THE main preoccupation of senior academics, now known as resource managers, seems to be to replace expensive but old-fashioned lecturers, who care about students, with "young lions", who boost the RAE score.
Those rated high enough are encouraged to avoid many of the obligations of undergraduate teaching. Is the management of higher education mad, bad, or just incompetent? What became of the idea that a lecturer should provide a role model for students? Perhaps one should blame government policy or civil servants at the Department for Education and Employment, because they designed the funding rules. If so, there must be a legion of collaborators. What sort of scholarship is it that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing?
Donald F. Weetman
Professor in applied pharmacology