Das Anbringen einer ausreichend sichtbaren Hausnummer am Eigenheim ist fr Immobilienbesitzer Pflicht. Im Notfall kann das Leben retten und auch sonst sind die kleinen Wegweiser unverzichtbar fr Brieftrger, Besucher & Co. Je nach Bundesland gibt es unterschiedliche Vorschriften, wie die Zahlenschilder an der Fassade zu befestigen sind.
Spezialshops bieten Hausnummern fr jeden Geschmack (Foto: Proverdi GmbH) Das Anbringen einer Hausnummer an einer gut sichtbaren Stelle der Fassade ist gesetzlich vorgeschrieben. Das macht durchaus Sinn, denn sonst knnen Hausbewohner weder postalisch noch in Notfllen gefunden werden. Nicht jeder Hausbesitzer ist zwangslufig begeistert, eine solche Hausnummer an die hbsche Fassade zu bringen. Doch im spezialisierten Onlineshop der Hausnummern frs Eigenheim, erhalten Kunden individuelle Schilder mit Hausnummern in hoher Attraktivitt. Hausnummern sind gesetzlich vorgeschrieben Stdte und Gemeinden schreiben inzwischen vor, wie und in welcher Form die Hausnummern am Haus befestigt werden mssen. Werden die Vorschriften nicht befolgt, so drohen oft hohe Bugelder. Selbst dann, wenn die Vorschriften als berzogen und gelegentlich auch als unsinnig empfunden werden. Festgelegt werden die Vorschriften im Baugesetz 126 und betroffen sind u.a. folgende Eigenschaften: Sichtbarkeit Gre Strichbreite Material der Hausnummer ggf. Pflicht zur Beleuchtung der Hausnummer Vorschriften nicht einheitlich Der spezielle Onlineshop fr Hausnummer Der spezielle Onlineshop fr Hausnummern hat sich auf jede Vorschrift fr Hausnummern eingestellt und bietet Hausbesitzern die passgenauen Schilder. Neben der Einhaltung der gesetzlichen Vorschriften lassen sich hier zustzlich praktisch alle individuellen Wnsche zum Design realisieren. So finden Individuelle Individuelle Hausnummer Hausnummer auch Eigenheimbesitzer passende Schilder fr Hausnummern, die solchen Accessoires fr Fassaden ansonsten kritisch gegenberstehen. So manche Stadt oder Gemeinde schreibt zustzlich vor, dass Hausnummern ber Beleuchtungen verfgen mssen. Auch hier bietet der Shop ntzliche Produkte, die gleichsam besonders attraktiv in Erscheinung treten. Zustndigkeitsbereich fr Hausnummern Hausbesitzer, die sich vor dem Kauf der Schilder fr Hausnummern erkundigen mchten, welche Pflichten im Speziellen an ihrem Wohnort zu erfllen sind, sollten sich an die Gemeinde- bzw. Stadtverwaltung wenden. Dies ist der Zustndigkeitsbereich fr Hausnummern. Wurden alle Kriterien geklrt, so lsst sich aus dem breiten Sortiment des Shops bequem und komfortabel auswhlen. Das breite Sortiment an Hausnummern macht die Wahl mitunter zur Qual. Doch auch besonders anspruchsvolle Kunden finden hier in jedem Fall die bevorzugten Schilder fr Hausnummern. Perfekter Kundenservice im Shop fr Hausnummern Darber hinaus biete der Shop Ansprechpartner, die Kunden fachgerecht und kompetent beraten. Abgerundet wird das Angebot durch den zuverlssigen und sehr guten Kundenservice, eine Vielzahl an Zahlungsmglichkeiten sowie besonders schnelle Lieferzeiten. Damit steht die neue Hausnummer schnellstens zur Verfgung. Nur wenige Handgriffe der Montage, schon sind die ausgewhlten Hausnummern montiert, sodass Bewohner zuverlssig gefunden werden. Verweise: Dimmbares Glas auf Knopfdruck Gartenbeleuchtung schafft Atmosphre Gute Beleuchtung fr mehr Sicherheit Die Hausnummer im Licht der Dunkelheit
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Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Judi Dench sure knows how to show judi online her gratitude. The Oscar winner revealed to a crowd at the 2014 Britannia Awards in Beverly Hills last week her cheeky way of thanking Harvey Weinstein for launching her film career. Early in her career, she told the crowd, according to Deadline Hollywood, someone famous, whom she did not name, told her that she would never be a film actress. "You'll never make a film because your face isn't quite properly arranged," Dench recalled the person saying. She added that it took 36 years to prove that person wrong, when director John Madden hired her to play Queen Victoria in the British television production "Mrs. Brown." Miramax's Weinstein acquired the film and released it in theaters, where it grossed $13 million. "Blessed Harvey Weinstein, whose tattoo I still have on my bum, said it judi online would be a proper [theatrical] film and it was," she revealed to the crowd. What George Clooney Said About Judi Dench Judi Dench Takes Memory Supplements to Remember Lines When the crowd erupted in laughter, Dench joked, "Well, he asked for that." Dench, who received the Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award For Worldwide Contribution, also thanked the