This week begins one of the worst deals offered by any British professional institution. Almost all universities are about to stop teaching students and subject them to pointless exams, mocks and quantification, before passing or failing them, then packing up and reassembling some months later in September. For an average price oftens of thousands of pounds a head (except in Scotland), most students will get virtually no teaching for a good proportion of their course. From any other service – medicine, law, accountancy – this would be regarded as a scam.
The tradition of scholars teaching academic subjects part-time while doubling as researchers is a relic of medieval monasticism. Oxbridge operates for just 24 weeks a year while many other universities operate two semesters. Staff and buildings may be otherwise employed, but students will sit idle, doing odd jobs or studying on their own. No one dares challenge this system. Whitehall inspectors never declare universities “failing” or “inadequate” as they do schools.
But I sense the worm is turning. Last year the percentage of British school leavers going to university fell for the first time – other than briefly in 2012, when the £9,000 fees came in in England. Even before lockdown and the years of online-only teaching, an Ipsos Mori poll showed a falling demand for university among school-leavers, with just 32% being “very likely” to go in 2018. The same trend is evident in the US where college enrolments have been falling for over a decade.
