Universities are for scholars
From Martin Hogg
Sir: James Shaw’s critique (‘I am a new kind of university drop-out’, 28 October) makes for depressing reading. If his ‘premier league’ university did indeed give him little or no work to do in the first term, if prizes were offered to all and sundry, and if selection of courses could ensure assessment based on coursework alone, then neither his university nor its external examiners were doing their jobs properly.
Universities should not exist simply as pro duction lines for degrees to enable graduates to secure better jobs. A university should exist as a community of scholars, and only those students with a passion for scholarship should be encouraged to undertake a course of study. Mr Shaw’s question, ‘What exactly is the point of going to university if you’re not going to do any work?’, raises the question why, whether or not he was challenged by his coursework, he did not consider finding his way to the university library to fulfil his eagerness to learn.
Martin Hogg Edinburgh
Previous page
