A reply to the University of Manchester’s Economics department’s response to “Economics, Education and Unlearning”
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for responding to our report. It shows respect and will help us to build on our already constructive relationship.
We agree that a point by point approach to our dialogue would not be helpful. But you also correctly recognise that this is a debate with “some way to go”, so we will now offer our thoughts on your response, before making proposals on how we can move forwards.
– Existing Manchester economics modules are not representative of the diversity of economics
We challenge your view that our academic environment is open and representative of the diversity of economics. We have reiterated that the subject of our concern is economics, by which we mean the work completed during economics modules. The need for greater debate and discussion is within economics, not in politics, philosophy, social anthropology or any other DA within the School of Social Sciences. This greater debate is needed to expose economics students to alternative perspectives such as Austrian, Ecological, Institutionalist and Post-Keynesian, which as our report showed are lacking from the curriculum. The academic environment we care most about is economics and to claim it is representative of the diversity of the subject is false.
Beyond a plurality of economic perspectives, we appreciate that those on BAEcon can access critical thought and historical perspectives, for example, but this isn’t when they are “doing” economics from the list of modules you provided, as we have already made clear in our report. The department calls it something different and deprives it of the “Econ” course tag. Students have to stop “doing economics” to access critical thinking.
– Other new modules are outside economics and fail to expose students to alternative schools of economic thought
Two of the new modules being introduced this year- “Global Capitalism,Crisis and Revolt” and “Ideologies of Global Capitalism”- are largely political studies. The first introduces “students to Marxist theories and analyses of contemporary global capitalism, crisis formation, and the politics of crisis management”; the latter “aims to explore the meaning…of ideology in relation to the political economy of global capitalism”. Whilst we grant that these sound interesting, they are not addressing the need for alternative schools of economic thought within the department’s economics modules.
New course “Understanding the Financial Crisis: Competing Perspectives Module” looks exciting and promising, offering the kind of economic perspectives which should be at the heart of an undergraduate curriculum. However, detracting from this is that it receives a “BMan” course code over “Econ”. As outlined above, this is equivalent to calling what will be done in the course “not economics”. This will have the knock-on effect of those keen to stick to what the university defines as economics not opting for the module. Furthermore, it’s not available to those on the BEconSc course.
The introduction of a second year public policy module taught by Diane Coyle addresses the need for greater real-world application of economic theory and is certainly a step in the right direction. We look forward to enjoying this module.
– There is still no sufficient strategy to address the department’s failure to adhere to the teaching standards set out in the Manchester Matrix
In our report we showed how the current undergraduate economics curriculum fails to meet the Manchester matrix standard of undergraduate education. As you will be aware, some of the purposes of a Manchester education include “To develop critical thinking…”, “To promote equality and diversity” and “To develop advanced skills of written and verbal communication”.
The changes outlined in your response do not succeed in substantially moving the department towards being in a position to fulfil these kinds of purposes. They fail to introduce alternative perspectives which are required for students to be able to exercise independent, reasoned judgement. Nor do they introduce enough real-world application which is necessary to set students up for the job market. Critical evaluation of data sets such as the ONS’ would provide such an experience.
This means many of the purposes of a Manchester education go unfulfilled. Though you state that there will be more opportunities this year for students to exercise critical reason, without specific examples of where this might occur it’s difficult to see it being achieved.
We applaud those lecturers that are applying real world examples and highlighting historical origins but we disagree that all of the DA cannot match such heights. If the shortcomings we have outlined are to be addressed, it’s essential that such change is made.
– A detailed roadmap for reform must be outlined, driven by a wide-based steering group representing all university interests
We appreciate curriculum reform takes time, but the lack of change made for the 2014/2015 academic year means we feel that the economics department is a long way from the trajectory required for the syllabus to change in a way that address the failures we have continually highlighted.
To rectify this, we propose the creation of a broad, pluralist committee to assist the curriculum review you note is ongoing. Importantly, it would include representatives from student bodies representative of the university’s community. We recommend it include BEconSc reps, BAEcon reps and a rep from our society, amongst others.
But if modules offering alternative economic perspectives are to be taught, knowledge of such areas need to be existent amongst the academic staff of the department. In your response you outline plans to introduce a module in 2015/16, potentially incorporating Post-Keynesian economics. This will require economists in the economics department having considerable knowledge of this subject area, which at present is not the case. This is why we iterate the need to hire at least two economists with working knowledge of heterodox economics if these wishes are to be fulfilled.
The need for such a change is only made more pressing by recent National Student Survey results, which highlight students’ dissatisfaction with current economics courses in part for reasons outlined above.
We look forward to discussing matters further with you,
The Post-Crash Economics Society