James Bond producer and award's namesake. "I do owe the Broccoli family, and I had the most sensational time making the James Bond films, and I am so proud this should be his award," she said. Yesterday, a friend asked me what it would entail for his wife and him to economically vacation at a luxury destination in the next 3-4 years. The ultimate goal is to use miles for the Business class flights and points for the luxury lodging. There are a lot of things to consider when planning a big vacation where you want to redeem awards for both large ticket items (flight & hotel). The only points/miles earning credit cards they have are the Chase OnePass Plus and Chase Sapphire Preferred. They are willing to open one more line of credit if the bonus offer and earning potential are lucrative enough.
I'll go through a few questions that I posed to help reveal a better idea of how to formulate the free flight part of the vacation. What airlines fly to Bora Bora? Air Tahiti Nui & Air France. Both airlines are partners with Delta so you can use your Delta SkyMiles for awards. A COACH ticket to Bora Bora from the East coast will run you about $2000. Business class? $4000+. Clearly, redeeming miles is the best option. The low-tier Delta awards from North America to the Southwest Pacific will cost 100k miles for Coach and 150k miles for Business ... total fees would be about $30! Talk about CHEAP. My friend decided that Business class for 2 is a great award to shoot for. After all, it travel discounts pro travel plus member benefits is about 16+ hours of travel time. The routing is simple enough. JFK-LAX on Delta; LAX-PPT (Papeete, Tahiti, PF) on Air France or Air Tahiti Nui. How do I get enough miles to fly there? The big challenge is how to accrue 300k (150k x 2 people) Delta SkyMiles. The good news is there are plenty of options: American Express Premier Rewards Gold Charge Card - Amex's Membership Rewards (MR) program transfers travel discounts pro travel plus member benefits points directly to Delta. The great thing about this is that the two programs have run a lot of bonus promotions this year. I personally transferred 50k MR points to Delta and, through a promo, I came away with 75k SkyMiles and 25k Medallion Qualification Miles (giving me instant Silver status). Right now, the signup bonus is 15k MR points, but due to Amex's great customer service to build loyalty, there is usually no problem calling them to bump the bonus to 75k MR points. There are also promotions that circulate around the web (that I always post here) that you can call to enroll in (link). The best tip is to leave MR points in your Amex account until Delta runs a promo that you think is worth it; then transfer! Partner Programs - Get miles for dining out! Rewards Network has a great network of restaurants that partner with several airlines, Delta being one of them. Currently, new members can earn 1,000 miles for spending $25 at a listed restaurant within 30 days of signing up. Just enroll your main dining credit card and find a place to eat. Rewards Network even has iPhone & Android apps for you on-the-go users. You earn 3 miles per dollar spent at participating eateries - not bad at all and every dollar/point/mile counts! You can even start earning 5 miles per dollar after dining at 11 places. Every once in a while, crazy promotions will come around. Earlier this year, SpaFinder.com was giving you 40 SkyMiles per dollar spent. Great if you actually go to the spa. If you don't, that's fine too because I ended up just selling these on eBay for very close to face value. To save you the calculations, I ended up with over 40k SkyMiles and spent just over $240 - an earning rate of $0.006 per mile. That's a rate I'd take ALL DAY. If you were to earn 300k miles at that rate, 2 Business class tickets to Bora Bora would only cost you $1800. #VALUE. For ridiculous deals and earning opportunities like this, always check back or follow my Twitter for the latest! Butt-In-Seat (BIS) Miles - Then there is always the option of actually flying Delta. For the infrequent flyers in my circle of friends, Delta does not have the best reputation. Hell, if their miles weren't so easy to earn, I'd boycott them too! I realize BIS miles are probably last on the list of earning methods but it is worth mentioning. Hotels Now that the air strategy is taken care of, it's time to discuss the lodging options. This is where it gets more complicated (or interesting, if you're me). Hotels are a totally different game. There are more options and more ways to get a good deal. My friend and his wife want to stay in a luxury hotel for 5 nights in Bora Bora. They've already gone there