quote:

Originally posted by occrider Now, think logically for a second, why do you suppose that is?

Can't figure this one out. Help!

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Now, think logically for a second, why do you suppose that is?

heh.

___________________

It has to start somewhere,
It has to start sometime,
What better place then here?
What better time than now?
--Rage Against the Machine

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic As to the main point of the thread: I work in research in a Danish university, as a supervisor/teacher, and have been through the Danish education system. In my mind there is a lot of things wrong with it, but none of them are echoed in the article, whereas the problems mentioned in the article are mostly unheard of in this country. I guess that there is no such thing as an "European education system".

You are correct, the article does not attempt to describe the European education system as a whole so much as financing universities so perhaps I should have titled the thread differentely. The article does mention that some of the smaller European nations maintain excellent schools such as Finland, Holland, and perhaps Denmark, however, the article focuses on the education system and quality of universities in the larger nations such as Germany, France, and primarily Britain (No surprise there since the economist is a British news periodical).

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That being said, if one of my students had handed in an article such as this one, I would be all over him for the omissions and unjustified generalizations that it contain. I cannot believe that it is written in an investigative spirit, by a unbiased author. It seems to take as apriori facts that the *quality* of education in Europe is bad, and from there it philosophises on why that may be so, and seems to end up with it being the lack of privatization of educational institutions, sprinkled with "sunshine"-stories from single institutions around the EU. For me, that is worthless speculation, although it was nice to be provoked to reconsider my views on education.

I don't think the article "philosophises" on what may be lacking at all, so much as it analyzes the charactersistics of what is working and what is not necessarily working to arrive at its conclusions. First it takes the result of a study published by the European Commission which revealed that out of the top 50 universities in the world, only Oxford and Cambridge made it into the top 10 whilst no other EU country had a university ranked higher than 40. Of the top 50 in total, all but 15 universities were American. So then ... wouldn't it be a fair conjecture to say that there must be something being done right in the US university system as compared to the EU to yield such results? It seems logical that the likely problem is due to funding and how the curriculum is designed. How does the European model in general derive funding and curriculum? Through the government. How does the US model derive funding and curriculum? Largely through private funding with the curriculum being defined by the university itself. Therefore it is no far stretch of the imagination to theorize that the success of the American universities is due to its privatization. The teachers are paid more money, competition is feirce, and most programs are generally well-funded. Granted the article does not critique the system as a whole in a scientific manner, but it's an article not a federally-funded analysis of the education system, what did you expect? Keep in mind that this is a periodical, not a newspaper.

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As an aside, we have, in the research unit I'm in, a visiting professor from the US on sabatical with us. During a dinner, where I sat next to him, he described the institution he resides in normally (some 25000 students at the institute he works in). He used the words "it's not education, it's a factory", which somehow suggest to me that the education system in the US is not that great. Furthermore, when visiting the San Francisco Bay area two years ago, I received a guided tour at the computer science department of Berkeley. From what I saw, I would not hesitate in stating that the physical framework of the university I work in, is more suited for education than that which I observed at Berkeley. In addition to this, the description of the education at Berkeley left me with some reservations. The students had relatively little courses, and were mostly left with reading books on their own - which, in my view, is a pretty inefficient way of teaching stuff. True, the lectures were given by hot shots in computer science, and a lot of familar names were posted on the doors at the department, but intellect and fame sadly give no guarantee of good teaching skills.

And apparentely many of the European schools are factories as well.

Ultimately it's not your own experience of visiting one department of one university in the US or the words of one visiting teacher that is indicative of the quality of the system as a whole. It's the results that they yield and how these schools compare with each other.

By the way ... does anybody know if Berkley is even supposed to have a good comp sci program? Hehe I always thought of it as a pretty heavily oriented liberal arts school. You should check out MIT or CMU hehe.

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Can't figure this one out. Help!

Because most Europeans he's probably been exposed to are likely from his tenure at the american international school in vienna. Most students there are probably a lot brighter in general than the dumbasses at his high school in podunk Jersey hehe.

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Retro ...

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Originally posted by occrider First it takes the result of a study published by the European Commission which revealed that out of the top 50 universities in the world, only Oxford and Cambridge made it into the top 10 whilst no other EU country had a university ranked higher than 40. Of the top 50 in total, all but 15 universities were American. So then ... wouldn't it be a fair conjecture to say that there must be something being done right in the US university system as compared to the EU to yield such results?

