – this report of Browne’s is nonsense.
A recall reminded that John Browne (Lord Browne of Madingley) is an ex-CEO of BP – link to the fact that BP’s Gulf Oil Spill Report is bogus (it ignores critical evidence & is purposefully vague & unclear) – recognise that a bogus report can only stem from an organisation that is undermined – which can only occur progressively structurally, systemically & systematically – in other words BP’s problems are long, deep & wide & had to have been likely present whilst Browne was CEO, and for some 12 years.
So, what value can one attach to the Browne Report??????????????????????
The question is a valid one in its own right without the dubious background of BP and Browne’s link thereto.
A little thought makes one realise that Browne has focussed on Students’ ‘fuel consumption’ whilst Britannia is sinking – and with its sinking aided by bogus university science research upon which government policies (grossly defective & massively destructive) are based.
WE NEED TO STOP & THINK!
Browne’s report makes no sense.
Historically, student university fees have been subsidised by government – BUT, government have NEVER questioned the costings of the fees from a competitive perspective & from a holistic university perspective of a business entity.
Summarise: Disaster strikes the world through a Global Economy Meltdown - because Finance Powers have undermined academia such that bogus science research can front fraudulent finance scams, which inflates & saturates global money & money-supply, global economy melts down, governments panic, governments invoke disastrous & destructive budget cuts, societies experience upheaval & stress - and universities are just one of the many entities so affected.
Universities then argue that they must put up fees because government have to make cuts – governments panic and make silly decisions & open up fee structures as a free-for-all under the guise of ‘fair open market’. Browne’s Report simply addresses the students’ ‘fuel consumption’ requirements for getting through university but without looking at the sinking-ships of universities & Britannia = nonsense government decisions.
In doesn’t take too much savvy to realise that for decades government has been funding university R&D through siphoned student-fees subsidies. And that is where a large component of the problem lies; a second component lies with the fact that R&D is not correctly rewarded/funded based on merit so R&D has expanded into all sorts of weird & wonderful areas as we see with the deep-space physics sci-fi R&D out of Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester; and with the grossly defective economics research out of same universities; & others such as LSE, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc..
It is plain to see that the nine thousand sterling annual university fee (and, so it appears, uncapped) makes no sense.
To see this:- simply consider that tertiary education is geared towards self-learning – there is a massive shift from school teaching to university lecturing & self learning – consequently student/lecturer ratios shift markedly from the school pupil/teacher ratio of 30/40/50 to 1 teacher, to university student/lecturer ratio of 100/200 to 1 lecturer (these viewed on man-day basis).
Businesses generally operate on a rate of Salaries/Wages at 60% of Total Overheads. Universities should be no different.
So, given a year class of, say, even 50 students to 1 Lecturer (on a man-day basis) earning annually one hundred thousand sterling yields a pro-rata Total Overhead contribution of 100K/60% = One Hundred & Sixty Six Thousand Sterling; and divided by 50 students yields an annual fee of three thousand three hundred & thirty three sterling.
BUT, year classes thin-out as students progress through successive years at university because of high drop-out in the first, then second years – so, a final year of 50 students could have commenced first year with some 150+ students. With lecturers for first year students being at junior grade & final year receiving senior lecturer/professor grades, it becomes clear that the averaging of student fees across the full years creates an advantage that should work in the students’ favour – but it does not, because student costings are not correctly structured. Students are wrongly being forced to subsidise university R&D.
And Browne’s Report fails to address this historical distortion – so, clearly, students are being deceived & cheated.
There is no justification for allowing universities to raise fees – in fact, if universities increase student/lecturer ratios above 50/1 then there are grounds for reducing fees below three thousand sterling per annum.
The funding for R&D is a distinctly separate problem which has become complexed because of historical unfairness with regard to protections of Intellectual Property.