before and stayed at the best Overwater Bungalow (OWB) at the InterContinental Thalasso so doing that again may not be a priority. With this information, I was able to put together a list of potential hotels along with ways of getting cheap/free nights. InterContinental Thalasso Spa Bora Bora (IHG/Priority Club) This is, by far, the most pain-free way to ensure discounted luxury lodging in Bora Bora. By using the Priority Club "Points & Cash" trick (detailed here) to buy points at $0.006 per point, you can essentiallysecure a room at the Thalasso for $240 a night. The cheapest room in this place is $900+ a night for June 2012. Over 5 nights, you're saving $3,410!! Also, if you contact the hotel a month or two before your stay, you can arrange to pay a co-pay (usually about $250 more per night) to upgrade from that standard room into an OWB. You can also purchase IHG's Ambassador status for $200 and that will give you a free weekend night (that you can use at Thalasso) and an automatic one-room upgrade. Any way you slice it, you are looking at substantial savings. If you are looking to earn PC points without buying them, there are also several options: Chase Priority Club Visa - 60k points sign-up bonus + 10% points rebate on award nights American Express - up to 75k sign-up bonus + transfers 1:1 to PC Chase Sapphire Preferred - 50k sign-up bonus, 7% yearly dividends + transfers 1:1 to PC Hilton Bora Bora Nui (Hilton Honors) One reward night here costs 50k points and it gets you a King Lagoon View Suite. It is not an OWB but it is a large 2-story suite with a private balcony. The going rate for this room is $750 a night in June 2012. Again, you can always contact the General Manager of the hotel to request an upgrade to an OWB (paid or not). There are no easy ways to earn Hilton points but there are always options. There are a few Hilton credit cards available - 1) Citi Hilton HHonors Visa with a 40k sign-up bonus and 2) American Express Hilton HHonors with incentives to earn 62.5k points. You can also transfer your Amex MR points to Hilton at the ratio of 1 MR to 1.5 HH. Not bad, but I can think of better ways to use an MR point. Another lesser known option is transferring American Airlines miles to Hilton. The ratio is 1 AA mile = 1.67 HHonors points. Combine that with the 150k AA payday and that amount of miles could transform into 250k miles - just enough for 5 nights! The St. Regis Bora Bora OR Le Meridien Bora Bora (Starwood Preferred Guest) These are both Category 7 (top tier) hotels for Starwood and thus, they are probably the worst value for your Starwood points. I just called Starwood to check availability for June 2012. St. Regis has NOTHING in the way of award nights and Le Meridien costs 60k a night. With minimal ways to earn a lot of Starpoints, I would stray away from either of these for free nights. However, feel free to book an OWB for about $1200 a night! Four Seasons Bora Bora Since Four Seasons does not have a loyalty program, there is zero chance for a free night opportunity. Any Four Seasons is worth mentioning though, and if you want to stay at this resort, you can contact aFour Seasons Preferred Partner (FSPP) or a Virtuoso travel agent. While there may not be any discounts, booking through either of these is FREE and the stay comes with amenities like guaranteed late checkout, a room upgrade if available, and a monetary benefit (e.g. $100 food or spa credit). I used a great agent who is both FSPP and Virtuoso and he was very professional, always available, and handled everything I could think of with regard to a luxury booking. And again, their services are FREE. If you made it to the end of this post, congrats! That took a while but it shows how there are several creative ways to score free or discounted hotel nights. Remember, this projected vacation is in 3-4 years so my friend has all the info he needs to pick a strategy and go full steam ahead. For more amazing travel tips and tricks, please visit my blog or follow me on Twitter! Everyone wants a new lovely and also healthy lawn although not really everybody can be house each day in order to h2o and also take treatment of his or her grass. However, if we hope to protect these practical info on long term generations, it is extremely essential that we almost all do our component to always be able to protect our water, as well as minimize the quantity of h2o that individuals use about our homes. in order to become able to accomplish this you'll must find out how sprinkler systems work to be able to handle the water load that will it requires. I don\'t possess any sprinkler system thus this means I have to drag the hosepipe over the garden.
