Guest posting to voced-coord email list.
Item 3 of 6:

Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 12:01:28 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Ken Price (Ken.Price@central.tased.edu.au)
Subject: VocEd: GUEST: a few thoughts

Hello once more,

A couple of comments prompted by responses.

Steve Berry's comments re our (Australia's) reluctance to accept a range of credentials may have a flip side. The spirit of competition may actually be one of the factors which encourage some US instititutions to see some individuals in terms of their marketing value as well as their academic or intellectual skills.

Before continuing I should make it it clear that this is definitely not the case with Dr Roberta Sykes, who has demonstrated her talent in both the academic and "real" worlds and is a good example of the denial of opportunity that sometimes (unfortunately) occurs in our system.

However, the legends of individuals recruited by institutions for their sporting prowess or public image are not altogether fiction. This is not a widespread practice in Australia (to my knowledge) but it is no secret that in some countries being a hockey star or football hero can guarantee a tertiary placement as readily as a high entrance score. There is a certain honour and prestige attached in some cultures to an institution being linked to high-profile individuals, even when their profile may not be related to the institutions goals. This (in its simplest form) is the basis for "personality advertising", where for some reason people are attracted to a particular tyre store because it is recommended by a prominent baseball player (or, in an even more mind-numbing display of logic, the UK example where a former soccer coach was endorsing a financial investment company while in real life he was undergoing legal proceedings resulting from his financial mismanagement!)

Jacqui Asser's suggestion is food for thought also. However, even if the schools within clusters act as a single entity, the impact of competition BETWEEN clusters may still give rise to the problems of competition, reducing sharing between them.

Chris Waltrowicz's comments on her experience in disability services gives us cause for optimism. The situation she describes is similar to the one which has evolved between schools and private trainers in parts of the US. Schools offering, for example, Microsoft Accredited training were initially seen as unfairly competing with the $3000-a-course private training company across the street. However, once each realised they had separate client groups (that is, school kids wanting a yearlong course are different clients to adults requiring a 2-week intensive theory course) they got along pretty well. However, it does not seem to have resolved the competition issue between schools.

I will open another can of worms in a following posting!