A Comparison of the Australian and British Post Binary Higher Education Systems

Both Australia and Britain have recently moved from a binary system of higher education to a unitary system based upon the universities. In both countries change has been affected by an increasing emphasis upon higher education as a vital national economic resource and the need to make higher education institutions” more efficient.” As a result universities have a much closer relationship with government than ever before.

Yet there are important differences: Australia ended its binary system by consolidating its Colleges of Advanced Education into the university system. In Britain the trend has been to redesignate polytechnics as universities without amalgamation. Britain has evolved a much more competitive system in the allocation of resources which has had a profound affect upon the universities.

This article explores major similarities and contrasts in the Australian and British experiences.     

A SYSTEMIC,STUDENT-CENTERED STUDY OF UNIVERSITY SERVICE

This paper discusses the methods and findings ofthe Student Focus Project, a sixmonth study of studentperceptions of service at a large university inBrisbane, Australia. The study paneled 24 focus groups of undergraduate students to assess theirbeliefs about a pretested set of questions concerningpositive and negative aspects of university life,successes and frustrations with university service,attempts to overcome the obstacles of university life,and what students expect from their relationship to theuniversity. Of the themes identified in the StudentFocus study, it was found that malignantbureaucracy and the balkanization ofInformation are systemic factors that negativelyinfluence student perceptions of the quality ofuniversity service. It was also found that studentstrategies for service recovery can contribute to the overall confusion andpoor performance of university services.     

The other half of international teaching assistant training: Classroom communication workshops for international students

ITAs often experience particular difficulty balancing their roles as teachers with their roles as students. Student communication skills training is warranted for ITAs because it may be more motivating than instructional skills training, because it captures an otherwise elusive segment of the clientele, and because learning can transfer to ITAs' own teaching repertoires. Such a program can begin with a focus on naming and social identity. The bulk of the program focuses on communication practices for participative learning such as small group problem solving and whole-group responding. A typical workshop concludes with a forum for student concerns, often focusing upon how to interact with one's academic advisor.He obtained his Ph.D. in 1978 at the University of Minnesota. Among the courses he teaches are offerings in intercultural communication, applied linguistics, and composition research. He has also conducted research pertaining to perceptions of international instructors.     

The income consequences of the all-doctorate marriage

Income levels and percentage change in 1971–1975 income were regressed on personal and institutional variables for husband and wife doctorates holding full-time academic positions. Results of the composite equation indicate a $1,254 premium associated with being male after controlling for the other variables. Composite results also indicate a negative relationship between income for one spouse and the perceived opportunities for employment of the other spouse. Separate equations for the spouses indicate that this result related only to the wives' perceived opportunities of their husbands' income. By eliminating individuals with education doctorates and substituting the husbands' weights for the wives', the $1,254 differential was partially eliminated. The remaining differential between husbands' and wives' income was due to the greater involvement of the males in consulting and administration, greater involvement of the women in education, and fewer number of years of full-time experience of the wives. Comparison of income changes in both the composite and separate equations indicate that the wives received an 8–9% greater income increase than their husbands.     

Does Student Language Ability Affect the Assessment of Teacher Language Ability?

This article arises from an investigation into the classroom language assessment (CLA) component of the Hong Kong English language benchmark test for lower secondary (Grades 7–9) teachers of English as a second language (ESL). After some background to the benchmarking initiative in Hong Kong and to the CLA test, the article describes a small-scale study into the effect of student levels of ability on grades awarded to teachers working in schools with differing ability intakes. In the study, a group of ESL teachers were videotaped teaching ESL classes at two different student ability levels, with the two sets of videos assessed by trained CLA assessors. Results indicate that, although there is some variety in the grade awarded to the two different classes taught, variation in grades may well be attributable to individual teacher performance rather than to external factors such as the ability levels of the students being taught. The grades awarded were generally consistent, irrespective of whether classes of high-ability students or low-ability students were being taught.     

Reviews

Sam Pickering teaches English at the University of Connecticut     

'Noisy, fallible and biased though it be' (on the Vagaries of Educational Research)

Scholarship in education beyond school has developed largely outside university departments of education, and has rarely engaged systematically with the study of education in schools. The paper concentrates on three areas: adult education, higher education, and further education. The development of the extra-mural tradition meant that adult education was less an object of scholarly study than a means of spreading scholarship to the wider population, with important exceptions such as historical studies. Since the 1970s, the volume of research and postgraduate education in adult education in British universities has grown considerably. The study of higher education was marginal until the 1960s; its subsequent development was relatively slow until the 1990s, when the quality of university teaching came under wider external scrutiny. The study of further education and vocational training is characterised by disciplinary fragmentation, with much activity taking place in departments of psychology, economics, sociology and management, as well as in those former polytechnics that specialised in training further education teachers. The rise of integrative concepts such as lifelong learning suggest greater potential for cross-disciplinary scholarship that can engage the diverse body of those interested in teaching and research about this field.