❝@TimesHigherEd Newsletter—UK & global #highered news views reviews

…another weekly HE newsletter. It could be early but I don't see anything here on COCAL XI, which has already been covered in Australia by CASA,which suggests (to me at least) that #auscasuals & allies may be more truly global minded than THE.  More at random than on any schedule, I try to blog a variety of education newsletters ~ a rotating sampler. Education International (EI-IE, @eduint) is another. Several University Affairs/Affaires universitaires bloggers are already on the PF blogrolls ~ more about UA/AU (just subscribed to the email newsletter too). Recommendations invited... 

As for domestic mainstream #highered media, it's already covered. Most readers already follow IHE and CHE, multiple share story links all over social media. When I remember, IHE's weekly newsletter and podcast go either straight to Precarious Faculty-Facebook or there via Precarity Dispatches. CHE's Academe is email, no link for easy online blogging and sharing, although sometimes I will. 

Times Higher Ed FEATURED CONTENT

Names 101: The Precarious Brigade

I'm not sure how or even whether the UK Precarious Workers Brigade fits into 'naming' series (or whatever I end up calling it and about which I have yet to post an already belated introduction). For now, I say yes. Consider the definition, precarious workers in culture & education, and decide for yourself. Including creative workers (how Gramsci) expands scope and should remind us that college instructors in creative disciplines are predominantly adjunct/contingent faculty. Further, the precariat identifies with other labor areas defined below

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class … "Unlike the proletariat – the industrial working class on which 20th century social democracy was built – the precariat's relations of production are defined by partial involvement in labour combined with extensive 'work-for-labour', a growing array of unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings." Guy Standing

I came across the page just today, serendipity via a link post at Defend Education Ohio, just one of many in the Defend Public Education network. All are now in my feed reader: expect to see more of them,

Selections from Related Clippings (note inclusion of How the University Works)

'Twas the Week before Christmas

Twas the week before Christmas, and schools through the land

Were relieved that the end of term was at hand.

Teachers used whiteboards to screen seasonal flicks

While heads CRB-checked all passing St Nicks.

Headteachers were furious they soon would be getting

A "disproportionate" system for barring and vetting.

To their wondering ears, someone heeded their calls:

A u-turn, of sorts, was announced by Ed Balls.

Checks on once-a-month visitors will now be retracted. Balls claimed it was schools that had "overreacted".

So how many parents will face vetting vexations?

Up to nine million, from the Mail's calculations.

The academies' scores were dismissed as big fables For they used BTECs and DiDAs to climb the league tables.

The think-tank that found this stressed they weren't snobs,

But didn't think the courses would help kids get jobs.

An MPs' committee backed the home educators (Which may stop their moans that "Everyone hates us").

Their numbers are "growing" - but can that be true?

As they refuse to be registered we haven't a clue.

New nativity plays made traditionalists weep, As Jesus "has been replaced by an angel or sheep".

So said a vicar from Cheltenham, who seemed not to know

That, in The Grumpy Sheep, Jesus still stars in the show.

A Coventry primary showed even more mettle Producing a hooliganised version of Hansel and Gretel.

A yobbish Gretel tells Hansel, in a scene of great tension:

"I'll break your neck if you tell her that I pinched her pension".

The play's bleak humour helped it do plenty of business,

But one parent moaned that it "killed the spirit of Christmas".

"Which spirit was that?" tired teachers might think.

Merry Christmas to all - you may need a stiff drink.

By Michael Shaw. Published in TES, Cymru edition18 December, 2009