Unemployment among Australian university graduates

The article below by Cat Moir is generally sensible even though it is from a strongly Leftist source.  In the last of her words below she sees a paradox that is not, however.  It is a widely held view that all speech should be free except speech that promotes violence.  And it is pretty clear that Muslim teaching leads in the direction of violence.  Jihad is not a Presbyterian idea and the Middle East is hardly an oasis of peace.  So careful oversight of Muslim speech is warranted caution


On 8 January, Quality Indicators for Teaching and Learning (QILT) published the results of the 2017 Employer Satisfaction Survey. The survey stated that 84% of employers were satisfied overall with the skills of the university graduates they employed, with 93% saying that the graduates they employed were prepared ‘very well’, or ‘well’ for their current employment.

Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham released a statement on the survey, saying that these results were encouraging because they allow students to compare how courses “are viewed by their prospective employers as part of a clearer picture of our higher education system”. According to Senator Birmingham, the survey will allow students to make better decisions “when considering the courses and careers they choose to embark on”.

However, as QILT’s Graduate Outcomes Survey also makes clear, whatever path they embark on, up to 38% of graduates leaving Australian universities today will not find full-time work. According to that data, the last decade has seen a rise of 17% in the number of university leavers in part-time employment.

In response to these figures, Senator Birmingham demands “more accountability of universities for the students they take on”. He insists that universities must “take responsibility” for the outcomes of their graduates.

One might be tempted to argue at this juncture that universities are not just employability factories, but rather spaces for intellectual enquiry, self-discovery, and collective endeavour. Whatever their remit, though, no university would dispute that HE institutions must do everything in their power to provide students with the best possible standard of education, encouragement, and support.

But even if we conceive of the role of universities only in narrow economic terms, the implication that what happens within their walls can or should somehow guarantee the outcomes of students once they leave the campus and enter an increasingly volatile and precarious global labour market is false.

As the GOS makes clear, one of the main causes of the increase in part-time graduate work was the GFC in 2008: a less stable global labour market, combined with an influx of increasingly highly-qualified young people, makes it more difficult to get a job.

The paradox here, if you hadn’t already guessed, is that if the point of universities is supposed to be to produce employable graduates, then there have to be jobs in which these graduates can be employed. But that is not something for which universities can be held responsible.

In the UK, the universities sector has confronted both a type-1 and a type-2 paradox this last week. Since they’re related, let’s group them together as the ‘freedom of speech paradox’.

The UK government has recently established a new Office for Students, a regulatory body that merges HEFCE and the Office for Fair Access. It has extensive powers: it will administer university funding, degree award powers, university title, the Teaching and Research Excellence Frameworks for measuring academic performance, and fair access to higher education.

It will also be responsible for ensuring that universities allow freedom of speech for controversial guest speakers.

The freedom of speech issue is familiar here in Australia: it has to do with universities no-platforming figures who publicly espouse violently racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory views.

The argument of no-platforming advocates is that ‘free speech’ is so often used as a cover by those whose right to speak has historically been protected (more or less well off white men) to incite hatred and even violence towards those whose right to speak has historically not enjoyed the same protection: women, people of colour, gender non-binary people, the poor.

Whatever stance one takes on the no-platforming issue, it seems to be irreconcilable with the OfS’ other duty: to enforce the government’s Prevent strategy, which is designed to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism by — among other things — monitoring the potential presence of extremist views on campus.

The OfS is therefore in the (type-1) paradoxical situation of having to say that universities must protect the freedom of controversial figures to speak on campus… except if they’re a radical Islamist, in which case they will be no-platformed after all.

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Grade School's Anti-Border Wall Posters Describe Police as Predators
   
At first glance, the posters displayed inside classrooms at El Camino del Rio/River Road Elementary School seemed innocuous. “Immigrants Welcome,” the posters read.

But there was more. There was a drawing that included wire cutters and a barbed-wire fence. And there was more writing:

“The border is not a wall — it’s a system of control. It doesn’t protect people; it pits them against each other. It doesn’t foster togetherness; it breeds resentment. It doesn’t keep out predators; it gives them badges and guns,” the poster read.

Yes, patriots, the grade school posters described police officers as predators.

“The border does not divide one world from another. There is only one world, and the border is tearing it apart,” the poster read.

