THE Mr SkinZ MICHELDEN, TA,
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that level was only 20% more expensive than teaching at "A" level, and would welcome enquiry by CNAA as to the validity of the present basis of funding. The College rested its hopes for the future on a greater measure of government support.
5.2 CNAA questioned whether the processes for the matching of resources to a new course, or even to the continuation of an existing course, were adequate, and explored the involvement of the Academic Board in the matching process. It was understood that departments related new courses to resource needs, but that all resource matters were essentially matters for the College Council after enquiry into needs by senior staff. As an example of the response to such an enquiry, the College had some years ago dropped a course in Industrial Engineering because of a mismatch of resources. It seemed that, nevertheless, courses were often started with the barest minimum of funding in the hope of improvements in the future, while the funds tended subsequently to remain at the barest minimum, and recurrent funding had at all times been a serious problem for the College. CNAA had detected at the level of the departments that staff had sometimes given up pursuing what seemed entirely reasonable resource requests, and that was disturbing. President felt that there was no intention to run courses short of absolute essentials, and he was concerned to learn of the position which CNAA members felt they had detected. Civil Engineering seemed to have some priority in the matter of resources in being allowed to claw back as revenue a part of the money earned by routine testing and consultancy, but its needs remained very great. CNAA did not receive wholly satisfactory replies as to the involvement of the Academic Board in resources matters, and the very tight rein held by senior College staff on resources reflected the general inadequacy of the latter. It became clear to members throughout their investigations that current revenue resource support for courses could certainly not be considered at this stage comparable with resources for similar courses in the Polytechnic.
5.3
The
At various points in the discussion, CNAA expressed its concern at the apparent waste of resources which occurs through drop-out from courses at Baptist College for reasons other than academic failure, mainly because students transfer to other institutions which they perceive to have higher status. There would also seem to be scope for some co-ordination of admissions policies between institutions offering broadly similar courses.