Universities and the private sector

Nirvana-bound wrote:
Jul 27th 2010 6:25 GMT

I gotta admit I was completrely bowled over to learn that BPP will be only the second privately-run 'University College' in Britain & that there are no 'private' Universities in existence there either.

I had always taken for granted that like their reknowned & prestigious 'public schools', Britain would have privately run Universities &/or Colleges by the number, apart from the state-run institutions.

Guess that's how little I know about education system in the British Isles! Very humbling...

Don't worry, the UK's university system can often be confusing to outsiders. In essence, all universities are autonomous bodies, not state-run, but are largely state-funded. Receiving these funds is conditional on accepting certain conditions with respect to student numbers, fees charged and so on. Unlike public universities in some other countries, British universities are not bodies of the state and their staff are not civil servants, a fact which came as a surprise to some colleagues from mainland Europe. The Irish system is broadly similar. In principle, any university could decline state funding and run itself in the same manner as a private university in the US. In practice none will attempt to do so as the result will be almost certain immediate bankruptcy.

In the end, the world came to adore the US "sustainable" model not only in education but in many other things, and UK is not alien to such adoptions. After all "pecunia non olet". Hence, universities rapidly transformed into profit-generating factories glibly collecting small fortunes from their hapless victims, and offering in return "certificates" and "associate degrees." All that, mind, despite clear (albeit generally unspoken) awareness among the senior faculty and administrators that these are nothing but attests of grossly inadequate education based on the attendance at a few, typically rather banal, but magnificently overpriced courses. The method has significant merits: it funds quite exorbitant salaries of the executive layer of the US academe. To paraphrase President Clinton: "It is all about money, stupid!"

Just to mention one advantage of pure research and non industry driven R&D, Laser was developed as a pure research project. It was described as a solution looking for a problem. So having the business community or industry dictating curriculum or worse having all academic research requiring to justify itself based on a cost benefit analysis is not a good idea. Although I do accept that input from industry and business should be welcomed. It would be a mistake to go down the path of endangering academic freedom, or making it subordinate to either government or business.

we seldom have many so-called private schools in China, the government didn't support that. This kind of private school are either the supplementary of public schools ran by the government or they are quite small and weak for extra-lesson after class. The supplementary of public schools are schools such as bi-lingual language (Chinese-English)or some special school held for challenged people.

So I have little words to say about the private school.

@ compass2k: as a technical student myself, it's hard to see the value of an education that wouldn't prepare me directly for a role in industry. It's your ticket in the door. As to leadership, I can't see leadership being taught in a classroom: any good organization is going to choose leaders who have proven that they can deliver, regardless of education (up to a point). That's usually true in business and is certainly so in the military.

Needless to say, I found your quote of that Vice Chancellor very funny.

To MCDuncan

I don't know anyone who says that someone who is active in scholarly research is NECESSARILY a good teacher. But in ALL the great universities that I know, private or public, in the US, Europe, Japan, etc, it's taken as given that a good teacher has to be active in research. Subjects change and develop, at least in science, and I imagine in economics too, even at first-year (freshman) level. Staff who aren't reading the recent research literature just can't present an authoritative account of the current state of the subject.

If you are saying that teachers should be assessed, then of course I would agree with you.

errata:

... charities to offer a [sic] what its chief executive, Carl Lygo, calls "a sustainable model ...

Re the discussion of being a 'trade' school or a university for developing 'leaders' my impression is that BPP leans toward the 'trade' school model in developing students who have skills employers can recognize as valuable immediately on hiring.
As as an alum of Queen's University in Canada, which prides itself on being a high quality University, surveys of employers found that the graduates were initially not as valuable as the graduates of more 'trade' oriented institutions but after 10 years their superior skills became apparent. As a cynic, I surmised that it took 10 years for the graduates to overcome their supposedly superior education given that the quality of the incoming students at Queen's was significantly higher than lesser universities.
As employers recognize the value of the programs at BPP, I suspect their model will expand quickly.

First came the 'red brick', then the 'plate glass' universities. Then the polytechnics all became 'universities'. Where will it end?!

I have another hillariously embarassing confession to make! With some weird logic, I had all along presumed Oxford & Cambridge Us were both "private" Us!!

What was I thinking!!

(But I'm glad I got that off my chest..)

