Our Teaching’s Great, The Admin Sucks: Tales From Inside Higher Education is an often wryly amusing, occasionally exasperated rant about the inner workings of the ivory towers of higher ed by Ben Richards. Released 17th Aug 2023 by Troubadour on their Matador imprint, it's 247 pages and is currently available in electronic format. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.

Some of the stories here will be eye-opening for readers who aren't familiar with the behind-the-scenes machinations and irritations involved in running an institution of higher learning inside an increasingly legally constraining world. The difficulties compound when objectively intelligent (often brilliant - but often equally eccentric) teachers try to enlighten students and inspire them to assimilate their knowledge without running afoul of administrative rules and regulations.

For readers who are educators, especially in post-secondary education, the stories here will likely be all too familiar. In point of fact (and the author says as much), anyone anywhere who has worked in a bureaucratic institution will have experienced most of what goes on. This is his sometimes slightly self-indulgent recollections of working in universities over a long period of time.

Four stars. Worth a look for readers who have experienced the same and are looking for commiseration. Mr. Richards gets it.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I have been on quite a kick of learning more about teaching and education as a whole. This book felt really uninspired. I was looking forward to getting insight into higher education and getting some laughs along the way. I did not find myself laughing, but waiting for it to end. I also did not like the footnotes to each chapter. I found them to be very excessive and they felt indulgent in further story telling that should have already been made clear.

Overall, this felt like a friend venting about their boring job... droning on and on. With this topic, I think it would be more enjoyable to have interviewed different people and shared a variety of stories that somehow held a common thread. Instead we get insight into incompetencies that occur in virtually every field with no real insight into more systemic issues.

Thank you to Netgalley, Troubador, and Matador for an ARC of this book. Unfortunately, this was not for me.

I was really interested to read this perspective as a teacher myself. I think that this book highlights some good points and some challenges that are faced in schools today. I would recommend this read to teachers.

Have recommended this to my teacher friends! Fascinating read! Thank you so much for the advanced copy!

A very interesting book about a seemingly boring subject… behind the scenes at a university exposed in all its… glory? Maybe not. I’ve worked for big employers in a behind the scenes role, and although it wasn’t in higher education, so much of this was familiar. The incompetence, the bullying, the ‘issues’ with HR, ‘promoting’ people sideways or up (!) and the camaraderie. Ben Richards brings honesty and humour to a hidden world - and it’s fascinating.

There’s a lot of information packed into this book and anyone thinking of going to university, or any parent pushing for a child to go, should read it. Now that a degree leaves you with tens of thousands of debt, is it really worth it? You could earn as much with a vocational qualification and study part time from home.

I learned loads and I loved it. It would be interesting to chat to Ben over a coffee and hear some of the stories he left out. Also, I hope we hear more from him even if it isn’t an ‘exposè’.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

Unfortunately, I just could not get interested in this book, which was a shame because it sounded very good when I was originally looking at it.
The book was not grabbing my attention and I gave up after a dozen or so pages.
Not to say that other people may well thoroughly enjoy the book!

An interesting read — especially as I’m coming from it from the academic side. Accessible, intelligent and informative. Occasionally amusing. Well worth a read, if you’re interested in the workings of academia.

As someone who works in education I like reading books about the education system. Given the title you could be forgiven for thinking that the book includes funny and maybe insightful anecdotes about working in Higher Education, but not only shouldn’t you judge a book by its cover, you also shouldn’t judge it by its title. I could have forgiven the self indulgent tone if it had at least been interesting, unfortunately it is dull.

Enjoyable read! Lots familiar in here to anyone who has spent time in and around universities. It perhaps might have benefitted from stronger editing to theme the chapters more clearly around their topic - the covid chapter was stronger than others for this reason. I think this book can’t quite decide what it’s trying to be - it’s too personal and not dramatic/humorous enough to be akin to comedy behind the scene books (the Babylon series spring to mind) but it also isn’t serious enough to properly interrogate the broader political/social forces that might be driving some of the issues experienced. The brief discussion of tuition fees is the closest to this. I’ll recommend this to a friend who has worked in HE.

As an ex-teacher myself, I really enjoy reading books about the education system. From the books title, you may be fooled into thinking this book would be about working in Higher Education, including funny and insightful anecdotes - if you think that, like me, you will be wrong.
This book is self indulgent and dull.
There are no funny stories, it just doesn't go anywhere, and the 'admin' side of things just proves to be something that is not really very interesting.