in a curious twist of fate...

[_nick_]

Conservative Higher Education Spokesman defends 'Micky Mouse' degrees

'Mr Johnson said: "Sometimes in our thinking about higher education, we're too narrowly confined to a utilitarian calculus about what it's doing to the bottom line of UK plc

Comments

[anonymous]

Odd - he's the last person I would have imagined holding views like that.

He's also totally missing the point that the UK does not have well recognised advanced vocational qualifications - hence the proliferation of pseudo-academic vocational degrees, and the subsequent devaluation of degrees as a whole.

[brokenbeast]

Or put in another light, we so devalued the original model of the bachelor's degree - allowing (all but enforcing) that it be taken in three years, despite removing the Oxbridge entrance standards - that most of Europe is adopting it... as their advanced vocational qualification!

One might as well say (and I do) that we should be the ones adapting, and introducing a real academic qualification: taking a minimum of five years, with basic groundwork examined after two years and before specialism, with the possibility to repeat or swap courses without 'failing a year', building up credits towards a final thesis and oral examination.

Four year degrees (MMath, MComp, MEng etc) are not even to save our reputation...