View on the Ground

kabayiri

My tuppence worth...

- in the IT 'freelance' industry so it's not unusual to hear of ex-colleagues who are spending significant periods 'retraining' (not good form to say you're sat on your backside watching Kyle!)

Personally, I have work until the late autumn.

Lots of places use temporary staff nowadays, so I guess its not unusual to hear of people moving in/out of work?

misskool

bluey890 wrote: »

Can't you attract more foreign students. Seeing as sterling is weak at the moment?

The aim is to attract enough good quality students who can pay, it's a very thorny issue. But yes, the idea is to increase student numbers.

harryhound wrote: »

Young hound graduated from the University of Nottingham some years ago.
So I thought I would try and identify the little Chinese man who handed out the degrees. The organisation is so opaque that I gave up. It is a bit like trying to understand the accounts of a holding company. You know it is all "Chinese money" (meaning we don't need to count it too carefully because most of it is transfer payments between subsidiaries of the same organisation)

However the lad must have been on this PC as it welcomed me like and old friend and instructed me to enter my id & password and to click the UK/Malasian/Chinese branch.

This is happening to a fair few universities, where they set up branches overseas and students can transfer between campuses. Some universities are also franchising their brand names so people can obtain a degree from a more prestigious UK university without needing to be in the UK. It's all about creative revenue because home and EU students get subsidised fees and the funding the university receives isn't enough to pay for everything it needs.

It's not a difficult choice to make when a university can sell their name and pay for a new research building and staff or struggle to try and increase student numbers, taking up more research staff time in teaching.