UK University Entry Qualifications or Why A/AS Levels Need Reforming

Well, it's been a while since I posted. I need to make this more regular!

So today there's a big buhaahha in the UK "new" Universities about the idea that the "top" Universities (i.e. the real Universities) should set AS Level examinations. Now everyone knows A levels are a joke. Yes, students put a lot of work into them, but this isn't necessarily intellectual work! Far from it, most of it is pretty pointless coursework which takes up a lot of time and wouldn't stimulate the brain of an 8 year old.

European students who come to Britain to study at undergraduate degree are constantly surprised by how little their UK counterparts know, but we lecturers are no longer surprised.

The first year of a UK degree in one of the many second-rate institutions that we call "universities" is largely one long remedial class to teach the students what they should have learned in high school. Engineering students are taught basic maths (and when I say basic I mean simple arithmetic such as adding two fractions!); Literary Studies students (who generally think that J.K. Rawling is an example of modernism) need to be taught that Joyce existed and was not a contemporary of Shakespeare; music students have to be taught to read from a score...

So I welcome any change which will ensure that students actually learn something in secondary education. Perhaps we are still in time to save what is left of our once-well-respected education system...

Worthless degree modules

So the "induction" period is now over and we are starting "proper" lectures with the first years.

And I have discovered just how poor some of the courses are. In the business school students passed six weeks writing a CV. And this counts as a credit towards their first year mark! Worse, in one of the humanities faculties students passed (in group) six weeks putting up the most pathetic looking website with content which I wouldn't deem acceptable for a primary school project. And in the computing department students passed six weeks playing with the Wii game console, not writing games, just playing and writing a pathetic essay on what it was like.

These are University students, doing degree courses. What hope is there?

Students who can't speak English

New day, new crap. I just had a 20 minute conversation with a student to set up a meeting next Thursday. The conversation lasted 20 minutes as the guy, from India, cannot speak or understand English. "Next Thursday" "Tuesday?", "No Thursday" "Oh Tuesday", and so on. The standard of English amongst MSc students is appalling, UK Universities make a bit thing of the fact that students from India, China etc must pass a "rigorous" English language test. But we all know they pay to get through the test, or they get their cousin to take the test for them. And UK Universities are desperate for cash from foreign students, so they just close an eye or two and let them in. And woe to the lecturer who dares complain! As the dean keeps repeating, it cannot be true, and every student lost is a lecturer's job on the line! Their English must be fine, because the admissions office tells him they've checked all the documents. Another reason why an MSc from Coventry, Nottingham Trent, Northampton, Manchester Metropolitan, Birmingham City, South Bank, etc is worthless.

A pissed of lecturer from a UK university starts a blog

Hello people and welcome to my blog. I've never blogged before so please bear with me while I work it out.

Why have I started this blog? because I am pissed off with UK universities, the crap they produce, the idiots who run them, the lack of academic freedom, the lack of accountability, the lack of integrity in giving out degrees, the amount of money (both students' money and taxpayers money) wasted to fund the lavish lifestyle of vice-chancellors, deans, pro-vice-chancellors, managers, marketing officers, environmental officers etc.

I have worked a number of the third-rate places which call themselves Universities, but certainly do not deserve that name, most recently Coventry University and Leeds Metropolitan. I'm currently in another of these august institutions. None deserve the name "University" and the students who come out of these places with degrees do not deserve to be called graduates. Let's be honest they cannot read and write, they cannot add up, they have no creativity, no initiative, no intellectual curiosity. And they get given a 1st or 2nd class honours degree. Please!

To be continued...