Favorable piece on Greenwich in Australian publication

The Spring 2001 edition of the National Observer has an interesting editorial, not so much praising Greenwich as criticizing the way they have been treated by the Australian government.

The National Observer finally has a web site:
http://www.nationalobserver.net/

The search function does not seem to work. One goes, then, to "Previous issues," and then to Issue 50 (Spring 2001), and then to an article headlined: "Government of Australia by Public Servants."

 

Greenwich

There is a saying about being tried in the court of your enemy which I can't precisely remember.

Greenwich was welcomed until the powers that be, in Australian education, figured out what was happening.

Greenwich has the honour of being the only Australian? university to have to go through an accreditation process designed for them alone and presumably designed for them to fail.

Distance education, being a big Australian business, is too lucrative to share with private enterprise.

Greenwich certainly isn't a great school or possibly not even a good school, but the confusion and inconsistency which it met when dealing with the government certainly was unfair.

 

Whilst I agree with the majority of the article (except the issue of private universities not having a 'fair go' - that's rubbish), I am afraid I cannot agree with the following paragraph:

This example is of particular significance, since it concerned a major institution, Greenwich University, and the responsible Minister was nevertheless content to hand the matter to bureaucrats whose actions were controversial rather than accept proper responsi-bility himself.

Major institution in whose eyes? Certainly it was a major 'issue', but Greenwich is certainly not a major institution when it comes to higher education in Australia.

Cheers,

George

PS - I wonder if the author would care to identify him/herself? If I recall correctly, this article was also reproduced on the CPU website run by Earon.