The great university con: how the British degree
lost its value
“According to Professor Fenton of Goldsmiths,
“Students come to us now with an entirely different mindset. They want to know
what you want to hear in order to get a First.” Students, she says, turn up
expecting to find “bite-sized chunks of knowledge that you put in certain
boxes. It’s that learnt process of gaming an A* [at A-level]. That’s the
complete opposite to what a university education is.” Or rather, was. “That’s
what changed,” she says. “Students have been shackled in the way they learn.” …
“Ideas that students readily understood ten to 15
years ago, they struggle to understand today,” Peter Dorey, professor of
British politics at the University of Cardiff, told the Commons inquiry in
2009. “Many of them are semi-literate.” Dorey described seminars in which
students sat listlessly, waiting to be told how to “pass our exams”. “They will
brazenly admit to having read nothing,” he told the hearing.”
Related: Impact of the 1963 Robbins committee report
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/robbins-50-years-later/2008287.article
The winners and losers of England’s great university free-for-all
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/robbins-50-years-later/2008287.article
The winners and losers of England’s great university free-for-all
https://www.economist.com/britain/2019/08/22/the-winners-and-losers-of-englands-great-university-free-for-all
Additional Readings:
Additional Readings:
The Grade Inflation Problem
https://vivekjayakumar.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-grade-inflation-epidemic-at.html