Rubénerd!

Remember my post earlier this week about Julia Gillard and Labor cutting university education spending in Australia? An excerpt from an article in The Age, retweeted by @Sebasu_tan on Twitter:

But [opposition leader] Mr Abbott said he would maintain the changes to university funding which the government announced earlier this month as a way of paying for the increased money that it wants to give to primary and secondary schools.

"I don’t think anyone should expect those cuts to be reversed," Mr Abbott said.

Surprising no one.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, told Fairfax Media that Mr Abbott was locking children into "being left behind".

Rich.

From my girlfriend Clara's site:

I heard today that uni funding has been cut again [..] the gist is that the 10% discount on upfront payments of HECs will be scrapped, voluntary paying back of HECs loans will lose the 5% bonus and Student Start Up Scholarships must be repaid once the student starts working.

The constant political infighting, the watering down of the Mining Tax, this complete and utter contempt for university students and the future of the country (paying back "scholarships" is my favourite)... I regard this current Australian government as nothing but a joke at this stage.

But here's the truly depressing thing. Labor knows I would never vote for the conservative coalition under Tony Abbott, so they know for people like me they can get away with this. I've seen Labor MPs on Twitter defend the plan by saying Tony Abbott would be worse. What a platform.

Update

Great catch from by Alex Masso on Twitter, seen via Greens Senator Christine Milne:

senatormilne: RT @alexmasso: "I fervently believe in and will continue to advocate that increases be made in funding the university sector" - David Gonski

Flick My Switch! An initiative being spearheaded by my good friend Sashin! Spread the word :D

Comments should be left on the YouTube page.

The Atlantic, via Slashdot:

If tuition costs slow their fierce rise, it will be because we figure out how to take some elements of college and put them online. How's that going? Slowly. Very slowly.

Leaving aside their unfortunate use of the word root, such stories that serve to promote the idea of online education always miss one critical point. Particularly for IT, what you learn is secondary to the connections in academia and industry you make.

The author also assumes that tuition fees will be more affordable if classes are taught online, presumably because cost savings will be passed on. Methinks they're being a little naïve.

I've done a similar test to this back in 2008, but I always like to compare my results. In fact I may have done this one before too now that I look at the title!

Anyway I'm listed as a liberal-libertarian, which is about right. I admire the libertarian view that people have the right to self determination, but I also believe health and education are fundamental human rights not privileges offered only to those who can afford the extravagant premiums and school fees asked for by a free market. Those who think a free market can offer everything as deluded as communists who think governments can provide everything.

Of course I'm in my 20s now, perhaps a few decades from now I'll be different. Heck, when I was 10 I thought a libertarian was someone who worked with lots of books.

Our (albeit government sponsored) university fees at work (or lack thereof). Fortunately all my lecturers from this semester have continued to go above and beyond by answering my emails and returning assignments with detailed and friendly comments. I wonder if others have had less luck?

Dear Student,

You may be aware that UniSA is currently in negotiations with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) as part of the Enterprise Bargaining process regarding terms and conditions of employment for staff.

The NTEU has advised the University that, in its view, insufficient progress is being made on a number of their key claims and unfortunately they have now imposed industrial action which targets the formal transmission of student assessment results, including exams.

The University is extremely disappointed and concerned with this position. Not only is the University of the view that significant progress has been made in negotiations but, potentially, the NTEU's bans will disadvantage our students and their families, particularly if students may be denied the opportunity to graduate and participate in ceremonies in late December, or be unable to secure employment or to commence postgraduate studies without formal transmission of results.

The interests of our students are paramount at such a crucial stage of their studies and careers, and the University considers it has an obligation to protect our students as innocent parties to a dispute that is between the University and unions. Accordingly, at the last bargaining meeting on Monday, 23 rd November, the University again formally requested that the NTEU lift its bans. Again, the NTEU refused. Subsequently, the university has put in place a number of strategies, including involving Fair Work Australia, to mitigate the impact of these bans.

I would like to reassure all students that the University is working very hard to ensure students receive their final assessment and exam results.

I will keep you informed of developments.

