I find Pestilence fascinating. It is pestilence in basically all popular depictions of the four horsemen (well, except Good Omens and even there pollution has replaced pestilence), to the extent it is almost pseudo-canonical. Yet it's relatively recent (according to the internet, it dates from 1906) and obviously has no basis in the original source. I think it's that pestilence just works much, much better as the fourth horsemen as an obvious major cause of disaster, whereas war and conquest are very similar.
The fig leaf for Pestilence is that pestilence (or plague) is one of the ways the Four Horsemen kill a quarter of the people on the earth (Rev 6v8). The others being sword, famine and wild beasts, the last of which seems under represented in the secondary literature.
I think the best understanding of the first two horsemen are wars of conquest and civil wars, which are similar, but with important differences.
(I actually still have a lot of your article to read, Susie took me to bed so I submitted the corrections I'd found so far.)
Yes, I read that, but it's clearly not the correct reading of the passage; it's not just wrong, but very obviously wrong. That being said, I'm totally here for anyone who wants to bite that bullet and present the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Pestilence, War, Famine and Wild Beasts.
An outstanding contribution to this important issue.
"........one cannot have confidence that a 2:1 from an English university is a genuine mark of quality - or that every course is worth the £9,250 that students pay to attend."
Universities have too much independence and this has led to some institutions admitting too many students (to get more income) regardless of the ability of the student to succeed and complete the course, no matter how easy they make the standards.
The currency of too many UK degrees from too many universities in too many subjects and too many courses for too many students has been adulterated and diminished. They are crashing the value of UK degrees with the fake / counterfeit coinage of inferior qualifications that are of very limited value. This devaluation must be stopped to prevent people regarding the whole output of UK University degrees as worthless.
"As recently a decade ago" should be "As recently as a decade ago"
"more likely to upset when the establish and authorities" establish is probably meant to be establishment?
majorconcern -> major concern
In the sentence "these people are going to be hard to convince to fund universities more, and are going to support measures that either reduce funding, or otherwise crack down on what is seen as low value, or low quality, revision." Do you mean revision? If there was an argument in the previous paragraph that the marginal student isn't helped by university because they're just revising their A levels then I missed it.
I love your footnoting technology, because it makes it easy to access the gold in your footnotes. "For given values of well known", "As does Hull".
I was a QAA reviewer back in the day, and it was an awful process that ate up huge amounts of money, time and effort for very little return, with unis rapidly learning to game the system. I can't imagine that a uni OFSTED would be any better. It's prescriptions also contributed, I think, to the rise in grades, but not by improving teaching.
Yes - I agree QAA had very many flaws. I'm not sure what's replaced it has been better, mind you (even though I worked on that replacement!).
I think 'uni-Ofsted' is one of the worst outcomes. But if we wanted to keep uncontrolled numbers and undifferentiated funding (which I don't, but many do), I think you'll only get support for funding it properly with a much, much more rigorous quality regime. But that could bring a lot of unanticipated and negative side effects.
TEF, of course, has also been gamed. I am sure you are right about the quality regime, but I also think that any such regime will go the same way if it depends on metrics and generalized models. The external examiner regime is outdated, but the principle that subject specialists and experienced examiners are in the best position to comment on grades and procedures seems sound enough to me. That system would work better if examiners were not invited by the institutions they examine, but trained, paid and appointed by a central body with the power to follow up on issues raised.
On marks more generally, a part of the problem here is procedural: QAA encouraged using 'the full range of marks', which was something of a mantra for a while and has seen a great rise in the number of very high marks (which pull up averages). Grade boundaries, however, are usually survivors from a time when the maximum possible mark was barely above the first-class boundary of 70. There are other similar technical issues. In my experience, though (admittedly at a RG uni), quite a lot of the rise is simply down to fee-paying students believing that anything below a 2:1 is useless, and working their socks off accordingly (not always with positive consequences for their mental and physical health).
I think the sentence "It is also the case that any given person ..." should be "It is also *not* the case ..."
