In Solidarity with the occupations in Austria for Free Education!
Students in Austria are reclaiming their universities from Bad Management. This post is in solidarity to them!
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Betaalbaar Onderwijs or the reduction of STUDENTS to ECTS and EDUCATION to EFFICIENCY
in this report you will find revealed the managerial approach of our faculty that reduces us STUDENTS to mere NUMBERS that need to be streamlined and makes our TEACHERS into COMPETITORS on the "free market of education".
for the Dutch this is a very nice read, revealing in its use of language how far we have come...
for those who cannot follow the bad management talk in Dutch, here are some of the more interesting points:
until 2012, 750 new bachelor students each year! this is the "limit" that can be squeezed into the available square meters!
decreasing the amount of elective courses in the masters from 79 to 8 (to make the choice easier for students)
“bouwkunde education is a process of mass production. regulations have to be more geared towards serial production” (please note that they are talking of US here).
phasing out non-profitable master tracks (since when is education about PROFIT?)
… further reducing “contact time” (we would regard this the most valuable time of interaction with your group and tutors) in design projects.
“more students require more input, more space and more costs (but in the long run more profit).”
“the students contribute in very constructive ways to cut more costs” (are that the same student bodies that are totally dependent on the management for their own budget?)
“its not so much tuition that accounts for financial problems but research” (so let's cut that part, which university needs research anyway?)
group sizes from 8 to 9 students or 16 to 18 students. on the same square meters there will be 9 instead of 8 students.
studio guidance can be reduced from 20 days to 18, to be realized as less guidance just before presentations (please let us know if this makes sense to anybody).
reduction of studio guidance for graduation students from one day a week to one day every two weeks. this can be realized with a voucher system in which student can "BUY" time from their tutors (maybe we can even introduce a tutor stock exchange in order to measure their market value).
1 in 10 tutors in the bachelor can be replaced by a student mentor (they come cheap).
introduce the eindhoven model where groups (of 9) are put together in larger groups of for example 54 to pool their 5 tutors. in this way there is always at least one tutor in the studio! (you can imagine where this is going to lead).
school-like teaching methods "designing you do like this!" are being developed (perfect to produce masses of generic archi zombies).
“in the long run this leads to less guidance in the masters” (or the most important part of our education).
“part of the teaching [in the masters] can be done on a large scale. imagine that courses are reduced from 30 to 10” (yes, imagine…).
international students in the masters can be "maximized" from about 200 now to 100 in the future.
for those who cannot follow the bad management talk in Dutch, here are some of the more interesting points:
until 2012, 750 new bachelor students each year! this is the "limit" that can be squeezed into the available square meters!
decreasing the amount of elective courses in the masters from 79 to 8 (to make the choice easier for students)
“bouwkunde education is a process of mass production. regulations have to be more geared towards serial production” (please note that they are talking of US here).
phasing out non-profitable master tracks (since when is education about PROFIT?)
… further reducing “contact time” (we would regard this the most valuable time of interaction with your group and tutors) in design projects.
“more students require more input, more space and more costs (but in the long run more profit).”
“the students contribute in very constructive ways to cut more costs” (are that the same student bodies that are totally dependent on the management for their own budget?)
“its not so much tuition that accounts for financial problems but research” (so let's cut that part, which university needs research anyway?)
group sizes from 8 to 9 students or 16 to 18 students. on the same square meters there will be 9 instead of 8 students.
studio guidance can be reduced from 20 days to 18, to be realized as less guidance just before presentations (please let us know if this makes sense to anybody).
reduction of studio guidance for graduation students from one day a week to one day every two weeks. this can be realized with a voucher system in which student can "BUY" time from their tutors (maybe we can even introduce a tutor stock exchange in order to measure their market value).
1 in 10 tutors in the bachelor can be replaced by a student mentor (they come cheap).
introduce the eindhoven model where groups (of 9) are put together in larger groups of for example 54 to pool their 5 tutors. in this way there is always at least one tutor in the studio! (you can imagine where this is going to lead).
school-like teaching methods "designing you do like this!" are being developed (perfect to produce masses of generic archi zombies).
