Memorandum 3
Submission from Peter Dorey[5]
"DUMBING DOWN"
OF UNIVERSITY
EDUCATION
I am convinced that "dumbing down"
is taking place in British Higher Education, and at an alarming
rate too. It has been throughout the last decade at least, but
politicians resolutely refuse to listen to those who work in universities.
1. Universities are now run as businesses, so
many VCs and senior administrators want to avoid obliging weak
students to withdraw from their courses, because that will mean
a loss of revenue from their fees. Maximisation income is now
a priority, so we are compelled to "mark creatively"
when faced with a weak student. We are also obliged to be "culturally
sensitive" to students whose first language is not English,
because these are financially lucrative in terms of the high fees
they pay to study at a British university.
Ultimately, financial considerations are competing
against academic criteria and standards.
2. The "customer is always right"
ethos fostered by successive governments since the 1980s, via
their reform of the public sector, and their unrelenting hostility
towards professionals ("selfish producer interests"),
means that a weak or lazy student will simply claim that the lecturers
were at fault, and threaten litigation, backed by assertive middle
class parents who always think that their own children are wonderful;
if only some parents could see how badly their offspring behave,
and how ill-mannered they are, when away from home.
Even the articles quotes Phil Willis re-asserting
that "students are now customers". Sorry Mr Willis,
that is part of the problem; YOU are encouraging students to be
arrogant, lazy and passive, rather than actively-engaged learners.
The term customer implies handing over money, and being given
something in return, not working for it.
3. Key concepts and intellectual ideas which
students readily understood 10-15 years ago, they struggle to
understand today. Indeed, many of them have serious problems thinking
critically or independently at all: "Just tell us what we
need to know in order to pass our exams. Everything else is irrelevant
or boring", they say.
4. Many of them are semi-literate, and write
in "text-message" style. However, we have to assume
that inability to spell is always due to Dyslexia. We are
not permitted to penalise poor spelling in written work for fear
of breaching "equality and diversity" policies.
We then get employers and the media criticising
universities for churning out illiterate graduates.
5. Today's students, overall, are less willing
to read and work hard.
They often sit in seminars with only their mobile
phone in front of them on the desk (which they anxiously look
at every three minutes to see if any of their friends has contacted
them, rather than paying attention to the lesson) , but no books
or note pads. Ask them what they have read by way of preparation,
and they will brazenly admit to having read nothing—"I
was out last night", they will say with a smirk. They are
paying £3,000, so how can we admonish them for not working?
We can't, and they know it.
Indeed, the view is becoming established that
having paid £3,000 fees, they should not have to do any work.
They expect academics to do all the work now—we are their
servants entirely, and every time a government Ministers says
that "students are customers", this problem becomes
more entrenched.
This problem is further compounded by the "celebrity
culture" which youngsters today are in thrall to, which promotes
the ethos of instant success and instant gratification—you
can have it all now, they are led to believe. Hard work is for
"losers". Those (dwindling number of ) students who
do admit to working hard academically and staying in during the
evenings to read for a tutorial or write an essay are sneered
at by their peers as being "mugs" or "anoraks".
There is no point in expanding Higher Education
and increasing the number of graduates if they are too illiterate
or lazy to be of any use to employers in an increasingly competitive,
global knowledge economy, by this Government just does not seem
to understand this, or listen to the
concerns of those who can see fist-hand, what is
happening.
And we all know that "teaching quality
audits" are about having the "right" paperwork
and boxes ticked, not actual teaching
So given all of this, how could anyone seriously
believe that the record number of university graduates is evidence
that students today are brighter or more hard-working?
I used to enjoy teaching, but now increasingly
feel as if I am wasting my time with today's students.
November 2008
5 Reader in British Politics, Department of Politics,
School of European Studies, University of Cardiff. Back
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