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Old Borlasians
better job was likely to be fairly low down on the list of
priorities. (Again, how times have changed!) Over the last
20 years or so, the large groups of mathematics students
that I have taught appear, by and large, to have no more
than a passing interest in the subject; these students
are only concerned with how to get a good mark, and
not in cultivating a love and appreciation of the subject.
For someone like me, of the ‘old school’, this is very
disappointing – but I still endeavour to make the topics
that I teach both interesting and exciting (in the hope that
some of the old attitudes will rub off).
One significant effect of the great increase in the number
of universities, and of university places, over the last two
decades, has been the explosion in the number of subjects
that can be studied for a degree. Many of these newcomers
seem, to me, to avoid any deep and rigorous foundation
and also, in the current jobs’market, it is far from clear that
such studies are worthwhile. Although, no doubt, many
of these subjects involve some further study or practical
experience, I am not convinced that they are appropriate
for study at university level. My position – albeit rather old
fashioned, I guess – is that subjects studied at university
should have a firm academic foundation and pedigree,
whether this be driven by science or history or language
…. perhaps you can add a few to the list.
Further, the expansion of the university sector brought
with it the perceived need to judge the quality of the
teaching that was available at university level, it being
thought that this should be compared and equated with
school and the (old) polytechnic environments. I never
had a problem with any principle that promoted good
teaching, but it soon dominated much of the planning
(at the expense, it seemed, of any acknowledgement of
the essential reasons for the existence of universities).
Indeed, the whole process of quality assessment tried
to measure and quantify the unmeasurable, because
so much in this area relies on subjective judgements. In
part this was ameliorated, it was argued, by the need to
have detailed paper trails (as if this was the answer to
everything!). As it happens, I got myself involved in these
processes, at a local level, advising departments on how
best to prepare for a ‘QAA visit’, but, for me, the emphasis
has always been on how to help colleagues performbetter
as teachers – and not how to produce more convincing
paperwork. [QAA = Quality Assurance Agency.] One very
noticeable consequence of this change of emphasis is that
university nowadays is not much different from school –
but perhaps this is good news for the modern student.
Gone are the days when ideas were presented and the
student encouraged to explore; now, it seems, every
detail must be spelt out and every piece of information be
immediately available. So what effect has all this had? In
my experience at Newcastle, in the mathematical sciences,
there has been a slight overall improvement in the quality
of the teaching – but not a great change because it was
already surprisingly good. It is a much-repeated myth
that the teaching of mathematics is uniformly poor; this is
rarely the case at the better universities (because, I believe,
the nature of the subject requires a careful and deliberate
development – and a little enthusiasm completes the
package). Certainly, however, we do now have a much
better system of written information available for all our
programmes and modules.
On top of this, starting at about the same time, the
universities were subjected to the RAE (‘research
assessment exercise’), which has been an attempt to rank
the quality of research across all subjects at all universities.
This, in turn, has been used, both nationally and in
individual universities, to identify where the funding
should go. Without doubt, this is an essential exercise,
provided the
raison d’être
of a university is not forgotten
e.g. don’t destroy a subject simply because it brings in
less research money. I will make one final comment,
which shows a bizarre aspect of these exercises: any
shortcomings deemed to have been uncovered by a QAA
visit must never be excused on the basis of ‘but we were
busy doing research’. On the other hand, any lack of quality
in research must never be excused by the claim ‘but we
were committed to far more student-contact hours than in
the past, and we have been preparing for a QAA visit’. No
wonder that some of my colleagues took early retirement:
their place of work no longer recognised personal integrity,
and excellence in research, alone, was an insufficient basis
for a university post. (My own approach, long before the
era of QAA and RAE, was to maintain a balance between
research, teaching and administrative duties – and I
managed to continue this, ignoring themore questionable
requirements of either!)
I must mention the introduction of student fees (and
associated loans). This is surely a bad move; indeed, I am
quite certain that I, and many of my peers at university
50 years ago, would never have considered a university
education. (I come from a poor, middle class family; none
of my family had ever been to university.) I can understand
the current pressure to fund the large number of students
at university, but this has arisen mainly because the
numbers have increased so dramatically. We now have
a situation where nearly half the younger generation
has a degree, but many have no jobs – and the vast
majority of these degrees are not relevant to a modern,
thriving, science-based, technologically-driven, educated
community. I believe that the system in place before 1992,
although it needed overhauling, provided the quality
university education the country needed (and still needs);
