Education Your Views: Why I tested my skills transferability

Contrary to the correspondent in Your Views (Education +, 19 February), I think many university teachers are quite resigned to staying on despite teaching quality assessments, provided their research is flourishing. Directors of studies, on the other hand, already figure disproportionately among early retirements. They facilitate provision of quality, by organising teaching matters so that colleagues can focus on their own teaching and research, and so they attract much of the drudgery of audit.

To their formerly full-time jobs are now added hours spent laying a cynical paperchase to distract the quality hounds, persuading staff to work toward dubious objectives and fending off censure from bureaucrats with a misguided mission. No wonder some (myself among them) decide to test the transferability of their own skills.

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