It *would* be fair to say that something is being done right in the US universities. I would never contest that, and I hope that wasn't the way my post came across. However, before I subscribe to the view that something is wrong with european universities, I would love to know what measure these universities were ranked by? Frankly, I would find such information more relevant, than that the researchers were from Shanghai or the "fact" that it was painstaking. Was it the yearly throughput of students? The average starting salary of the graduates? Production of above average referred papers? Or was it brand-recognition by company executives? Any one of these would be an obvious measure if you regard universities as "factories" - which I guess most politicians do - but none of them reflects what I believe to be the main qualities of universities as educational institutions.
That the US universities have more money and that the graduates are more sought out by the private sector, I don't think can be solely ascribed to the quality of the education. I think it has much to do with the nature of the educational matters - applied research are naturally more appealing to companies than basic research which might be used in ten years and might never be used at all.

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Originally posted by occrider It seems logical that the likely problem is due to funding and how the curriculum is designed. How does the European model in general derive funding and curriculum? Through the government.

Again, I can only speak on behalf of the university I work at, but we do have external funding, and also from funding institutions. We do not have any tuition fees, but receive a fixed sum from the government per candidate we "produce". The curriculum is set (and continuously revised) by the university study boards, inside regulations set forth by the government. However, these regulations are of a "lower bound"-nature and as such present little limitation on the curriculum.

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Originally posted by occrider Ultimately it's not your own experience of visiting one department of one university in the US or the words of one visiting teacher that is indicative of the quality of the system as a whole. It's the results that they yield and how these schools compare with each other.

Yes, I realize that I cannot generalize from two examples, which was why I put it as an aside
It did complement the sweeping generalizations in the article nicely, though...

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Because most Europeans he's probably been exposed to are likely from his tenure at the american international school in vienna. Most students there are probably a lot brighter in general than the dumbasses at his high school in podunk Jersey hehe.

Ah, didn't know that - makes me feel less depressed about my lack of logical thinking ability.

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Originally posted by trancaholic It *would* be fair to say that something is being done right in the US universities. I would never contest that, and I hope that wasn't the way my post came across. However, before I subscribe to the view that something is wrong with european universities, I would love to know what measure these universities were ranked by? Frankly, I would find such information more relevant, than that the researchers were from Shanghai or the "fact" that it was painstaking. Was it the yearly throughput of students? The average starting salary of the graduates? Production of above average referred papers? Or was it brand-recognition by company executives? Any one of these would be an obvious measure if you regard universities as "factories" - which I guess most politicians do - but none of them reflects what I believe to be the main qualities of universities as educational institutions. That the US universities have more money and that the graduates are more sought out by the private sector, I don't think can be solely ascribed to the quality of the education. I think it has much to do with the nature of the educational matters - applied research are naturally more appealing to companies than basic research which might be used in ten years and might never be used at all.

Well from what I can figure out, the methodology from the rankings published by the European commission were: "several indicators of research performance, including the number of highly cited researchers, academic performance, the prevalence of articles published in the scientific journals Science and Nature, and the number of Nobel laureates produced within the hallowed halls of these centres of learning." Whether these indicators are truly indicative of the quality of a university I guess is somewhat subjective. I don't think that this research study alone is necessarily indicative of "problems" with the European education system, and for my perception on that issue, I rely upon the facts reported that many universities (at least in britain) have very little funds, amount of money devoted to education, % of population who attain tertiary education, teachers are typically poorly paid, and apparentely there have been a number of education scandals in various countries. Granted I'm placing a lot of reliance on the credibility of the economist, but typically it doesn't resort to crap journalism. And if this were an american article trying to analyze the european eudcation system I probably would place much credence in it.

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Again, I can only speak on behalf of the university I work at, but we do have external funding, and also from funding institutions. We do not have any tuition fees, but receive a fixed sum from the government per candidate we "produce". The curriculum is set (and continuously revised) by the university study boards, inside regulations set forth by the government. However, these regulations are of a "lower bound"-nature and as such present little limitation on the curriculum.

Well of course the periodical doesn't speak for all universities. I don't doubt at all that your university is quite excellent. And in the case where government involvement is minimal to the point where it is not stifling the university's accomplishments as it appears to be in your case, then the university can indeed prosper. What I think the article is focusing on are some of the schools in the larger countries which appear to be on average poorly mismanaged.

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Yes, I realize that I cannot generalize from two examples, which was why I put it as an aside It did complement the sweeping generalizations in the article nicely, though...

Well apparentely you don't need to worry about the concerns the article makes. However it appears to be a concern for the brits which is probably why they are passing sweeping education reform

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Well from what I can figure out, the methodology from the rankings published by the European commission were: "several indicators of research performance, including the number of highly cited researchers, academic performance, the prevalence of articles published in the scientific journals Science and Nature, and the number of Nobel laureates produced within the hallowed halls of these centres of learning." Whether these indicators are truly indicative of the quality of a university I guess is somewhat subjective.