Residential irrigation sprinkler methods furthermore arrive inside a great variety, with multiple amounts regarding dimension along with function. These People specialize throughout irrigation installation and also solutions and their specially trained installation team will assure that every square inch in the lawn is actually covered. These People specialize inside irrigation installation as well as solutions as well as their specially trained installation team will help to make sure that all square inch with the lawn can be covered. . Within numerous US cities just like Richmond (VA) as well as Petersburg (VA), you\'ll try to end up being able to find the quantity associated with homeowners by using this type associated with sprinkler system, specially when another kinds can't be used. Credit: kumaravel / flickr. Any portable sprinkler connects for that hose faucet that is outside of one's hose or perhaps cottage as well as waters the particular lawn making use of your h2o in which arrives in the faucet. Automatic sprinkler systems perform by method of a programmable controller which is adjustable for quite a while and location for delivered water. Things I learned from your encounter had been fascinating. This specifically applies if you've h2o restrictions, since it means a person both get to have up at the crack regarding dawn, that is early with regard to me, or be sure you water just before the sun goes down. Pipes are generally laid out within the floor within an organized grid and also vertical risers carry drinking water for the surface of the lawn. But, what would you must do if garden veggies aren\'t growing while they must be? Your difficulty may well not merely be using the garden irrigation system, though the watering system as well. Presently there may always be the turret, oscillating, pulsating, along with traveling sprinkler techniques available. We hope this tutorial features offered that you simply better knowing about DIY Sprinkler Irrigation design and Planning. Keep inside mind in selecting sprinkler heads that you must explore h2o pressure, lawn size, plant and soil types, overlapping distances, along with surrounding structures. Mix as well as match sprayer kinds to in shape each situation. Any above ground sprinkler product is definitely an amazing tool for watering your current lawn, and may always be considered in case you being an easy-to-remove landscaping instrument in which could Sprinkler System Installation Euless automate some associated with the lawn maintenance tasks!. The fillStyle is now a gradient instead of a color. We create the gradient by calling createLinearGradient of the drawing context. You need to give two points and in between those points the gradient will be applied. We use the starting point (0, 0) and the end point (150, 100).
We then specify colors using addColorStop. The first argument tells us how far the color is located away from the starting point. This is a value from 0 to 1 where 0 means at the starting point and 1 means at the end point. So a value of 0 means the color that you specify is for the starting point, a value of 0.5 means half way in between both given coordinates and 1 means at the end point. We're giving the starting point the color red and the image to base64 end point the color yellow. We are using two colors for our gradient but you can use more than two if you want. Note that these coordinates are independent of your text and if you decide to change the location of your text it'll probably look different because it will then lookup the color information at that location. When you're using a gradient for fillStyle you're changing the colors for all fill commands (fillText, fillRect, etc) so you need to play a bit with the coordinates of your gradient and your text if it doesn't look the way you want it. It is really starting to look fancy now. We have one more trick up our sleeve and that is using transformations to rotate the text. To rotate the text just add the rotate command. The argument is the angle of clockwise rotation in radians so use a negative value to rotate counterclockwise: We now have our final result: a fancy text with a gradient, a shadow and a bit of image to base64 rotation! Försöker hårt på olika typer av träning, men ändå inte har några positiva resultat när det gäller viktminskning. Det betyder bara att du bara beröva dig från en viss lust att äta. Det är inte hälsosamt för en person som genomgår en diet, kan det orsaka fetma. Ibland kan diet också vara en del av psykologisk obalans. Du kan ha möjlighet att övervinna denna typ av svårigheter, särskilt på din viktminskning motivation. Vi kommer att diskutera svaret när vi går längre in på detaljer. Leta efter personlig träning Malmö idag.
