According to the Telegraph, University students are increasingly turning to private tutors to help them pass exams because they are unhappy at the standard of teaching on their degree courses.
It’s not a new phenomenon of course. In the nineteenth century students who wished to do well in University examinations enlisted the services of private coaches. A coach like William Hopkins was known as ‘the senior wrangler-maker’ for his ability to assist men to the top of the University examination league table.
In many cases, the employment of coaches was less about dissatisfaction with the standard of teaching, but rather the absence of teaching. For example, in Cambridge in the early nineteenth century, there was little college teaching, no inter-collegiate teaching and no University teaching aimed at undergraduates.
Aside from a wry amusement over cycles of history and concerns about further media coverage on deficiencies in teaching provision, this story draws me into thinking about the contrast between narrow and broad conceptions of the functions of higher education. I am reminded of a reflection by John Venn on one of the coaches he employed as an undergraduate in Cambridge in the 1850s. He described the man as fairly well up in his subject but lacking ‘the power of originality that was desirable’. The coach was able to teach the required knowledge but did not facilitate the learning of a more general critical approach.
In the current day, with universities being urged by Government to ensure that their courses are relevant to the workplace and students are perceived to be taking an increasingly instrumental view of their degrees, there is a parallel tension. At last week’s Higher Education Academy conference, Alison Halstead (Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Aston University) argued that students needed more than knowledge of their subject, but rather the skill of learning to learn and being adaptable to changing environments. In an article for Teaching in Higher Education, Molesworth, Nixon and Scullion make a similar critique, pointing to the link between ‘marketisation’ of Higher Education and a narrower pedagogical approach that limits broader personal development and transformation.
What happened in the nineteenth century? In light of public criticism and the perceived failure of Oxford and Cambridge’s attempts to reform themselves, the Government intervened with Royal Commissions to restructure teaching and finances. Hmmm, moving swiftly on….
1 response so far ↓
Paul // July 7, 2009 at 5:13 pm |
I think it’s sad that college kids these days are having to pay an arm and a leg for a college education, only to be let down by the lack of passion that their teachers are showing.