Interestingly, Sir Greg Winter of UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) & Laboratory at Cambridge gave a lecture last Monday evening at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. He gave an overview of his R&D into antibodies & work in setting up independent businesses for same. In question time & chat time, the writer discussed the issue of patents & the lack of protections to independent developers of IP. GW related that of some 300 million sterling that MRC had gained from his IP he had grossed some 10 million himself, less tax of 40%, less business risk loss (aka divorce), netted him some 3 million sterling. GW’s view was that fairness was not an issue & that patents, although not perfect, were sufficiently acceptable protections. The writer pointed out that the problem was one of perception of fairness depending on whether one was on the inside or on the outside, and that he, GW, being on the inside to MRC gave him massive advantage which would not be the case were he on the outside – GW conceded this point by the time his wine glass was half-empty (or half-full).
And this is the crux of the Intellectual Property issue – is the IP developer on the inside or on the outside. Regular readers of CDADD’s papers will realise that CDADD is very much on the outside despite hundreds of billions (trillions?) sterling/dollars/rands/euros of CDADD’s IP value having been presented to governments around the world.
In short, the R&D problems that universities face stems from the failure to reward/fund R&D based upon merit & upon IP value achieved.
Instead, massive Ivory Towers have developed within Universities consisting of people who no longer contribute to society but expect a free ride – and to achieve a free ride they pump-out bogus R&D papers that have spun way out into deep-space science-fiction/fantasy. The core lecturers (junior/senior/professors) that deal with the line function of student development & genuine research do not receive fair reward for their IP developments. Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, London School of Economics universities are some major culprits; so too are Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc.
So, to keep the core lecturers, because those in Ivory Towers suck the fuel-tanks dry, universities have to up the students’ fees.
This is clearly WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And this is what Lord Browne has failed to recognise.
However, it is important to acknowledge the positive aspects of Browne’s Report insofar as a quick scan reveals. Regardless of the amount of fees the shift to a more structured approach to fee repayment appears to be an excellent outcome proposal, as well as the recognition of the need for Britannia to remain intellectually competitive.
BUT, beyond these relatively minor points the numerous major negatives, with university ivory towers, far outweigh the positives of Browne’s Report.
The solution is that IP needs to be correctly protected, but not restrained – and the only way that this can be readily achieved is for new changes, which should include the need for:- academia to codify research IP & valid challenges thereto; for IP to be freely useable on a royalties basis with a fair split between IP developer & academic/corporate institution (this would also prevent IP from being blocked by powerful corporates); for ease of access to justice courts to enforce IP rights & protections thereto. (These are just some simple bullet points that need greater expansion - but the idea & advantages can be seen to be quite clear)
The problem lies with governments/parliaments in not fairly paying for IP value it has received (because they are corrupted & controlled by powerful minority Finance Powers) and in not correctly addressing the absence of appropriate Economy Engineering in their policies.
It is also not too difficult to see that other areas of government policies are equally deficient of Business/Economy Engineering – all of which is causal of increased social turmoils.
The ultimate embarrassment that falls fully onto Parliament/Government is the fact that the UK military are now forced to adopt a begging-bowl approach to raise funds, guised as a commemoration to those fallen in Afghanistan (various military groups marching 9 days to Wootton Bassett).
Whilst Britannia’s military are reduced to begging-bowl fund-raising her enemies can more easily launch a cyber attack accompanied by a conventional mass invasion of ‘robotic’ armies that can be readied at a moment’s notice.
Britannia, like Jane, is well & truly screwed – but Jane’s is in a vastly different way ……….
‘ ……………………. and she lifted her head and looked down at him, then kissed him with her mouth open while he was coming inside her. Immediately afterwards she gave a soft, low-pitched moan, and he felt her come with a long, gentle, wavy Sunday-morning orgasm. ……………..’
Chris Addington Pr.Eng.
www.cdadd.com, (currently unlawfully & abusively gagged/censored by SA ISP Diamatrix.co.za & USA ISP Softlayer.com)
(Under enforced exile from South Africa due to ANC government’s oppressive XDR-nazi system and oppressive economic isolation by corporate & academic world’s.)
XDR = Extreme Democracy Resistant.