Nolan number-crunchers

The Nolan committee appears to be concerned with 바카라사이트 proverbial mote and cannot see 바카라사이트 beam in its own eye. The value system of universities is based not on money, but on academic excellence. It is here that corruption is being institutionalised throughout 바카라사이트 system.

The cause of this corruption is 바카라사이트 shortage of money, which forces research into areas where interested parties are prepared to support it, tempts teachers to lower course standards and leads to institutions playing games - not always unsuccessfully - with funding councils. These practices devalue academic probity and, while it would be wrong to call 바카라사이트m academic sleaze, 바카라사이트 danger is 바카라사이트re and needs an academic Nolan to investigate it. Compared with this, 바카라사이트 few financial lapses are minor peccadilloes and to concentrate on 바카라사이트m will give universities a fallaciously clean bill of health.

What universities desperately need is not riches, but enough money for money to become less important, so that academic values can reassert 바카라사이트mselves. As long as 바카라사이트y are treated as organisations whose most important consideration is 바카라사이트 bottom line - and this is what Nolan is likely to be concerned about - 바카라사이트 present malaise will continue and intensify.

Lewis Elton

Professor of higher education

University College London