Kind regards
[redacted]

Some disturbing news about the state of tertiary education in South Australia being reported by Suzanne Tindal on ZDNet Australia. Flinders University and TAFE SA (similar to a polytechnic for my Singaporean and Malaysian readers) have adopted Microsoft Exchange based Live@Edu for a three year contract. While on the surface the features actually sound cool, the potential ramifications of adopting this expensive system are scary.

To Microsoft's credit they've done some stuff right recently, or perhaps "less wrong" is a more fitting description. Windows 7 improved the experience over Vista, Internet Explorer 8 renders pages in a somewhat more standards compliant way and is faster than IE7 or IE6, and while the hardware is still unappealing the Zune's music subscription service sounds like a great way to discover new tunes.

This education initiative is not something to add to that list.

I can't help but think Microsoft is worried about the increasing penetration of Apple notebooks in tertiary education as well as free and open source OSs in IT courses and that they'll use their Live@Edu service to provide a reason not to use Macs or FLOSS over, say, a Windows 7 loaded machine.

Speaking from experience

I'm a student at the University of South Australia which uses Exchange and Outlook Web Access which in any other browser except Internet Explorer 6 is terrible. Unlike Google Wave which warns people trying to access it in non HTML5 standards compliant browsers, Microsoft warns me when my browser doesn't contain their proprietary rendering engine and as a result is not capable of displaying a dynamic inbox that Google managed to figure out how to do in other browsers back in 2004.

I've made no secret of my general loathing of most Microsoft products and my dismay at their spectacular fall from grace (I grew up on Microsoft Multimedia titles in primary school and loved them), but if the South Australian government or Microsoft won't guarantee that contemporary browsers that meet certain open standards used by students will be able to access all these new services, this amounts to a monopolistic move and should be investigated by an independent body.

This is a Trending Topic

I talked about the lack of transparency with Microsoft and various Australian governments back in April of this year (It started as a Centrelink Windows 7 critique) in the context of the cost involved, something I haven't discussed here but that also bears keeping in mind.

To tell the truth I'm more frustrated with the South Australian and Federal governments than I am with Microsoft.

The Aussie government seems to be going ahead with their plans for their MySchool website that will publish school marks and rankings. In an interview on Lateline I just watched, Julia Gillard assured us all league tables would not be generated. Unfortunately, she's wrong.

I think what she meant to say was the Australian Government would not be generating league tables. As Alex and I discussed on Twitter, put enough statistics and information online and someone will come along and make a mashup of it. As soon as this MySchool site goes online, it won't be a question of if league tables are generated with the published data by third parties, but when.

I really wonder sometimes if politicians in governments such as Australia's have any idea of the implications of their policies. Sometimes their actions make me wonder!

I was asked by a friendly person this afternoon who's writing a book what I thought of the importance of mentors to young people. In 140 character Twitter goodness:

I'd say mentors are applied educators that take help young people develop. You can't learn such experience from books or classes.

I can really attest to this. When I left high school in 2005 I got a job a Veritas writing Perl and MySQL code for a friend of my mother here in Singapore. I drew a paycheck, I had a desk in their offices, I worked alongside other people, and I reported to someone who was genuinely interested in my progress and offered patient help and guidance. I learned more from studying and working with Mr Whiting for several months than I have from several long years of university education that are still ongoing. It's absolutely, 100% true, and I suspect a great number of people who've experienced both would agree with me.

Unfortunately the prestige bestowed upon people with a magical piece of paper that says that person completed a university degree is still far higher than those who developed experience and character in the workforce under the watchful eye of a mentor. I think this really needs to change.

Sad news being reported by South Australia's Greens senator Mark Parnell this month. It's really sad this kind of discrimination is still legal in this day and age.

I've previously blogged about Mark Parnell here. We need more people like him in politics.

clipped from markparnell.org.au

Critical amendments to the Equal Opportunity Act that will allow religious schools to continue to discriminate against gay teachers have passed the SA Upper House with the support of Liberals, Family First and No Pokies.

"The Greens were extremely disappointed that Labor had previously backed down on removing discrimination against teachers on the basis of sexuality. Now, this already compromised Bill has been compromised again.

"An individual's sexuality or chosen gender has absolutely no impact on their ability to teach well. So why will schools be able to discriminate on that basis?

"Freedom from discrimination on the basis of a person’s sexuality is a basic human right. Our state used to have an enviable reputation for progressive social policy. Not any more" he said.