There's a solution to the disaster of Britain's universities, if only the government had the courage to grasp it

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 380.

The gloom over Britain's universities

Pre-reading questions

Reading 1

What is your opinion of the British educational system?

How high do you think are the standards of teaching in Great Britain?

Britons have got used to de­cline. They do not expect to see their country wield much economic clout, political influ­ence or military power these days. But they still retain intel­lectual pretensions: they tend to think that, even if they aren't much good at turning cleverness into cash, they can match any other nation for inventiveness, culture and sheer brains.

If that isn't already an illusion, it will be soon. Britain's uni­versities, the nurseries of the next generation's brains, are be­ing ruined, and the government is doing nothing to stop it. Its long-promised review of university finance was put off from last year to this; then it was expected to be published this month; now it is billed for sometime next year.

It is easy to put off addressing the problems of higher edu­cation. When firemen go on strike, people get burned. When lecturers go on strike, students get to stay in bed longer. But, as Lord Baker said in a speech on the subject last year, "when great institutions decline they do not suddenly fall over a prec­ipice, they simply slide down the slope, a little further each year, in a genteel way, making do in their reduced circum­stances, like a spinster in an Edwardian novel." He should know: as education secretary in the 1980s, he was in part responsible for the disaster.