Your second point first: for sure, there is an amount of polarisation but that is not new to the HUBB.

Academia, UK style:-


My contention harks back to an earlier post which very briefly touched on the issues of higher education in the UK; not that such issues lie solely in the higher branch but let's stick with that for now.


As is the case for many other areas of UK life, I contend that it has been commercialised beyond the acceptable.


Degrees are for sale; not to the highest bidder but to the 50% of the UK population who are targetted to attend a UK university.
i.e expected to take up higher education for some 2-3 years of their young lives in preference to any other form of activity. Yes, 2 year degrees can be awarded last time I looked.


Even the UK employers have said, in effect, that many UK degrees are “not fit for purpose”.
(they may not have used this particular terminology if only because it has legal implications).


On the supply side, it is not permitted to fail; an academic who recommends to an exam board to fail a student is, in effect, sent away to review things, set resit exams and come up with a more acceptable result.


On the downstream “output” side the more vocal, even thinking, ex-student graduates may even speak up and complain about the outcome, particularly in their personal case – the latter to the extent that they may go to law in order to have their individual result subject to judicial review. If they do not go that far then there are myriad student advisors and the like within the university system who can advise them about making internal appeals as a bureaucratic, non-legal review.
In short, the customer of the university can stand up for what they consider to be an equitable outcome for the money that they have put into their education; what they may learn from all of this is doubtful in my opinion.


I do post as a retiree from engineering and I do accept that my original contention was deliberately meant to generate some thought and further discussion by anyone who has an interest here in the pub.
As ever, your experiences and associated views can be quite different.
To be clear, I am not saying that education has no value: Hans Rosling explains this as well as anyone.
But, students have to want to learn and the product that they wish to study needs to be fit for purpose and that has not been the case for vast swathes of the UK for quite a few years, to my personal knowledge.
In a word, there is a lack of integrity in the UK system of higher education, certainly at the time I last experienced it close up and personally involved, just over 10 years ago.


Incidentally, but not off topic, the last link that I posted to a blog (the one written by a US anthropologist who also works at French and UK universities) makes some points that are related to this topic.

__________________
Dave