Telstra cuts

[twinkles**stars]

1100 employees to lose their jobs 😞

[the_hawk*]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

I agree with most of that - the only thing I don't agree with is the generalization about the long term planning. I raise the issue of the current education reforms, the effects of which will not start to be realized until 2018. 

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WOW all the way to 2018

thats not long term planning. and while education is important there are so many other things that are equally if not more important like what are all these kids going to do after they have a wonderful education after they have spend 15 years being educated. They need jobs, everyone needs a job

[*crikey*mate*]

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@just_me_karen wrote:
Previous governments have nothing to do with the topic. How is it even vaguely relevant to telstra's billions of dollars of profit this year and their decision to slash their local workforce? Spurious argument, IMO.

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Tell Martini

[*crikey*mate*]

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@the_hawk* wrote:

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@crikey*mate wrote:

I agree with most of that - the only thing I don't agree with is the generalization about the long term planning. I raise the issue of the current education reforms, the effects of which will not start to be realized until 2018. 

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WOW all the way to 2018

thats not long term planning. and while education is important there are so many other things that are equally if not more important like what are all these kids going to do after they have a wonderful education after they have spend 15 years being educated. They need jobs, everyone needs a job

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I agree 

[just_me_karen]

Why?

[the_hawk*]

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@just_me_karen wrote:
Why?

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are you asking why they need jobs?

[i-need-a-martini]

We don't pander to the internationals over our own - that is rediculous. IMO the internationals raise the standards and expectations - so maybe one day our standards will be on equal footing with the rest of the world.

I won't respond to much of the other stuff because quite frankly you are incorrect and it way off topic anyway

However I will repond to the sentence above - I still teach one subject a semester undergrads. A huge majority are internationals. Most are here because their parents have forced them or because they hope to stay in the country so will flow onto postgrad studies afterwards.

Their standards are so appalling that it is the single most depressing factor for most teachers.

If I marked fairly, I would say 80% would fail every assignment. However, I am not allowed to fail them - firstly because they pay ridiculous amounts of money to study here. Secondly because (unlike our Australian students) they have an intensive support system that lobbies faculty heads and deans on their behalf if they do fail. Thirdly because the aim is to get them through the system and out of our hair as quickly as possible.

So tell me - if I have to give a 'pass' to an international student who has done an horrendous job on an assignment or who plagiarised someone elses work, where do you think that leaves the Australian students who have done an ordinary job and in all fairness probably should have failed also? Well if the worst of the worst international student gets a pass, then I have to grade assignments fomr other students who have submitted ridiculously substandard work with a pass or a credit.

This means that the students are being shunted through the university system with marks that make them look good when in fact they should have been booted out of uni the first year.

You want to know when our university standards WERE the best in the world? It was when we offered an education for free. When the reason you got into uni wasn't because you were one of the few who could afford to pay the fees but because you were clever and motivated regardless of your background or your parents financial situation.

It's no coincidence that the most intelligent and intellectual minds in this countries history came out of a free uni system introduced by Whitlam.

You think having international students raises the standards and expectations of education generally? What a laugh.

[just_me_karen]

If you click on the "in reply to" link you can see which post I'm responding to.

[green.fields]

Wow, passing students when they should fail. What next.

[i-need-a-martini]

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@roserobin12 wrote:
Wow, passing students when they should fail. What next.

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When an international student forks out up to $200,000 for a basic 4 year degree (Sydney uni yearly fees for law next year are just over $40,000 per year), then they kind of have a fair degree of influence and an expectation that they will pass.

That is the level we have degraded our tertiary system to by relying on International Students to 'contribute' to funding of our education system.

[*ibis]

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@just_me_karen wrote:
If you click on the "in reply to" link you can see which post I'm responding to.

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you learn something new every day. have a kudo

are you asking why they need jobs?