Change of direction for the University of Sydney?

Saw this article in today's Herald - where the Vice Chancellor of the Uni of Sydney, has suggested reducing the student intake and refocussing resources to help make USYD a leading research institute.

I think this is a fantastic, and long overdue revue - USYD has seemed to lose it way over the last few years, becoming more of a degree factory (and in my opinion, with far too many international students).

The other universities seem to have long lost their role of places of new thought, and rather - turned to churning out 1000's of grads with no real passion for their area of study and no real commitment to their work. And its mightily frustrating doing coursework/groupwork with people who are just going through the motions.

Great news that the Vice Chancellor wants to define USYD's purpose in Australia's education sphere:


''Australia needs an institution which has a critical thinker as a cultural hero,'' Dr Spence said. ''For a long time we [the university] have tried to do all things for all people by providing all manner of courses. We have grown without a particularly coherent mission. There needs to be a return to our traditional mission. We now need to take control.''

Fiji ejected from the Commonwealth

After refusing to hold elections until 2014, the Fijian military leadership pushed the UN to suspend Fiji from the Commonwealth. This comes as quite a blow for the population, I believe - but hopefully continued dialogue (and maybe a return to common sense by Bainimarama) might make this a short period in the 'wilderness'.

I think one of the things that will really hurt is not being able to participate in the Commonwealth games, which is held this year in India. With its large ethnic Indian population, I suspect many would have been looking forward to Fiji competing in India.