On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:44:00 GMT, Geoffrey
wrote:

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 11:00:32 +0000, Andy Hall
wrote:

Quite. It would have been far better to have left it alone and not
have attempted to make every establishment a "university".

Absolutely. There is nothing wrong with technical colleges and no
reason to "rebrand" them with the title of University.

This has been one of my points all along. Universities should be able
to focus on what they do best - fundamentally an education in how to
think and resolve issues. This is not a suitable education for
everybody, and for many, something more vocationally (e.g. from
polytechnic etc) focussed is a better option. Neither should be
considered to have a higher status than the the other.



I don't believe higher education should be subject to market forces
either.

This depends on your definition of market forces. I don't
necessarily equate this to being equal to a profit motive.


There are some things (such as education, healthcare and
public transport) that are too important to leave to the money men.

I think that these are far to important to have in the hands of the
government.


These things should NOT have anything to do with profit.

I think that *delivery* of said services should be outside the remit
of government. However, it is possible for them to be delivered by
both non-profit and for-profit organisations. Non-government does
not equate to for-profit.





--

..andy