I must agree, and I think it's somewhat interesting to take note of the two journals posted here - Science and Nature. Now naturally, I know it's probably understood why they chose these two journals as their marker - they are the most prestigious and the most strictest in the peer-reviewed process in comparison to other scientific journals. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the research is the most compelling in these two journals, nor does it mean that researchers are always trying to shoot for these 2 journals with their work.

It's common knowledge now that research has overtaken the priority of teaching in US colleges. I can't speak for foreign higher education. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but throughout my years in college and personally knowing a number of my professors, I've noticed a trend of declining teaching skills as a result of the focus shift on research. Whether or not this is because professors themselves focus their time less on teaching, or the universities hire those researchers who bring in the big grants with fewer teaching skills, I don't know. My guess is it's a little of both. But I've personally experienced it with a couple of professors who just simply can't teach a lick, yet they bring in millions in grants to the school and will never get scrutinized as a result.

Now does this necessarily have a huge impact on the students as a whole? Honestly I don't know, but I do find it discouraging, as I'm sure my sentiments are shared by others. So despite US universities having a leg up on their foreign competitors, I thought I'd just share that little tidbit.

As for the article you posted, it's too long for me to read and I'm just too damn laaaaazy. Don't you have any pictures instead? I like those better.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1 I must agree, and I think it's somewhat interesting to take note of the two journals posted here - Science and Nature. Now naturally, I know it's probably understood why they chose these two journals as their marker - they are the most prestigious and the most strictest in the peer-reviewed process in comparison to other scientific journals. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the research is the most compelling in these two journals, nor does it mean that researchers are always trying to shoot for these 2 journals with their work. It's common knowledge now that research has overtaken the priority of teaching in US colleges. I can't speak for foreign higher education. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but throughout my years in college and personally knowing a number of my professors, I've noticed a trend of declining teaching skills as a result of the focus shift on research. Whether or not this is because professors themselves focus their time less on teaching, or the universities hire those researchers who bring in the big grants with fewer teaching skills, I don't know. My guess is it's a little of both. But I've personally experienced it with a couple of professors who just simply can't teach a lick, yet they bring in millions in grants to the school and will never get scrutinized as a result. Now does this necessarily have a huge impact on the students as a whole? Honestly I don't know, but I do find it discouraging, as I'm sure my sentiments are shared by others. So despite US universities having a leg up on their foreign competitors, I thought I'd just share that little tidbit.

Point duly noted. However it's simply far too difficult to make any kind of ranking of a university on the basis of most student performance indicators. Factors such as grades, turnover ratio, entrance standards, etc., are all subjective to the university in question. The only real ranking one can make is that of the performance of the actual uni i suppose. One would hope that the excellence in performance is then transferred to the student. Otherwise, in the long run, the overall performance will decline as students become less bright, and there are fewere researchers, laureates, etc.

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As for the article you posted, it's too long for me to read and I'm just too damn laaaaazy. Don't you have any pictures instead? I like those better.

I included 2 or 3 graphs especially for you. They use all sorts of pretty colors!

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 It's common knowledge now that research has overtaken the priority of teaching in US colleges. I can't speak for foreign higher education. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but throughout my years in college and personally knowing a number of my professors, I've noticed a trend of declining teaching skills as a result of the focus shift on research.

I could imagine that this trend (if it exists) has something to do with ever increasing numbers of students. When you teach to a small crowd, you can at least recognize some of the people and thus feel that it is actual individuals you are helping along. When you face 500+ students it might be more difficult to get involved in your teaching. Just a thought.

About your Science and Nature comment: I can confirm that they are not seen as "targets" by everyone. In computer science, for instance, proceedings from big conferences are where the credit lies. Nobody around me reads Nature nor Science, but most tend to skim through conference proceedings - however, I doubt anyone would deny Nature the right to run their article

Occrider: Thanks for clearing up the measurement issue. To me it seems like a set of ok and not-so-ok measures, so I guess I should accept the conclusion (with caution though).

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Originally posted by trancaholic Ah, didn't know that - makes me feel less depressed about my lack of logical thinking ability.

heh. don't worry about it.
but what occrider has said is very true. I credit my international background to leading me to believe that Europeans are smarter than Americans...the children, teenagers, young adults, etc. at least.

___________________

It has to start somewhere,
It has to start sometime,
What better place then here?
What better time than now?
--Rage Against the Machine