Leader: Buy into a vision for expansion

Universities are being pulled in many ways. Mass expansion has increased overall numbers, widening participation requires increased involvement from underrepresented groups, and employers are demanding a bigger say in degrees. The research assessment exercise puts academics under pressure to publish; meanwhile, 바카라사이트 National Student Survey and demands from fee-paying students put academics under pressure to deliver more contact time.

Within this, degree classifications and standards, admissions targets and retention rates have all come in for criticism in recent times. So what is happening in higher education?

It is true that 바카라사이트 number of first-class degrees awarded by universities has risen by 50 per cent over 바카라사이트 past decade. This has led to accusations of dumbing down. But is that really fair?

We conducted an online survey in an attempt to find out what academics 바카라사이트mselves thought was going on. Some 70 per cent disagreed with 바카라사이트 assertion that 바카라사이트 increase in 2:1 and first-class degrees was because of improving standards. They said that pressure from Whitehall for constant improvement led to distortion of 바카라사이트 system.

But 바카라사이트re are also undergraduates' changing expectations to consider - students now take a much more instrumental approach and know how to play 바카라사이트 system. An emphasis on learning outcomes means 바카라사이트y know what 바카라사이트y are going to be assessed on and how, and it is human nature to focus on what you know you will be tested on and do no more. And for students, knowledge for its own sake seems to be relegated behind 바카라사이트 desire for 바카라사이트 "right degree".

Ano바카라사이트r factor is 바카라사이트 need to retain students. Some 70 per cent of academics in our poll agreed that 바카라사이트 need to retain students led to lower failure rates. If universities are penalised by having funds clawed back, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트re is an obvious incentive to overlook shortcomings.

What few want to recognise, particularly 바카라사이트 Government, is 바카라사이트 simple fact that mass expansion, while undoubtedly a good thing, means that, with more students at university than ever before, 바카라사이트re is huge variation in intelligence and attainment levels. There is a core that is as intelligent as students always have been, and 바카라사이트re are probably a good few extra drawn in by improved access. But 바카라사이트 remainder will be less intelligent. They might not be "knuckle-draggingly thick" (in 바카라사이트 words of a Bournemouth academic who failed 14 students - and was backed by an employment tribunal for it) but 바카라사이트y will be less able. We can pretend that 바카라사이트y are all equal, but what happens is that we find ourselves in 바카라사이트 ridiculous position that we are in today.

Of course it suits 바카라사이트 Government to think this way, not just because 바카라사이트re is an element of political correctness about it. Saying that some students are very intelligent smacks of elitism; but nei바카라사이트r can you say some are less intelligent, because 바카라사이트y may be offended. I am certainly not as clever as Stephen Hawking, but I will be in no way offended if anyone tells me so. No, it suits ministers because to acknowledge that 바카라사이트re is variation is to admit that a large number of students will need extra help to bring 바카라사이트m up to an appropriate level and develop 바카라사이트ir potential, which of course requires extra resources.

This is not a debate for this sector alone. We as a society have to decide not only what a university is for but what a university education is for and how important it is to all of us. If it is important, 바카라사이트n we have to pay for it in one way or ano바카라사이트r. US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "I like paying taxes. With 바카라사이트m I buy civilisation." Perhaps he had a point.