Om du är sugen på att gå ner i vikt och du vill behålla figuren försöker genomgår i ett kostrådgivning. De är inte bara en calisthenics malmö enkel utövare; de är registrerade nutritionist. Consulting i en närings kommunalråd är mycket fördelaktigt för dig. De kommer att hjälpa dig om hur man kan gå ner i vikt i en hälsosam livsstil och hur kan du kunna bibehålla den i en längre tid. Är du medveten om vad en kostrådgivning är? I denna process, kommer du att möta en registrerad dietist som guidar dig till en hälsosam kost. Först kommer de att börja en kost plan som passar din kropp kalori behov. De kommer också att göra ett förslag på dina hälsosamma recept och snacks för att hjälpa dig att nå dina mål. Utöver detta får du lära dig rätt sätt att motion för att koppla ihop med ditt ätande plan för dig att uppleva de mest viktminskning. Många av dem handlar också med ätproblem som känslomässigt ätande och andra livsstilsfrågor. Scarsdale Gallery is celebrating its 30th year in business, serving the Westchester County area. Scarsdale Gallery was founded by Robert Sanborn in 1985, as a small frame shop located at 455 Central Park Ave. Scarsdale, NY 10583. Today, the company has expanded to a full Custom Picture Framing Gallery that includes Art and Frame Restoration, Frame Installation, Framed Mirrors, Fine Arts, Sculptures and Prints, Delivery for Large Frame Jobs, Rush Framing and more. In addition, we still offer the highest quality custom art framing in framing gallery NY NY.
“We are proud to be a part of the Scarsdale community and overjoyed to be celebrating our 30th anniversary,” said Robert Sanborn, owner of Scarsdale Gallery. Having been in Scarsdale for so long, we have really built valuable, long-lasting relationships over the years. Not only are we passionate about the community we live and do business in, we are lucky to have the support of local residents. We are a great example of how supporting small businesses works. Remember to shop local and come visit our Framing Gallery in Westchester NY. We are offering 50% off custom framing with our coupon at www.ScarsdaleGallery.com. Thank you everyone for your continued support. Web Design
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Une photo de groupe l'entre de Lavrune, une autre sur le rond-point Gennevaux, avant Montpellier... et une rencontre au parc Clemenceau devant ce qui pourrait tre une autre station. Patiemment, le collectif pour la ralisation de la ligne 5 de tram entre Lavrune et Clapiers largit sa mobilisation au fil de ses rendez-vous, chaque 5 du mois. "Rassembler une soixantaine de personnes, un dimanche matin de Pques, ce n'tait pas vident", se flicitait l'un des organisateurs l'issue de ce happening dominical voulu le long de l'itinraire initial. Des rendez-vous similaires taient prvus hier, lundi, Bagatelle et Fontcouverte, qui visent donc maintenir la pression sur Philippe Saurel et la Mtropole afin de relancer ce chantier. "On sent qu'il y a un petit frmissement", note ric Boisseau, l'un des animateurs du collectif qui observe une mobilisation importante "hors de Montpellier et au-del". "On souhaiterait que cela soit fait avant le prolongement de la ligne1 vers la Mogre", ajoute Norbert Isern, venu de Cournonterral. Selon le collectif, l'abandon du trac travers le parc Montcalm -l'engagement ferme de Philippe Saurel- peut-tre aisment act travers une dclaration d'utilit publique partielle portant l'un des deux autres tracs alternatifs autour du parc. Le collectif vient d'ailleurs d'accueillir dans son giron un relais cr Estanove. Un de plus. La L5 relance ? Les relations entre le maire de Montpellier et le nouveau prsident du conseil gnral, Klber Mesquida, sont au beau fixe. Ce dernier a mme claironn qu'il tait pro-Mtropole et pro-tramway. De quoi entrevoir la relance du projet si le Dpartement venait en financer une partie. Du moins la relance sur le beton lave Montpellier plan administratif car il faudra probablement refaire une DUP pour viter au trac de passer par le parc Montcalm, comme Philippe Saurel s'y est engag... In 1967, when La Trobe University was brand new and underpopulated, John O'Brien, an Irish historian with a wild and feverish laugh, told us about the enemy within. It was not for anything the administration had done, or any of the horrid things that Maoist students would bellow when occupying their offices two years later ('puppets of the ruling class', 'parasites', 'class traitors', etc.); it was for what he insisted was an administrator's natural tendency to unseat the academic staff and corrupt the principles of the university. Those Maoists, when they hatched, were mere heretics, and they'd grow out of it, but in the bureaucracy lay the seeds of treason.
