Cards stacked against tarot
In a country where people queue up to pay the "tax on stupidity", formally called the National Lottery, the education system has a special duty to think hard about how it copes with irrational...
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Bring on the procedure police
The Nolan committee on standards in public life has now turned to higher and further education, but we have been told that Lord Nolan believes that no more external regulation of either sector is...
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Nolan number-crunchers
The Nolan committee appears to be concerned with the proverbial mote and cannot see the beam in its own eye. The value system of universities is based not on money, but on academic excellence. It is...
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Sponsors' rights and wrongs
I am interested in the views of other readers on the commercial sponsorship of learned societies. The Royal Geographical Society is embroiled in a controversy because it receives Pounds 40,000...
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Re-engineering the learning business
Detlef Mueller-Boeling (World View, THES, December 22) gave an interesting account of higher education as a business, which it clearly is. We provide a service of quality for a price to a mix of...
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Flowers for the engineer
I had the great good fortune to visit several universities and research institutes in China, Taiwan, Japan and India this year. My university, Natal, attaches strategic importance to the development...
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Rhyme and reason for nurseries
The higher education sector must recognise that in an era of tight public spending control, the educational needs of children must take precedence, says Josh Hillman. Britain is in the foothills of...
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Two reports and a fraught future
This year in education we will learn the truth or falsity of the Chinese aphorism that to live in interesting times is a curse rather than a benefit. Two reports awaited with interest are those from...
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Life's sentences
Oral history is often neglected as a research tool, but Anton Gill explains how pertinent it was in his study of concentration camp survivors. I came to oral history research as an absolute beginner...
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Budget battle leaves colleges trembling
United States universities and colleges were caught in a waiting game this week as President Bill Clinton and Republican leaders struggled to agree on spending cuts to balance the budget within seven...
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Geography ethics row
Concern over corporate sponsorship by Shell following the execution of environmental activists in Nigeria has uncovered academic tensions within Europe's largest geographical society. Only a year ago...
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Lively minds and smart people
Darrel Ince questions the practical value of the methodologies developed by software engineering and indicates applied mathematics as an alternative paradigm. A more radical, and more satisfying,...
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Lively minds and smart people
While agreeing with every other point in Darrel Ince's article, I would question his suggestion that TeX is not based on software engineering nor validated. Formal methods of the sort that Ince has...
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This way out?
(Photograph) - This way out? The London School of Economics' decision-making process over whether to bid for the soon-to-be-vacant Bart's Hospital site will take an important step forward next week...