It isn't clear what grounds students should be admitted on, and how their suitability or capability for a course is to be assessed. In the absence of study and academic achievement, or private study, how is 'aptitude' to be measured?I expect that's why they've given him four months to come up with an answer rather than four days. Your reaction seems rather surprising - what they are saying is, can you please come up with a way to assess students that better reflects their likely academic success than the current system, which massively favours those with wealthy parents, a superb school, or both. It really isn't as hard as you're making out (though clearly hard enough, or they'd have done it by now
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Suitability includes the ability to study - so much university learning is and always has been 'unsupported' - that's part of what universities do - train students to learn independently, though providing a framework within which a student can hit the labs and the texts. Though A-level may not reflect that well enough, inability to cope at A-level is sometime just that and not all teenagers retain their early promise. Of course there are always exceptions and helping universities identify those is a good thing, much needed. Most universities are already putting a lot of work into that because they're aware of the issues and they know funding will increasingly depend upon proving success in those areas. However, the approach just announced seems rushed, threatens to be overprescriptive, and appears to put the onus on universities to remedy failings best addressed by (or at most in tandem with) schools and further education centres
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I'm prepared to believe the systems you mention are poor/too "one size fits all"; but you have no basis at all for thinking they or anything like them are what is being announced, since what is being announced is essentially a review. I'm still quite puzzled by your angry reaction to the announcement which essentially didn't make any new policy statement
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And another thing...a_llusiveNovember 4 2009, 22:36:25 UTC
Another issue is the dangerous propagation of the idea that only Oxbridge/Russell group courses 'count' - it very much depends on the subject and on what the individual student puts in. There are various things taught at Oxbridge where the premier institution in the UK for that field isn't Russell Group - research universities aren't always the leaders of teaching in a given subject. Going to an 'elite' university (with shorter, more intense terms and a less modular course structure) doesn't make the student better and may be too intimidating or the wrong framework for them to really flourish. (Many students from privileged backgrounds feel intimidates by getting into an elite university and it can lengthen their university adjustment period - throughout the course sometimes; even academic and research staff I've met admit to sharing such feelings. For those capable of high achieving in those very academic subjects or specialised sciences genuinely dominated by Oxbridge may succeed better from a weak early education position by
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Re: And another thing...cardinalsinNovember 6 2009, 20:28:18 UTC
Who says that not getting in will cripple you? The point is that these are acknowledged as (on a general rather than specialised prospectus) the top of the league table, and have been every year for as long as people have been measuring these things. Whether that's fair or not, it certainly puts an onus on them to get a balanced student body. They have certainly tried to do this, but progress has been very slow and it's quite reasonable to want to speed it up.
The fact that Oxbridge isn't for everybody does not change this at all.
Re your final point, I'm not sure why you pick the thirty year period - already its transparent to me that the best graduate jobs go preferentially to Oxbridge grads ad public school kids. Sure, other graduates have a chance to get into the top jobs eventually, but it's obvious that if you give the educational elite an open door to the best jobs at the start, you will see very slow movement indeed, without even taking account of the generally glacial pace of social change.
Re: And another thing...a_llusiveNovember 9 2009, 12:50:18 UTC
Who says that not getting in will cripple you?If not getting into an elite university handicaps your subsequent job opportunities and career progress, as you strongly aver, then in that sense it cripples you
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To clarify: I am for the use of contextual data and for ensuring the most able get university places on the courses suited to them which interest them, however I'm very cautious about blanket central intervention. The tenor of the reporting may well have misled me but the concerns I have about central approaches being enforced through ties to university funding which don't recognise difficulties elsewhere in the education system remain.
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The fact that Oxbridge isn't for everybody does not change this at all.
Re your final point, I'm not sure why you pick the thirty year period - already its transparent to me that the best graduate jobs go preferentially to Oxbridge grads ad public school kids. Sure, other graduates have a chance to get into the top jobs eventually, but it's obvious that if you give the educational elite an open door to the best jobs at the start, you will see very slow movement indeed, without even taking account of the generally glacial pace of social change.
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To clarify: I am for the use of contextual data and for ensuring the most able get university places on the courses suited to them which interest them, however I'm very cautious about blanket central intervention. The tenor of the reporting may well have misled me but the concerns I have about central approaches being enforced through ties to university funding which don't recognise difficulties elsewhere in the education system remain.
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