Report in the Daily Telegraph, 9 February 2006, centred upon falling educational standards

'Spoon-fed' pupils can't cope at college

UNIVERSITY admission tutors have warned the Government that the reputation of higher education is being put at risk by failing standards in literacy, numeracy and study skills among school leavers. They say that the "reduced teachability" of new under-graduates means that increasingly universities are losing valuable time in providing remedial courses in subject knowledge and study skills, such as writing essays. School pupils are being "spoon-fed" to pass exams instead of being encouraged to develop knowledge and understanding. As a result, they arrive at university expecting to be told the answers.

The damning comments are contained in the most comprehensive study undertaken on what admission staff think of their students. The report, to be published today, says that essentials have been removed from many subjects and that the Government's changes to A-level, which is now taken in "bite-sized" chunks, has resulted in students who "want to learn and forget" rather than to "learn and know".

The study by Oxford University's educational studies department and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, interviewed academics from 250 universities. It says that today's students, even those with top grades at leading institutions, are likely to "lack independent thought", have "a fear of numbers" and prefer the internet to books.

It questions whether the Government will reach its target of 50 per cent of pupils going on to higher education without further jeopardising standards if the new students are even less well-qualified than the present ones. The report, leaked to the Times Higher Education Supplement will make uncomfortable reading for Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary as they hold a seminar today for companies and charities interested in forming new trust schools.

The Confederation of British Industry and the Institute of Directors have complained about declining standards of literacy and numeracy in the school leavers and graduates they recruit but this is the first time that the universities have spoken out. The tutors blame the league table culture of the past few years and Labour's changes to the A-level, which has been divided into two parts and six modules since 2000. They say that these have encouraged schools to spoon- feed students to produce good results.

The tutors question the reliability of course work, which has become a feature of examinations, saying that some students receive much more help than others. Dr Geoff Hayward, the director of the Nuffield Review, denied that the negative comments amounted to "whingeing"or "harking back to some golden age".

He said: "They represent genuine concerns about young people and their capacity to benefit from the higher education experience." Pupils were subjected to so many exams and tests that they arrived at university suffering "assessment burn-out". The constant testing of what they had learned prevented them from developing a deeper understanding of the subjects.

The report says: "learners who may have achieved academic success by such means at A-level, it was felt, are increasingly coming into higher education expecting to be told the answers. "They struggle to cope with the more independent and self-directed style of learning expected by higher education tutors."

The academics say that A-levels need to place greater emphasis on traditional virtues: the ability to read critically, to communicate ideas in writing using appropriate and grammatically correct language and to argue a case. Essay writing is a key means to achieve these ends. "Higher education recognises its role in developing these skills further but it needs more to build upon."

The report says that students arrive without understanding core ideas in their subjects, such as the span of historical time in history periods, and without the necessary knowledge of mathematical concepts.

"The focus on modular assessment as currently practised was felt to lead to the development of a modular mind, where learners were not fully aware of the utility of ideas developed in one place for a course for thinking in another area. The report says that, for economic reasons, universities will continue to recruit young people who are not adequately prepared for higher study "but it does mean that resources will have to be diverted into remedial teaching if those students are not to be failed at the end of their first year and drop out".

It goes on: "What tutors are looking for is really quite simple to state: students who are committed to studying a subject, engaging critically with ideas, prepared to take some intellectual risks and able to use a range of skills to develop arguments.

"This wish list should not be construed as a rather whimsical harking back to some previous golden age." Dr Hayward said the view had been expressed again and again that the present "mosaic" exam system was counter-productive to developing these desirable attributes. Students lacked the ability to manipulate language and numbers appropriately and effectively.

Dr David Law, the chairman of the Admissions Practitioners' Group, said the report confirmed the concerns often aired by admissions staff. "We are concerned about the interface between pre-university education and undergraduate study," he said.

EDITORIAL 9 February 2006 Daily Telegraph

Labour's failed idea of a modern university

Each summer, when new A-level results are published showing new record levels of attainment, ministers are at pains to stress the hard work of the students who have recorded these successes, and to talk up the considerable achievement implicit in them. Well-informed criticism about the declining standards of examinations that produce almost uniform passes is dismissed as ignorant and churlish. However, a new survey of 250 university staff from a variety of institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, suggests that the churls have a point. Undergraduates are said to be less numerate and less literate and to have poorer general knowledge than ever before. They also show little capacity for independent thought, and exhibit a reliance on being spoon-fed the answers. Clearly, the ability of such young people to derive the traditional benefits from a university is likely to be limited. The knack of being able to engage in independent study, or to be stimulated by traditional university teaching, will be far harder for those who know only how to learn by rote.

If the standard required for a good A-level pass is not to be raised, and the expectations of sixth-form teaching raised with them, the whole purpose of university comes under threat. Even in an age of obsessive vocationalism, we must not lose sight of the fact that universities exist, as they have always done, primarily for the pursuit of learning for its own sake. A society relies on an elite - which need not be small in number - of properly educated people who can bring to bear not merely wisdom, knowledge and judgment on serious matters, but can provide a humane and disinterested lead to those who have been denied the same advantages. There is also much to be said for the spread of learning, and the growth of intellectual life, in any society, however sophisticated it thinks it is. There will also, though, be increasing difficulties in our commercial life and competitiveness if the leaders of the next generation leave university inadequately educated, and weak in basic skills of knowledge and communication.

The Department for Education and Skills should take this survey extremely seriously. Given that the findings contradict years of its own propaganda, its inclination will be to sweep them under the carpet and to look for ways of discrediting them. Universities themselves should expose the hypocrisy and stupidity of doing this. It is time for vice-chancellors to shame the Government about its failures in this sphere, and demand a rise in standards - not merely for the sake of students, but for the sake of the country.