The Sudoku Effect

ebook Universities in the Vicious Circle of Bureaucracy · SpringerBriefs in Education

By Stefan Kühl

cover image of The Sudoku Effect

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

Download Libby on the App Store Download Libby on Google Play

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Loading...

This book shows that the introduction of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) of credit points as a new accounting unit at universities has led to increased bureaucracy and the schoolmaster-style regimentation of Bachelor's and Master's courses. It explains how, due to the pressure of having to plan every single working hour of studying in advance, a 'Sudoku Effect' is created by the necessity to combine courses, exams and modules in such a way that the points 'add up'. An unintentional side effect of the introduction of the ECTS, the Sudoku Effect has led to more classroom style teaching, an inflation of exams and fewer choices available to students. It has resulted in such complex and contradictory guidelines for the planning of the curriculum that the values attributed to the higher education reform can often only be realised if the rules for Bachelor's and Master's programmes are ignored, or at least stretched, in practice. The book describes how the reaction to this situation is the continuous further refinement of the complicated rules rather than their abolishment.

The Sudoku Effect