[geeks] Q: Regarding Linux in K-12 education

[Mike Meredith]

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:58:52 +0200, gsm at mendelson.com wrote:
> Again we go back to the point of the original question. It was not
> partial deployment, it was total replacment. Which in that case, I
> think that you just agreed with me. 

With perhaps a slightly different slant on things.

> I expect you are living in one. The only ones that are still going

I suspect I'm not (and I've slightly more experience of the UK HE
sector having worked within it for just about 20 years). Out of the
Times World University rankings, there are five top UK Universities
_all_ of which gained places since 2004 (with one exception - Oxford who
remained the same position - 5).

Whilst there has been a very great increase in the number of students
working for degrees over the last 60 years, it doesn't mean that the
hard degrees have gotten any harder. Of course a 'media studies' degree
may not be worth as much as a 'physics' one, but someone with such a
degree is probably worth more to industry than a school leaver.

The recently announced cuts are relatively minor for well run
universities. Given that Universities are used to growth year on year
(which has been slowing down recently), the cuts are more likely to
affect the ability to grow rather than absolute teaching quality. The
expectation within the sector is that some of the smaller and weaker
places may end up being merged into larger Universities.

> strong are Israel, China, and India. Everywhere else is slowing down,

None of which have a top 20 university. According to another ranking
(by Shanghai University), the UK has 2 in the top 10. The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem is ranked 64th; the UK has at least 5
Universities with a higher ranking than that - the lowest (Manchester
University) is 40th.


> >*: As in the low-level office minions. 
> 
> I doubt it. If you think so, call any secretarial agency and ask if

As in a low-level office minion ? They may run an organisation, but are
treated as and paid as, low level minions.