I am re-posting the attached article in this morning’s Guardian because it is the most worrying thing that I have read in a while – so ostensibly matter-of-fact in its tone, but so much the more effective and brutal as a result, just a statement of what it feels like to be a university academic in an environment where internationalism is contracting and there is a loss of understanding of the real value of education, not just as a passport to a career:-
Education like the health service reduced to a commodity. It makes me despair.
Thanks for the link. It is indeed a depressing article, but my sympathy is with Prof. Schmidt. Europe is not the only beneficiary of the sad climate in British higher education. A friend of mine at an English university left last year for a professorship in the USA, much as I did nearly thirty years ago when things looked bad enough even though they were not as appalling as they would seem to be now. Germany is a major winner, knowing how to lure academics. In my own case, the appointment to a permanent fellowship of a German advanced study institute in 2016 means that Germany (in pre-COVID 19 times) has become my European base for two months each year (when I’m not in New York City or Cambridge, Massachusetts). I haven’t been to England since then, and have no plans to go there.
Dear Ivan, Yes, it’s sad, but sadly true – and only the beginning of what is likely to be a long process. At least, I see that Oxford remains, at least for the time being, top of the international league tables, while Cambridge has dropped to sixth. Charles