Thank you for your help, everyone! I feel less foolish, and a bit less lost, now!

Well, unfortunately, I believe that this is a bit step back for the UK education system.

I will have to start with somewhat light note: what exactly is a "well-qualified school leaver?" I am pretty sure that any attempts into making companies hire all "well qualified candidates" will scream of affirmative action. And, speaking of laws of supply and demand, do all graduates of minor British universities find jobs, or, for that matter, do all the jobs need that 4-year bachelor degree?

Secondly, the university deserves some slapping for the program that it offers. Uhm, ok, business. Right. Business. I think every school these days try to add a program in business. Do they have the people to pull it off? Or do we currently need business programs only to fill space on the resume in a lot of cases? And law, as taught - is it a law law as in "law school", or yet another form of "paralegal"?

Effectively, this is not a bad model if done right. It has to be called "community college", people should realize that the academic work required for the universities doesn't really contribute much to the teaching process, unlike business experience. This is a perfectly normal situation in quite a few continental European countries, most notably - Germany. However, this is not a part of academic education, and, like professional sports, it probably doesn't belong to a university.

Current universities resemble classical universities, Academy of Science, trade associations and athletic societies crammed into one institution, with country club and spa centre thrown in. I can easily understand how it came to this state; however, we better figure out how we want this model to function.

This is simply an attempt to privatize the third level education system in Britain. It didn’t work so well with rail and water but that has never stopped anyone. If the real intention was to establish a private education system alongside a well funded state run system (providing free good quality education) then it would have been a smart move. As it stands, it is a first step towards a third level education system based on the ability to pay and not academic excellence. A great step backwards!

A very interesting read, and I agree, the distinction between public and private in terms of Britains educational system is not easy to make. I agree with the notion of private educational institutions to a certain extent, but there is also an uneasiness about a profit maximising corporation in control of my childrens education.

I want to share something I came across the other day, www.bankofenglandact.co.uk which proposes an alternative the university funding via monetary reform, its sister site www.call4reform.org is also fantastic at explaining certain problems today that can affect funding for education. It certainly opened my eyes

I gotta admit I was completrely bowled over to learn that BPP will be only the second privately-run 'University College' in Britain & that there are no 'private' Universities in existence there either.

I had always taken for granted that like their reknowned & prestigious 'public schools', Britain would have privately run Universities &/or Colleges by the number, apart from the state-run institutions.

Guess that's how little I know about education system in the British Isles! Very humbling...

People in Spain want to equate Private with Paid while Public with Free. It is the WANTS of the people using this as an advantage for elitism. I found Switzerland to have the opposite view on this.

@vive_chimie,

I would much rather have professors who cared about teaching to professors who considered teaching a nuisance. All the professors I've had who engaged in scholarly research tended to be the worst teacher's I've ever had, especially the math and physics ones, while the best teacher I've had was running his own business out in the real world and was only a professor because he loved to teach.

All colleges and universities are public, some state funded others private funds based.
"Public or private setting..." is non sense sentence
Jose from Uruguay

Ouch "chiropody and radiography" - and will iridology and astrology be considered also ?. And does it matter - what you are discussing is education determined by the fashions of the market.
Pros - new ideas/movements/industries get equivalence.
Cons - we mix up valid structural provision of educated professionals to required services with passing fads and fashions.
I recall when the the Vice Chancellor of an technical college by legislation here suddenly allowed to call itself (and bill the govt) as a University - declared - "Nothing changes we still supply trained students to business !" that there was considerable dismay that he did not understand the difference between a commercial training course (fodder for industry) and a university - a school to assist and elevate potential leaders ..
This seems like the eternal recurrence of the misunderstanding between leadership colleges (universities) and trade schools.
In the Army (for example) such a critical distinction is not allowed to be confused. But Generals have a critical mission and few voters ..

CJ Lives; I am not sure URSAMAJ's response will have helped you much!! As I understand it the reason what in the US/Canada/Australia would be called "private" schools are called in the UK "public" was because before the 17th century most wealthy children (ie sons) would have been educated at home - "privately". When schools were established and became more common they were "public". When government schools were established the difference was not so much "private" /"public" as "public" /"government". AS URSAMAJ states there are multiple grades of "public" and considerable overlap in terms of quality between government schools and public schools.