"unlikely to be a massive fun of their student loan" -> "massive fan"
Love the bear facts. Extra marks for not trying to pretend that one of the of the biblical horsemen is pestilience.
Thanks - fixed!
I find Pestilence fascinating. It is pestilence in basically all popular depictions of the four horsemen (well, except Good Omens and even there pollution has replaced pestilence), to the extent it is almost pseudo-canonical. Yet it's relatively recent (according to the internet, it dates from 1906) and obviously has no basis in the original source. I think it's that pestilence just works much, much better as the fourth horsemen as an obvious major cause of disaster, whereas war and conquest are very similar.
The fig leaf for Pestilence is that pestilence (or plague) is one of the ways the Four Horsemen kill a quarter of the people on the earth (Rev 6v8). The others being sword, famine and wild beasts, the last of which seems under represented in the secondary literature.
I think the best understanding of the first two horsemen are wars of conquest and civil wars, which are similar, but with important differences.
(I actually still have a lot of your article to read, Susie took me to bed so I submitted the corrections I'd found so far.)
Yes, I read that, but it's clearly not the correct reading of the passage; it's not just wrong, but very obviously wrong. That being said, I'm totally here for anyone who wants to bite that bullet and present the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Pestilence, War, Famine and Wild Beasts.
An outstanding contribution to this important issue.
"........one cannot have confidence that a 2:1 from an English university is a genuine mark of quality - or that every course is worth the £9,250 that students pay to attend."
Universities have too much independence and this has led to some institutions admitting too many students (to get more income) regardless of the ability of the student to succeed and complete the course, no matter how easy they make the standards.
The currency of too many UK degrees from too many universities in too many subjects and too many courses for too many students has been adulterated and diminished. They are crashing the value of UK degrees with the fake / counterfeit coinage of inferior qualifications that are of very limited value. This devaluation must be stopped to prevent people regarding the whole output of UK University degrees as worthless.
"As recently a decade ago" should be "As recently as a decade ago"
"more likely to upset when the establish and authorities" establish is probably meant to be establishment?
majorconcern -> major concern
In the sentence "these people are going to be hard to convince to fund universities more, and are going to support measures that either reduce funding, or otherwise crack down on what is seen as low value, or low quality, revision." Do you mean revision? If there was an argument in the previous paragraph that the marginal student isn't helped by university because they're just revising their A levels then I missed it.
I love your footnoting technology, because it makes it easy to access the gold in your footnotes. "For given values of well known", "As does Hull".
I was a QAA reviewer back in the day, and it was an awful process that ate up huge amounts of money, time and effort for very little return, with unis rapidly learning to game the system. I can't imagine that a uni OFSTED would be any better. It's prescriptions also contributed, I think, to the rise in grades, but not by improving teaching.
Yes - I agree QAA had very many flaws. I'm not sure what's replaced it has been better, mind you (even though I worked on that replacement!).
I think 'uni-Ofsted' is one of the worst outcomes. But if we wanted to keep uncontrolled numbers and undifferentiated funding (which I don't, but many do), I think you'll only get support for funding it properly with a much, much more rigorous quality regime. But that could bring a lot of unanticipated and negative side effects.
TEF, of course, has also been gamed. I am sure you are right about the quality regime, but I also think that any such regime will go the same way if it depends on metrics and generalized models. The external examiner regime is outdated, but the principle that subject specialists and experienced examiners are in the best position to comment on grades and procedures seems sound enough to me. That system would work better if examiners were not invited by the institutions they examine, but trained, paid and appointed by a central body with the power to follow up on issues raised.
On marks more generally, a part of the problem here is procedural: QAA encouraged using 'the full range of marks', which was something of a mantra for a while and has seen a great rise in the number of very high marks (which pull up averages). Grade boundaries, however, are usually survivors from a time when the maximum possible mark was barely above the first-class boundary of 70. There are other similar technical issues. In my experience, though (admittedly at a RG uni), quite a lot of the rise is simply down to fee-paying students believing that anything below a 2:1 is useless, and working their socks off accordingly (not always with positive consequences for their mental and physical health).