It seemed odd; we students took our administrators for amiable co-venturers on the infant campus. But Dr O'Brien's judgement was severe: the university was a place of teaching and research, of rigorous intellectual endeavour and inquiry. This was its glory, and it followed that those who did the teaching and research, who had the knowledge and valued it, should decide the course it took. Administrators, an inherently philistine self-perpetuating caste fixated with power, should never be allowed to forget they were retained at the pleasure of the academy to perform such useful tasks as the life of the mind compelled. Let them think for a moment that the place was theirs to run and you could kiss goodnight to academic freedom and educational standards. It was their nature to usurp. I've often wondered if a streak of inner high Tory or the liberal humanist was speaking, but that hardly matters. Dr O'Brien had seen the future. Of course it is one thing 'to cultivate learning in the broadest and deepest sense' in a tutorial or a laboratory, another thing to do it while satisfying the needs and prejudices of one's paymasters, be they church, state, business or fee-paying students. And it is another thing again to try to cultivate it while the province of a relatively privileged few becomes an essential highway for the masses. To be sure, John O'Brien had an idealised (the Maoists would say 'ivory tower') view of the university. But what is a university without ideals? Too easy: one with a mission statement. The strange thing was that the academics didn't see it coming. Then again, the monks in that quaint little abbey on Lindisfarne didn't see the Vikings coming either - or did, and thought they wanted to be baptised. Maybe life had been too good. In the academy run by academics, useful and rewarding, sometimes brilliant and monumental, intellectual effort coexisted with a certain amount of equally well-paid Olympian lassitude. A year's sabbatical in every seven; a 30-week year; tenure with no obligation to publish; for some little more than three or four hours of teaching a week; all conducted on campuses that were effectively closed for a third of the year. The model struggled to comply with basic measures of social utility, much less those laid down by the advancing neoliberal hordes and their most brutal weapon: managerialism. If, before John Dawkins was given the job of 'reforming' them, academies had begun to reform themselves a little, they might have stood a chance. Run all year round with three semesters, for instance; less tenure, more contracts; more reward for useful exertion, less for sloth; more signs of enterprise and palpable interest in the way the world outside was going, which was decisively away from the long lunch and towards competitive effort: had they done a bit more to look busy, it might have been possible to save something from the rout. It is 25 years since Dawkins became the Labor Minister for Employment, Education and Training and set about remodelling the country's institutions of tertiary education into instruments of the dynamic newfangled economic order. The new economy created a new frontier and, as on the old one, the heroic doctrines were pragmatic, utilitarian, impatient, tending to anti-intellectual. By these lights, the university run by academics and according to academic values was about as far from ideal as one could get. Much closer to the model was the modern corporation and the management principles it employed. Universities became massive revenue-chasing enterprises, academics became administrators, students became customers, managers became royalty - and management's share of revenue multiplied and multiplied. From this government's instrumentalist mantras it is safe to infer that, no less than their predecessors, they believe the revolution was necessary, sage and wonderful and all evidence to the contrary is, perforce, the pitiful griping of elitists and losers. If the whole thing is a bit of a shemozzle, or even a thorough catastrophe, it is also a cornerstone of free market orthodoxy and an indispensable rhetorical thread; sceptics, therefore, must be sedated with dogma on the themes of opportunity and fairness, and our leader's personal story thrown in as a kind of divine revelation or benchmarked proof of the pudding. Yet, the protests from inside what the historian Jim Davidson calls the "academic archipelago" speak of the follies conscientious scholars and teachers are required to undergo: useless performance-measurement rituals; senseless strategic plans; bullying in the name of 'buy-in'; the culture of 'constant change' regardless of the consequences for the quality of education; the massive diversion of funds to managers and consultancies; the Orwellian language in which they are instructed - though, for all his formidable powers, Orwell could not have invented the language of HR. Donald Meyers, a Betrally former science