The National education lottery
The university I attend is changing its administration of service in many ways. One now has to design one's own course structure and apply for places in the selected courses online, which will be allocated on a first past-the-post-basis, where numbers are constrained. There are core courses but the number of these varies wildly from school to school (these used to be called departments).
The trouble is, we are hampered by complete ignorance of our timetables and not knowing the courses whose numbers are limited and what those numbers might be. Some courses are being offered across the board to several different years undergraduates, JYAs and post-graduates, so no one has any idea of the likely take-up of each course.
Worst of all, we don't even know when we shall be able to go online to sign up. We thought we did and now that date has been postponed without notice, because of problems with the first groups of students who attempted to make their choices online. Our sign-up time slots are now occupied by these students trying to sort out the mess of their course structure.
It's beginning to look as if it won't matter that we shall have our heads down over trenches in the Wicklow Gap, far from Internet access, since the system is so backed up that we shall be lucky to be signed up by September 11.
I really pity the incoming students who have pushed through their leaving certificate, now being expected to create their own courses, without the slightest idea of the different schools, staff or little idea of course content. It's all vague enough at the start without having these decisions pushed on you. I certainly would have had difficulty if this had been demanded of me before I had even begun lectures where we were introduced to the subjects - in many cases completely new subjects to study - which we were thinking of reading. In those distant days of 2 years ago, we had up to 6 weeks to decide which subjects we would settle on, but once those were decided, the course was rolled out before us. Of course, few people had Christmas exams in those days, so we could take what seems now as a luxuriously leisurely approach.
Tutorials for 1st and 2nd years and optional courses for 3rd years were signed up for in the same 6 week period. That system had its own semi-chaotic problems, but looks like a model of Athenian discourse compared with today's street brawl.
Is this any way to run an educational service? People are already complaining that they have been forced into courses in which they have no interest, or worse, that they have been excluded from courses they need to take.
If it's a horse race, the horses are hobbled by lack of information. More like a lottery with a few lucky winners and lots of frustrated losers.
The trouble is, we are hampered by complete ignorance of our timetables and not knowing the courses whose numbers are limited and what those numbers might be. Some courses are being offered across the board to several different years undergraduates, JYAs and post-graduates, so no one has any idea of the likely take-up of each course.
Worst of all, we don't even know when we shall be able to go online to sign up. We thought we did and now that date has been postponed without notice, because of problems with the first groups of students who attempted to make their choices online. Our sign-up time slots are now occupied by these students trying to sort out the mess of their course structure.
It's beginning to look as if it won't matter that we shall have our heads down over trenches in the Wicklow Gap, far from Internet access, since the system is so backed up that we shall be lucky to be signed up by September 11.
I really pity the incoming students who have pushed through their leaving certificate, now being expected to create their own courses, without the slightest idea of the different schools, staff or little idea of course content. It's all vague enough at the start without having these decisions pushed on you. I certainly would have had difficulty if this had been demanded of me before I had even begun lectures where we were introduced to the subjects - in many cases completely new subjects to study - which we were thinking of reading. In those distant days of 2 years ago, we had up to 6 weeks to decide which subjects we would settle on, but once those were decided, the course was rolled out before us. Of course, few people had Christmas exams in those days, so we could take what seems now as a luxuriously leisurely approach.
Tutorials for 1st and 2nd years and optional courses for 3rd years were signed up for in the same 6 week period. That system had its own semi-chaotic problems, but looks like a model of Athenian discourse compared with today's street brawl.
Is this any way to run an educational service? People are already complaining that they have been forced into courses in which they have no interest, or worse, that they have been excluded from courses they need to take.
If it's a horse race, the horses are hobbled by lack of information. More like a lottery with a few lucky winners and lots of frustrated losers.
posted by ruth @ 10:41 AM
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