Eugene, Oregon, radio station KLCC reports there was also a website address on the posters directing readers to a pro-anarchist website called Crimethinc.com.

Crimethinc describes itself as a “rebel alliance” and an “international network of aspiring revolutionaries extending from Kansas to Kuala Lumpur.” The organization is a “secret society pledged to the propagation of crimethink.”

So why would teachers at an elementary school expose children to a self-proclaimed “international network of aspiring revolutionaries”?

A spokesperson for the local school district told the Todd Starnes Radio Show they were not aware the posters originated from an organization with anarchist leanings. The spokesperson also refuted the National Public Radio station’s report that the posters included the organization’s website.

“There was no website link on the posters at the school,” the spokesperson said. “It appears that a related or original poster design included a link to a website at the bottom of the poster, but that was not included on the posters at the school.”

Over winter break, construction workers noticed the propaganda posters and tore them off the walls, prompting outrage from the school district as well as local residents.

It seems to me the construction workers committed an act of public service — but the school district argued that it was vandalism.

Meanwhile, the school spokesperson confirmed to the Todd Starnes Radio Show that some of the anarchist-related posters have been replaced.

“It’s important for all families to feel safe and welcome in our schools,” the spokesperson said. “School and district staff are processing how best to show support for students and families of all immigration statuses.”

Well, for starters, the school district could discourage students from taking up arms against the federal government by waging anarchy in the streets.

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Academic freedom in Hong Kong 'under threat'

New report highlights growing crackdown on dissident academics and increased political interference in campus affairs

Academic freedom in Hong Kong is under threat from a growing backlash from China against recent pro-democracy demonstrations, a new study claims.

While the report by Hong Kong Watch, a UK-based human rights advocacy group founded last year, states that academic freedom is “alive and well” in Hong Kong, it highlights three emerging trends that have sought to limit free speech on campus.

These are the removal of controversial academic figures from their posts or efforts to block the promotion of dissident lecturers; the rise of state-appointed and politically-connected figures who are governing universities in a manner divorced from the will of students and faculty; and a growing push to limit freedom of speech without any legal basis.

The report, titled Academic Freedom in Hong Kong since 2015: Between Two Systems, was written by Kevin Carrico, a lecturer at Macquarie University, in Australia, who is an expert on China and Hong Kong. It was launched on 22 January ahead of a debate on democracy in Hong Kong in the UK’s House of Commons which will be led by Fiona Bruce MP, the chair of the Conservative Party's Human Rights Commission.

The report is also due to be cited by Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, in the House of Lords, whose own report on human rights and freedoms in Hong Kong caused controversy after Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam denounced it as “foreign meddling”.

Commenting on the growing clampdown on free speech on campus, Dr Carrico said the global reputation of Hong Kong’s universities will suffer if these trends continue.

“These trends suggest that elements of academic control in place elsewhere in China are gradually being incorporated into the Hong Kong system, threatening the city’s academic freedom and thus its universities’ reputations,” said Dr Carrico.

The report calls for local academic freedom monitoring groups to raise awareness of infringements of academic freedom and that educators should openly confront “taboo” topics in Hong Kong.

It also urges Hong Kong to scrap the tradition which has seen the city’s chief executive – currently Carrie Lam – appointed as the chancellor to all of Hong Kong’s universities. The arrangement stems from the time when Hong Kong was a British colonial outpost and its governor held a largely ceremonial role at the city’s universities, the report says.

However, the appointment is now more problematic as it politicises the position given the chief executive’s influence, says the report.

“Chief executives are chosen by and thus primarily accountable to the Chinese government, far from a neutral party on matters of academic freedom,” noted Dr Carrico.

“The two most recent chief executives have made comments that demonstrate insufficient dedication and even hostility to the academic freedom and freedom of speech central to academic inquiry in Hong Kong,” he added.

Benedict Rogers, founder of Hong Kong Watch and its chairman of trustees, said he was “delighted to release this comprehensive account of violations of academic freedom since 2015,” adding that “academic freedom is a right enshrined in basic law.”

“Hong Kong has some of the finest universities in the world [and] their reputation depends on their independence,” said Mr Rogers, who said he was “concerned that this independence appears under threat.”

“While academic freedom still exists in Hong Kong, we are concerned by the direction of travel and will watch to ensure that the rights enshrined in basic law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration are upheld,” said Mr Rogers, who was recently barred from entering Hong Kong.

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