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Don’t let ‘statistics’ stop STEM studies: Birmingham
A Grattan Institute report released today showing that graduate positions in STEM are scarce has – somewhat ironically – led the federal education minister to say that “we should not allow statistics like this to sway people from the importance of science”.
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Mr. Norton is right. Universities are doing exactly what governments are telling them to do.
All complex systems evolve under selection pressures. The current government is changing the selection pressure, with a Free-Market Fundamentalist, Neoliberal ideology that’s pushing universities to compete for $s against a range of private sector “education” providers.
The result is cheap, generic, crappy, useless degrees because they’re much easier to sell in volume and bring in the money. Standards are dropped so that students pass, no matter what, because failing them and kicking them out means less money coming in.
Ironically, it turns out that Free-Market Fundamentalism actually harms the market in the end as students lost time and money, while failing to meet the economic demand for specifically qualified workers. Gee whiz, whoocooodanode?!
Then the government turns around and blames universities for a situation that the government itself created. Like something straight out of the psychopath playbook, when your ideology isn’t working out, just double down on it and blame everyone else, including the victims, for the failure.
NO generalist 3 year degree will get you a job quickly. Nearly every degree that qualifies a student for a particular job market is a 4 year program (and sometimes with a two year Masters on top of that). Students need to be told that they should expect to study at University for at least 4 years, which means that if they get a BA or BSc, they need to look for a graduate diploma in the field of employment they want.