“in the long run this leads to less guidance in the masters” (or the most important part of our education).
“part of the teaching [in the masters] can be done on a large scale. imagine that courses are reduced from 30 to 10” (yes, imagine…).
international students in the masters can be "maximized" from about 200 now to 100 in the future.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
the peaceful action of hanging BAG posters at the dedicated poster boards was counteracted immediately by bad management and the bouwkunde security service. all posters were immediately removed and the ones hanging them were confronted by security guards. only after some resistance did management allow posters to remain hanging and be seen.
the following day all posters were gone.
On Thursday October 15th some of you may have seen posters signed by Bouwkunde Action Group on the faculty announcement boards. The agit-prop was directed at the Faculty and University management as well as to the Government, and took advantage of the presence of suits and journalists attending the expensive inauguration of Oost Serre, hoping to tap into the attention BK received that day. We would like to take advantage of this opportunity to communicate directly with the body of students and to raise consciousness regarding current events affecting our studies and the future of our disciplines.
1. Trust is one of the pillars of our society. We place our money in banks because we trust them. When our trust is lost, we withdraw the money, unless we trust the government will guarantee it.
2. When we go to study, we trust the Education Ministry and the University to offer the necessary education in the field we choose. We trust the faculty will supply the best and most dedicated teachers available, the necessary facilities and framework.
3. We do not trust the Government, the University or the Faculty anymore: we see changes underway which are focused at cost cutting and streamlining education, we see a reduction of the teaching staff, an abandonment of content, a managerial focus on budget, growing numbers of students, and we no longer believe the university or faculty is interested in providing the best possible education!
4. We understand the current cuts are the consequence of years of bad management. They are brute cost saving measurements that intend to stabilize the institution at the expense of education and research, emulating neoliberal policies and violating the social contract.
5. If we, as students, are paying the price of bad management – which seems to be one of the excuses circulating – then the question must be asked – WHY? Why does our education need to suffer because of bad management? Where is the responsibility (of the faculty, of the university, of the government)?
6. We, as students, have kept a distance from the budget and bad management disputes in the faculty of which we know little.
7. Now we see that we are the ones who will pay the price for errors and mistakes of bad management and questionable policies of the Government and University. Therefore we have formed the Bouwkunde Action Group to protest the situation.
8. Let us recite some of the conditions which we are already encountering:
A. More students per year and per class
B. Less teachers
C. Less support staff (e-point opening times, secretaries etc)
D. Less engaged and young teachers
E. Less women and foreigners as teachers
F. Less elective courses
G. Limited amount of graduation studios
H. Ridiculous 15 minutes per student per week with studio teacher.
I. Overworked Teachers pre-occupied with other tasks (support tasks etc)
J. Insufficient and inadequate facilities.
K. Stagnant curricula
9. TUDelft, according to some international university ratings, is rated 15th best university in the world within technologies. Such ratings will not be maintained by disinvestment in education and research.
10. Instead of endless discussions about budget, we demand vision. We demand quality teachers. We need a rethinking of curriculum directed by quality and relevance rather than by managerial and budget considerations.
11. Student organizations, which are supposed to represent our interests, accommodate the demands of the bad management rather than of the students. This in our view is called student repression.
12. Discussions about our concerns are relegated to obscure committees with little influence and no voice.
13. The teacher evaluations we have filled out in the last years seem to have amounted to nothing, with some of the most appreciated teachers losing their positions due to the budget crunch.
14. The way the faculty handled our protest - security guards ordered to stop us from putting up posters, trying to search our bags and removing posters from dedicated! poster areas - exemplifies the direction bad management is heading: a faculty where coherence and image is protected at all cost and any form of dissent is directly seen as a threat!
15. As we do not trust the institution – we do not trust it will be FAIR – we prefer to remain anonymous at this stage. If you subscribe to the points above, identities are of less importance.
16. If you agree with our views, please stop being afraid of bad management and subscribe to our mailing list at BouwkundeActionGroup@gmail.com. Together we will prepare a public petition for straight dialogue, responsibility and transparency to the people in charge of this appalling situation.
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