Student-bashing

Today’s Higher Education Policy Institute’s report “The Academic Experience of Students in English Universities” proves interesting reading, not least because it is guilty of oversimplification on a grandiose scale.

You do not need a degree in statistics to know that if you find the average of two polar opposites you will be left with the mean and this proves very little. This is exactly the approach taken by HEPI. They argue that ‘on average’ UK students study for less hours, formal and informal, than their European counterparts. Well that may be but if you recognise that having more lectures is no guarantee of greater quality then why and how has this report managed to see the light of day.

There is clearly an agenda here. The funding body for this report is the Higher Education Academy. They appear to have a vested interest in promoting the work of HE in the UK. We can only assume that this report is designed to create a false sense of anxiety and fear regarding the future of HE in the UK in the hope that in order to address these perceived weaknesses in the system they will be awarded a larger pot of Government cash. Now where have we heard that kind of rhetoric before?!