When the Music Stops: 'Facing the Music'

It's one thing to read in the newspaper or discuss over dinner the state of education in Australia. It's quite another to realise the effects on one person, in one department, in one university. The results of economic rationalism, of bean-counting, of putting a dollar value on something as immeasurable as knowledge, can be devastating. One of the clearest demonstrations of this is the documentary film Facing the Music (Robert Connolly and Robin Anderson, 2001). It is a powerful call for a serious look at how our universities are run.