academic, has recently published an ebook, Australian Universities: A Portrait of Decline, in which he argues ferociously against the view - axiomatic since Dawkins - that the old-style university administrations were inefficient. On the contrary, he says, they delivered a much better education for much less money. Then academics were teachers and researchers with minimal administrative responsibilities; now they must combine their professional duties with mind-numbing administrative tasks straight from late-model management's most depressing handbooks. Much that was formerly done by a capable department secretary is now for all to do - if they can remember their "FHUSS-specific parameters for the Workload Management System". While you're wrestling with that, and trying to work out the difference between an 'output' and an 'outcome' on your research funding application, there might land on your desk a 'Behaviour Capability Framework' for which the university has paid a consultant umpteen thousands of dollars, informing you that from now on you are required to demonstrate 'passion, energy and tenacity' in your work or be judged wanting in one or more of 'six behavioural clusters': namely, 'Resilience, Connectedness, Commitment to Excellence, Innovation, Outcomes Focussed and Open Thinking'. Was any subject in the old ivory tower more arcane and of less use to humanity? Each university has its own problems and, one assumes, advantages, but according to Meyers, "pointless performance management is the default religion" at all universities - "a policy, a plan and KPIs for everything and everyone". Why should academics escape what every bank employee must endure? Whether management is the cause or the symptom is less the point than what Meyers believes is the sickness itself: the dumbing down of university education. The public need to know that the nation's ability to supply competent people, from tradies to neurosurgeons, is being compromised by the blind and persistent application of free market ideology and soft-options education theory. How much longer are we going to live with university management rhetoric that spruiks 'quality', 'excellence', 'innovation', 'world's best practice' and any other number of inanities to the would-be customer, when we know that the two-dollar-shop university degree is the order of the day? Meyers is not alone in this view. Members of science faculties speak (discreetly and on condition of anonymity) of trying to teach young people who are simply not able to be taught, and of issuing degrees to people who could never be made capable of decently earning them. There are people in the Humanities and Social Sciences who would say the same. There are plenty who contend that the 'reforms' to tertiary education have corrupted it, defeated its most basic aims, including those of excellence, intellectual rigour and originality. To paraphrase Raimond Gaita, universities have made "mendicants" of philosophers and physicists and devalued their disciplines, while privileging the study of hospitality and gaming. Brendon Coventry, an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Adelaide, declares the system has been placed under "inexorable downward pressure" and is unsustainable. The argument goes naturally to the primary and secondary systems that feed the universities. Meyers believes those systems are failing as calamitously as the universities are, and sheets much of the blame to the "Educationalists" who have devised modern "outcomes-based" pedagogy (he quotes some astonishing examples) and manage to persist in their follies by rationalising failure into (benchmarked) success. Those Educationalists will be among the many who disagree with Meyers. Others will include people who, diligent in their calling, can claim genuine success; and people of less accomplishment but equally deep investment in the present system, from politicians to bureaucrats to students. He can expect to be savaged for failing to produce evidence at every turn and neglecting to footnote. Coming from the authors and defenders of strategic plans and other malarky, he need not take this badly. He has written a pamphlet, a whack at something atrocious and unforgivable. No intellectual tradition is longer or more honourable. Let's imagine he is only half right, and the system is only half dysfunctional. That is still a mighty failure and, as Meyers says, "a great wrong". No doubt more important deliberations concern them, but if members of any of the 23 current inquiries, consultations and reviews being carried out in the sector were to ask why we have failed to provide Betrally high-quality education for all, they could do worse than read Meyers. Forget it. They're hardly going to admit to failure if it wrecks a thriving industry in calling it success. |
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November 2018
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