Evolving Thoughts

Such a short honeymoon

[Australian politics: look away]

Oh dear. It took only seven days for the shine to wear off the Labor victory. Julia Gillard has outlined the priorities for education: computers and trades training centres in schools. Yep, that’s right, the single most important aspect of education in Australia is trade education and toys.

Never mind that the past 20 years has seen a decline in tertiary education funding by governments of both stripes, so that universities now have to attract overseas students in full fee paying courses to survive. It’s all about trades. And toys.

Now I do not think that trade education is a minor concern. Australia lacks the trade skills, such as industrial engineering, that it needs to capitalise on the resources boom, sure. But no government has noted or acted on the fact that tertiary education is about more than commerce and industry. Where is the funding for the culturally important humanities? History, yes, philosophy, classics, languages, literature – funding has declined to the point where it is entirely possible, and I think likely, that these will be taught in three of Australia’s 70-odd tertiary institutions, in Sydney and Melbourne and Canberra, and nowhere else.

Humanities faculties are shrinking. Basic science research is shrinking. Competitive ARC grants are less attainable, especially by new scholars, than ever before. So if it doesn’t have something to do with mining, agriculture, business, medicine or, ironically, politics, kiss it goodbye.

Labor, unlike the conservatives, has less antipathy to intellectuals, but only certain kinds of intellectuals are funded. It seems to me that education at secondary and tertiary level has a lot more than economic significance. We make a civilised society if people actually think about the not-for-profit aspects of our nation.

I had hoped that Ms Gillard would revive some of this. Not greatly, as history is against me, but there remained the hope that she might actually return to the standards of Gough Whitlam, and treat education in itself as a necessity for a decent society.

So, anyone got a job in philosophy of science I might apply for outside Australia? And would the last philosopher to leave the nation please turn out the lights?

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Comments (22)

  1. One of those dickheads was on the radio the other day, referring to Julia Gillard’s portfolios of Industrial Relations and Education as “work, and training for work”. I could have spewed. As the sole purposed of education was to line you up at the factory door.
    And as a graduate student (and I’m sure you feel this too, John), I thoroughly resent the implication that what I do won’t have any merit until I finish. I guess I’d better un-publish those papers and do them again when I cost the university (and the government) approximately 5 times as much per hour…
    I’m handing in my thesis this week and THEN I’LL SHOW THEM! I’ll take my expensive PhD and bugger off back to NZ, never to enrich their precious economy. Mwahahaha.

  2. I think you need to get into activism. Start a Million Bruce March (even your politicians should understand the reference).
    Bob

  3. I think you need to get into activism. Start a Million Bruce March (even your politicians should understand the reference).
    Bob

  4. I think you need to get into activism. Start a Million Bruce March (even your politicians should understand the reference).
    Bob

  5. I think you need to get into activism. Start a Million Bruce March (even your politicians should understand the reference).
    Bob

  6. I think you need to get into activism. Start a Million Bruce March (even your politicians should understand the reference).
    Bob

  7. Oh why?!
    Why do they not understand?!
    The power!
    The power of the great poet!
    The power of the poet
    with the great quill in his hand.
    They fear
    They know they fear
    They fear what they know
    That which is deep inside.
    And they think
    They think they can
    They think they can hide it
    Hide it from the world
    With Mammon?
    Fools!

  9. Ah for the days of my youth when education was for educations sake (well it was for me) and even politicians understood that a strong democracy needs a knowledgeable populace willing to learn and understand.
    It is sad to see people choosing what they’ll do a degree in based on the job prospects, especially as the job prospects change.
    A world filled with lawyers & politicians with nary a philosopher, mathematician, scientist or engineer to be seen outside India and China.

  10. Ah for the days of my youth when education was for educations sake (well it was for me) and even politicians understood that a strong democracy needs a knowledgeable populace willing to learn and understand.
    It is sad to see people choosing what they’ll do a degree in based on the job prospects, especially as the job prospects change.
    A world filled with lawyers & politicians with nary a philosopher, mathematician, scientist or engineer to be seen outside India and China.

  11. Ah for the days of my youth when education was for educations sake (well it was for me) and even politicians understood that a strong democracy needs a knowledgeable populace willing to learn and understand.
    It is sad to see people choosing what they’ll do a degree in based on the job prospects, especially as the job prospects change.
    A world filled with lawyers & politicians with nary a philosopher, mathematician, scientist or engineer to be seen outside India and China.

  12. Ah for the days of my youth when education was for educations sake (well it was for me) and even politicians understood that a strong democracy needs a knowledgeable populace willing to learn and understand.
    It is sad to see people choosing what they’ll do a degree in based on the job prospects, especially as the job prospects change.
    A world filled with lawyers & politicians with nary a philosopher, mathematician, scientist or engineer to be seen outside India and China.

  13. Ah for the days of my youth when education was for educations sake (well it was for me) and even politicians understood that a strong democracy needs a knowledgeable populace willing to learn and understand.
    It is sad to see people choosing what they’ll do a degree in based on the job prospects, especially as the job prospects change.
    A world filled with lawyers & politicians with nary a philosopher, mathematician, scientist or engineer to be seen outside India and China.

  14. Corporate philosophers? I fear they’d become word whores pretty quickly. As indeed they have in the religious domain (Nick Tonti-Filippini being an example).
    I doubt that Labor, even under Rudd, will reignite the Enlightenment (and yes Alex, I got the joke – I even intended it) if humanist education is restricted to the wealthy, and they will least take advantage of it, despite some honourable exceptions. Bush may have helped continue to smother it, but I think that the rise of the new Conservatism in the 1980s under Reagan delivered the coup de grâce.

  15. I feel you protest too much John. Tertiary Education is on the way, be patient. Your right, our world seems to have passed, Gough’s free education I was originally able to take advantage of. Alas not now, as to the enlightenment, it has been hidden in the US under GWB, and only now will be reconstituted here under Kevin Rudd.
    Surely some of these large corporations could do with a resident philosopher, see, I am trying to empathise these days now all I do is drive a taxi around Frankston.

  16. I feel you protest too much John. Tertiary Education is on the way, be patient. Your right, our world seems to have passed, Gough’s free education I was originally able to take advantage of. Alas not now, as to the enlightenment, it has been hidden in the US under GWB, and only now will be reconstituted here under Kevin Rudd.
    Surely some of these large corporations could do with a resident philosopher, see, I am trying to empathise these days now all I do is drive a taxi around Frankston.

  22. Yes, and that is good. But it’s not a major step in one way, in that it is easy to achieve. Fixing education is hard work, and not seeing it as a major priority bodes ill for the next three tears.

Comments are closed.