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May 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Higher Education Policy Institute says it raises an ‘uncomfortable question’ about degree standards
By
Sarah Harris
18:24 EST, 16 May 2012
|
18:24 EST, 16 May 2012
Thousands of students are gaining degrees with relatively little work despite record numbers of firsts being handed out each year, a study shows.
They are managing to graduate from some universities by putting in ‘much less effort’ than that demanded on degree courses at other more prestigious institutions.
The Higher Education Policy Institute has warned that the finding raises an ‘uncomfortable question’ about degree standards.
Thousands of students are gaining degrees with relatively little work despite record numbers of firsts being handed out each year, a study shows
Its report, The Academic Experience of Students at English Universities, comes as the number of graduates awarded first class degrees has soared by almost 50 per cent over the last five years.
However critics have also accused universities of failing to provide value for money since the trebling of tuition fees to £3,000 in 2006 has not impacted on the amount of teaching students receive or the size of group tuition.
Hepi surveyed over 9,000 first and second year students in English universities.
It found that ‘in almost all subjects’, students in pre-1992 red-brick universities devoted more time to their work than students in ‘new’ universities – former polytechnics and specialist colleges.
For example, in medicine and dentistry, students at pre-1992 universities have a total workload of 37.3 hours a week on average – including teaching and private study – compared to 34.5 hours in post-1992 institutions.
In veterinary science, students at red brick universities devote 37.9 hours a week to work compared to 27 hours at former polytechnics while law students spend 31 hours and 26.5 hours respectively at the different institutions.
However, there are also big differences between the amounts of effort required in different subjects.
The number of graduates awarded first class degrees has soared by almost 50 per cent over the last five years
In ‘mass communications and documentation’ which includes media studies, students have a total workload of just 18.1 hours a week in older universities and 20.4 hours in newer universities.
The average of 20.1 hours across all these institutions is akin to ‘part-time’ employment, whereas studying for medicine and dentistry is the equivalent of a ‘full-time job’.
The report says the policy question that needs to be addressed ‘is what it says about a UK degree, if students can obtain degrees which are held to be comparable, while devoting very different amounts of effort to their studies’.
The think-tank carried out similar surveys in 2006, 2007 and 2009 and discovered that students in English universities ‘by and large’ devote ‘far less effort’ to work than students in most other European countries.
Speaking ahead of the latest report’s publication, Bahram Bekhradnia, Hepi’s director, said he suspected that students with degrees from this country’s universities ‘don’t have the depth of knowledge and understanding’ that many of their overseas rivals have.
His report says: ‘Our degrees are already shorter than those elsewhere.
‘It appears also that less effort is required by our students during each week of study.
‘This raises potentially awkward questions, and indeed these are being posed by our European partners and those who sponsor students from overseas.’
Overall students reported an average of 13.9 hours of scheduled teaching per week across all types of institutions, compared to 14.2 hours in 2007 and 13.7 hours in 2006.
Students have been ‘working a little harder’ in their own time, reporting 14.4 hours of private study a week, compared to 12.7 in 2007 and 13.1 hours in 2006.
The report says that in terms of the amount of teaching contact students have and the size of groups in which they are taught, the increase in fees in 2006 has led to ‘no change’ in provision.
Referring to the introduction of £9,000-a-year fees this Autumn, Sally Hunt, general secretary of the Universities and College Union, said: ‘We are entering a very dangerous period for higher education.
‘Students and their parents will expect more bang for the massively increased buck, but the reality is that universities simply cannot deliver more for less.’
Some 53,215 students gained firsts in 2010/11 (15.5 per cent) compared to 36,645 in 2006/7 (12.6 per cent).
At the same time, 48.4 per cent of graduates – 166,100 – were awarded a respectable 2.1 in 2010/11, with only seven per cent – 24,825 – finishing with a third class.
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Whilst I agree that some of the subjects offered at degree level are dubious to say the least in more traditional subjects many universities in lots of subjects have turned to getting the student to apply the knowledge they have . So university “lectures” have been reduced and replaced with problem or outcome based learning where students are given a scenario and in a group guided by a tutor have to put together a solution to the issue and present it. The use of webanairs has increased as well where a tutor puts together a presentation and it is available on the web for students. The changes in teaching methods reduces the number of hours of face to face teaching but does provide the student with a knowledge of how to apply what they learn to “real” situations rather than just learn facts without relating them to real life. Students don’t always recognise these methods as ” teaching time”
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This is no secret, and it’s been true for years! Everyone at Oxford knows that PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) is easier than Law or Engineering or Medicine. And to my certain knowledge, an arts degree at a Russell group university is FAR easier than the equivalent degree at Oxford.
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I began to wonder about the validity of university courses last year when my 25 year old son gave me a card wishing me a ‘happy farthers day’.
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Hardly surprising….when you consider the amount of young people I have met who can barely even READ.
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Candidly, those who pursued higher education in Universities and Colleges in the 60’s would find the so called degrees issued by the MULTITUDES of pseudo “Universities”,of today,laughable, weg
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” ‘mass communications and documentation’ which includes media studies, students have a total workload of just 18.1 hours a week in older universities and 20.4 hours in newer universities.”
That’s the exact opposite to what the headline implies. What I think is really the genuine factor is the subject.
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Modern technology is changing the way we study and the way lectures are delivered , it has made it easier, no more unnecessary hard work !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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