Alex Stevens

Come follow me

@Sony What's the point of your products having a warranty if your website makes it impossible to work out how to return the product to you for repair/refund?

@ProfAlexStevens Here’s a URL to make it easier. The handles are a bit longer there so it saves typos. bsky.app/profile/profal…

So who should I follow on the other place?

@Graeme2030 @SSA_Addiction @lawsheffield Give it time, Graeme.

Off to Newcastle...

@DrRebeccaTidy @DrJamesCMorgan But Trump.

@ProfAlexStevens @DrJamesCMorgan Actually that’s the common sense option. Or the US.

A hint on why some UK universities are struggling to recruit senior staff in an international market where pay in UK HE is just not competitive. One of these jobs will be the pinnacle of a career. The other is entry level. The pay scales overlap.

@DrRebeccaTidy @DrJamesCMorgan Being Head of an academic school is a much more stressful, onerous, responsible and non-enjoyable job than being a mere professor, but the extra pay is minimal to non-existent.

@ProfAlexStevens @DrJamesCMorgan I've always found it odd that progression in academia doesn't bring any truly worthwhile salary reward. It's such a negligible amount for the extra responsibility (+ probably the stress that comes with it too).

@DrRebeccaTidy @DrJamesCMorgan Or move to Australia/Canada.

@ProfAlexStevens @DrJamesCMorgan My first HE salary was £45k in 2010. But now many institutions offer £28k for a role with a slightly different name. Though in journalism, many outlets have halved their rates in the last decade. You could say it's wise to avoid both industries if you value financial stability

Where is the evidence that league tables do anything but encourage managers to juke the stats? In schools? In universities? amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.thegua…

This is too little, too late, but still good to see a major economy take steps to reduce emissions #keepitintheground bbc.co.uk/news/live/cly0…

The whole university funding debate feels like we're fighting over scraps while missing the point: in a world where AI can do much of what we teach students to do, what are universities for?

@soniasodha Could we not adopt a more positive vision; that the expansion of HE opens the door for more people - and the country as a whole - to benefit from the joy of learning and the development it brings?

@ProfAlexStevens When half of young people go, at great expense, it changes the nature of what it's for. It necessitates a more instrumental approach to HE - that's just the reality.

It's fair to criticise the current higher education system, but this article repeats the fundamental mistake that it is at the heart of of the current problems, which is... 1/3

@soniasodha Please don't get me wrong. I don't think everything is rosy in the HE garden. I'm just asking for a deeper consideration of what HE is for.

@ProfAlexStevens I haven’t been using that measure- I criticised unis using it as a measure of quality. But whether or not a course adds to a young person’s skills and thus earning/career potential is an entirely relevant question for them when they’re considering whether a degree is worth it.

@soniasodha You have been using that measure (and misleadingly comparing the lower part of the distribution for graduates to the average for non-graduates). But the wider problem is the absence of attention to the question of what HE is for, apart from financial return.

@soniasodha What do you think 'value for money' mean in HE? (The measure you've been using - graduate pay - does not measure the quality of education).

@ProfAlexStevens No- it’s a feature of a system that costs a huge amount and serves a large number of people at great opportunity cost. We shouldn’t be spending this much on HE without asking tough questions about value for money and quality. Fine not to do so if it’s a much smaller system.

@soniasodha That's a problem that's built into today's system, which your focus on financial ROI perpetuates. We need to rethink why we've turned HE into a pseudo-market, with all its perverse incentives, not just worry about how to make uni's more accountable to students.

@ProfAlexStevens That's a necessary view of HE when you've got students collectively funding it to the tune of billions. It's one thing when you were talking about a relatively tiny sector funded by taxpayer - value for money/quality questions less pressing. In today's system, they're urgent.

@soniasodha BTW, it's the same with rankings and league tables. Most people in uni's know they are misleading, manipulable BS. But managers and marketeers go along with the ranking game because that's the market that govt policy has created.

@soniasodha Yes, I wish university marketing departments (as well as jounalists) would avoid using graduate pay as a measure of quality (which it is not). But that is forced upon them by the financial view of HE which your article also adopts.

@soniasodha Out of curiosity: when you chose a university course, on what basis did you choose it?

@ProfAlexStevens “No one is forcing young people” when there’s so little data on course quality and universities are, in my view, inevitably mis selling some courses feels like a very defensive stance that wouldn’t hold in relation to many other big financial decisions.