Will they ever learn?

OIn my occasional musings about the state of UK Universities I have used the backdrop of banks as a benchmark of over exuberance and unfettered selfishness. I do so in the hope that lessons can be learned and sensible behaviour reinstated - in order, largely, to avoid the problems and ignominy awarded to financial institutions through their actions following various regulatory regimes NOT mirroring the global situation.

Banks are a reasonable foil for Universities as they have seen lax and then more stringent regulation, protected markets being entered by new domestic and foreign competitors, advances in technology that undermine traditional methods and social change that both values and then eschews "experts" and scholarship - normally against the measure of "value for money".

So, let us consider technology. What is possible is not always desirable.

Banks in developed economies, and some undeveloped ones where the leap to mobile telephony has bypassed years of gestation of plastic cards, ATMs etc, report that consumers flock to use pre-payment cards, mobile banking and remote delivery. Bank investment in these systems comes at a huge cost and allows competition but there are benefits of customer convenience and the certain knowledge that traditional delivery systems (cheques, branches, human beings) can be downsized and retired so that bank profits can be maintained or even increased.

For commercial banks that's probably a good thing as governments and consumers press for efficiency - a.k.a. low prices, empowerment - a.k.a. buyer beware and shareholders press for, let's be frank, more of everything every quarter.

For Universities, however, where the "product" is less transactional, the objectives less profit oriented and the learning partners ( note I did not call students "consumers") less empowered by so called "efficiencies" a proper balance must be struck.

Technology in the form of smart classrooms, VLEs, podcasts and voting systems, flipped lectures and on-line tests are great - in their place.  We need to understand the learning benefits rather than the shorter term reactions to cost cutting, "efficiency" and bowing to student demand simply to boost short-term ratings.  In that way investment can be targeted to promote teaching rather than purely financial strategies.