One of the oft-rehearsed arguments against the pursuit of student satisfaction is the idea that it is antithetical to being stretched, challenged or even judged.
This quintessentially British idea of education as something that students have to survive rather than something they might savour runs deep – and infects everything from funding systems to assessment regs, from student housing through to “freshers week”.
It’s why arguments about improved teaching and support, or scaffolding that explains to students how they can succeed, fail to register on those concerned about grade inflation.
For them, getting their upper second from the Russell Group was both about them surviving and about them being the fittest – where all the Darwinian sorting, selection and competition serves to (re)produce and reassure the winners that come to rule over us.
