Historian of Ancient Mediterranean science and medicine. Mother of two. Feminist. Plant lover. Trade unionist. Super Belgie. Welsh by adoption. Many typos.
Laurence Totelin
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So what this think-tank puts forward (and is in anyway very much in the air), is as many of us know, just a way of creating a stratified system which will correspond mostly with social class. I won't have anything to do with it /fin
And if some universities were to focus on teaching excellence, then teachers there would start wondering why the need for a PhD. That in fact is probably what the think-tank has in mind: let's reduce the numbers of PhDs.Who needs those(note that I think a PhD can lead to many other places than HE)/5
But let's face it, there is no political will to invest in proper teaching training for people in UK HE. There isn't much for training UK primary and secondary teachers (hardly any grants etc), and that should take precedent in my view /4
Teaching training in UK HE is woeful (but getting slightly better). I'm not saying that doing a proper teaching degree makes you a better teacher, but there is something to be said about a full year or more spent on learning about teaching (which happens to be what I did in Belgium) /3
The REF is woeful, but its demise would certainly be catastrophic in the current context. Let's face it, there is no political will to simply distribute research funds in an equitable manner (specific amount Ă FTE - a system that can also be gamed anyway). 2/
Many thoughts on this, not all well articulated. I have felt this reinventing of pre-92 (as far as I understand it) system had been on the cards for a while. 1/
Only 22 UK universities should be allowed in REF, says think tank www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...
