A little learning
Sir: Peter Jones's powerful excoriation of the administration system by which our uni- versities are now run ('Why I'm off, 13 September) does not tell the whole story.
LETTERS
There has been a parallel decline in the intellectual standard and seriousness of the lowest quadrant of students.
Of course some students have always been less able than others. Some have scraped in by the skin of their teeth, others through a teacher's over-enthusiastic rec- ommendation, others by luck or family con- nections. But such students either had something other than academic gifts to con- tribute — sporting prowess, usually — or were obliged to work hard to make up for their comparative dullness. Somebody has to get the Thirds. (I got one myself.) A 21-year-old friend of mine, a clever and diligent student, recently described to me an average day in the life of two others Who shared her lodgings. It began in the early afternoon, when they got up and breakfasted. They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the sofa in their — no, not dressing-gowns; I don't suppose they possess such a sweet, old-fashioned gar- ment — T-shirts, perhaps; at any rate, sit- ting on the sofa in their night-clothes, watching television and smoking cigarettes (mainly). They were addicted to soap operas and followed them all. At about 7.30 p.m. they sent out for a takeaway meal, ate it, got dressed and went to a pub or night- club. At midnight (weekdays) or in the small hours (weekends) they would return, happy on alcohol and herbal substances, to watch the late film on television. When that finished they would go to bed. Did they ever work? I asked. No, never, she assured me — neither had attended a single lecture nor written a single essay. They might as well have been unemployed, except that life was better as a 'student'. Why didn't the univer- sity get rid of them? No idea, she said.
Perhaps Dr Jones can tell us. Or, better still, the 'quality managers' who now administer our universities. I know none of my tutors would have stood for it.
Angela Lambert
L'Escarcelle, Au Lieu Dit Gaudemagne, Grolej ac, Domme, France
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