Oh Captain, My Captain!

Yesterday, I posted a newspaper article which expressed the rules about what constitutes a completing student, from 2006.

A colleague has found the proper government rules - in force since 2004. Our institution's Wizard of Oz described all this stuff as unknown, 'arcane' and not relevant to modular courses.

Let's see what the rules state, shall we?

1.      A student, who fails to complete (that is, undergo the final assessment of, or pass) any module within the year of programme of study is to be returned as a non-completion for all activity in that year. However, an exception is allowed for full-time students where the module is in addition to the standard requirements for full-time study.

Non-completions

14.     Non-completion is defined in terms of modular programmes of study.

These rules have been in force for 5 years, the leadership board is very highly paid and receives 'performance related pay' as a 'contractual right', they've instituted an intellectually vacuous new curriculum, are sacking 250 FTEs and being fined several million pounds. What would you suggest 'taking full responsibility' means?

Welcome to Vichy

As I've mentioned before my illustrious institution's student paper is locked in a cupboard, bound and gagged in case some rogue student journalist thinks that massive job cuts, ill thought-out curriculum changes, bigger classes and alienated teachers might, possibly, be news.

Luckily, some thoughtful Walsallian (is that the word) has collated the stories in one place, on theyamyam.com, a site for all things Walsall. (For non-Black Country readers, the local dialect and people are called yam yams, referring to certain grammatical and pronunciation variants).

Is sacking educators during a recession a good idea?

Round here, apparently it is. According to others, such as the V-C of University of Central Lancashire, definitely not:

"It would be beyond reason for an incoming government to significantly reduce public expenditure on higher education in the middle of a recession. It would be like a general demobilising regiments of battle-hardened troops in the face of an enemy. There is, of course, a danger that a few politically inept vice-chancellors will offer up their troops in voluntary sacrifice in advance of any battle. However, on the assumption that these suicidal tendencies can be controlled by the rest of the sector, let us address the elephant in the room."

Full article here.

Well that's all right then

Apparently, misreporting the number of student we have, leading to a clawback of £3.5m and a funding cut of £2m per year was all just a silly 'misunderstanding' which we'll all have a jolly good laugh about later, once lots of people have been sacked, according to the vice-chancellor in this report. It's all HEFCE's fault, for being 'arcane' old fuddy-duddys with their 'rules' and 'regulations' and 'definitions'.

"The university correctly recorded and reported the number of students enrolled and the modules they took," he said. "The problem was a misinterpretation of Hefce's arcane definition of 'completion' for funding purposes."

The 'misunderstanding' was that the government agency thinks people complete a year when they've done eight modules, whereas the university thinks that six out of eight is close enough! It also turns out that Performance-related pay is 'a contractual requirement' - even if the performance is damaging to the university. Thus is stunning: actually causing an £8m deficit and sacking 250 people gets you a bonus. Just like being a banker!

The clocks struck thirteen

The governors have just had a letter from the V-C about how the university's getting on. Apparently, everything's brilliant. They may have 'read in the press' about… problems with accessing Student Loans.

In real life, of course, they may have read about 250 sackings, but that's not mentioned at all. What a fantastic approach to communications…

New logo. World saved.

Yes, despite having a multimillion pound deficit, 250 redundancies, fewer modules and larger classes, everything's going to be OK, because we've paid some trendily-bespectacled wankers a large amount of money for a new logo to make everything alright.

Anyone like to speculate on what the new slogans might be?

Survivor's guilt

I'm not expecting you all to read this, but one of my colleagues has drawn my attention to an academic paper on the psychological and relational damage caused by mass redundancies in an institution - we aren't going to be happy bunnies!

Amusingly, it's written by someone from my institution! Hope she keeps her job…

Enjoy!

Cynical Ben, the friend who keeps on giving

Returning from another dispiriting union meeting (the university doesn't know how much it's being penalised by HEFCE for accidentally or deliberately misreporting student module completion modules so has guessed, and appears not to know how many people are employed here), I'm cheered by more parcels. The remastered edition of REM's Reckoning, Tim Wohlforth's memoir The Prophet's Children: Travels on the American Left, and two CDs which can only be part of Cynical Ben's attempt to widen my musical taste - Snoop Dogg's R & G (Rhythm and Gangsta): The Masterpiece and Justin Timberlake's Futuresex/Lovesounds. I shall of course give them a go in a spirit of enquiry. Does he think I'm lacking in contemporary black culture, or just need more funk.

Meanwhile, Emma has rumbled the cricket ploy.

The briefing begins

In case you missed it, the university's plan to sack everybody bar the Executive Board made the main story on Midlands Today a couple of days ago.

Thrill! To the BS from management!

Swoon! To the calm authority of my union leaders!

Rage! At the stupidity of massive classes, restricted courses and exhausted lecturers!

See it here (UK viewers only, possibly).

More coverage here and here (including a heated argument in the comments section which starts well then degenerates into slanging).

And so farewell, everybody else

Thanks Vice-Chancellor. Your pay leaped from £145,000 five years ago to £212,000 the year before last (and we suspect you've had a decent raise last year too). You've called in expensive 'consultants' from McCann Erickson, and you've expanded the upper tier of management.

Meanwhile, down here where we do the, y'know, teaching, you've repeatedly told us that we're no good, and now you're sacking 250 staff. Or rather, not sacking but 'repositioning', 'achieving savings' and 'losing' staff, as though we're spare change down the back of the sofa.

Oddly, you don't find room to mention, in your list of financial pressures, management's failure to honestly and accurately record student numbers for the government - leading to having to give back several million pounds. Not a word of apology, no suggestion that you and your top table mates will take a pay cut, let alone a resignation.

Shame on you.