Chapter 986: Chapter 739: Royal Academy of Sciences
As the annual review approached, Arthur began to feel the headache coming on.
The eight-year construction plan called for an almost doubling of the number of universities, which in turn meant needing twice the number of professorial talent currently at the Australasian University.
Where to find such a large number of university professors and experts? Besides massively recruiting from the current American region and Europe, there really wasn’t a better solution.
The good news was that the former United States had achieved no small feats in education. The population of the American region exceeded one hundred million people, and the number of universities had long surpassed 500, almost ten times that of Australasia.
This statistic was quite staggering. After all, the population of the United States was approximately three times that of Australasians.
This also meant that in terms of university education, Australasia was more than three times behind the former United States, graduating fewer than one-tenth the number of university students each year.
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But this is not a later generation, where university students are somewhat more valued. Australasia’s degree system is similar to that of the United Kingdom, with some adjustments made according to domestic needs.
Currently, Australasia’s degree system can be divided into three levels, corresponding to Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate degrees.
After successfully graduating from a university recognized by the Kingdom Government of Australasia, one could obtain an ordinary bachelor’s degree.
The ordinary bachelor’s degree also comes in two types, corresponding to arts and sciences.
Above the ordinary bachelor’s degree is the slightly higher level of an honors bachelor’s degree.
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Simply put, students pursuing an honors bachelor’s degree only need to study one to two subjects, but the requirements for the subjects are much stricter, and certain research achievements are necessary in order to graduate.
Above the bachelor’s is the well-known master’s degree.
ys in the West, was drawing near, Arthur and the government would certainly slow down work to prepare for the festive season.
But in reality, the lights were burning bright inside the Administrative Court because an important meeting was being convened.
The participants of the meeting included Prime Minister Raul; the Minister of Education, Kailo Jefferson; the Minister of Health, Dison Burridge; and the Minister of Finance, Hunter Montague Loren.
This meeting could be considered a small-scale Cabinet Meeting, given the participation of so many people, it was because Arthur had expressed the importance he placed on education and medical care and had indicated that he would personally convene this meeting.
At eight o’clock in the evening, Arthur appeared in the meeting room and took over from Prime Minister Raul to start presiding over the meeting.
“Minister Kailo, how is the work at the Ministry of Education currently progressing?” Arthur inquired.
The first year of the eight-year construction plan was almost over, but not a single university had been built, nor had work begun on more than ten universities. This made Arthur question whether the education sector would be able to complete its eight-year construction plan.
“We’ve encountered certain difficulties,” said Minister Kailo with a wry smile. “All States are demanding that the Ministry of Education allocates more university slots to them, and some of them have even started quarreling over the distribution of these university spots.
As it stands, doubling the current distribution of our universities is unrealistic, not to mention that there are some urban cities and regions without a university presence, which are key areas for construction.”
Minister Kailo explained, “But the difficulty of building a university in these areas is still quite high.
Firstly, there is our teaching faculty. Currently, our talent reserves can barely support ten universities, and nearly 40 universities lack the staffing needed, which requires us to recruit from Europe and the Americas.
Besides, factors such as the specialties offered by a university, the selection of the site, the scale of the construction, and the naming of the university all require some time to prepare.
It’s estimated that next year, construction will begin on seven universities, with at least three expected to be completed. After bolstering our reserve of teaching faculty, we will aim to complete our educational construction plan within seven years at a pace of seven universities per year.”
Put plainly, university construction isn’t so simple. Moreover, the university construction plan in Australasia essentially doubles the current number of universities.
Apart from considering locations and sizes, teaching and research equipment, as well as talent reserves, are extremely important for the construction of the universities.
These things all take time to accumulate, which is why the work of the Ministry of Education has been temporarily delayed.
“Regarding the construction of universities, I do have some thoughts,” Arthur spoke up. “Our Royal Academy of Sciences has achieved considerable success, and the number of experts has already exceeded 1,200.
Such a quantity of experts should be put to good use. How about constructing a university in cooperation with the Royal Academy of Sciences? We can utilize some of the Academy’s experts as a reserve teaching force, and other available experts can also give lectures, which could raise the teaching level and quality of the university. What do you think of this proposal?”
Upon hearing Arthur’s question, Minister of Education Kailo didn’t dare to answer immediately. After carefully considering for a while, he replied, “It’s a remarkable idea, Your Majesty. Doing so would not only effectively utilize the experts from the Royal Academy of Sciences but also help fill some of the vacancies in our teaching staff.
These excellent experts are more than sufficient to serve as lecturers for university students and may even help us cultivate more fellows of the Royal Academy of Sciences.
dition to the one that was planned to be constructed.
Even with Saint Arthur Castle’s rapid development in recent years, the most impactful in people’s minds were still Sydney and Melbourne.
These two cities, large enough to represent Australia and even Australasia, were also affectionately known to Australasians as the “Twin Stars of the Southeast.”
“If the construction of these two universities goes smoothly, we can also consider establishing branches in other cities to increase the number of our professional universities.” Seeing his proposal swiftly approved, Arthur nodded in satisfaction and added.