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Students aren’t what they used to be - and never were

David Watson

HEPI Conference 6 May 2009

Centre for HigherEducation Studies(CHES)

Talking about the “student experience:” four pathologies• Nostalgia and selective memory• Condescension and disappointment• Moral panics and “pulling up the ladder”• Contradictory expectations

Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries – China, Cuba, India and Japan - not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. The question of when the Civil War was fought invited an array of responses – half a dozen were off by a decade or more. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe vs. Wade was about slavery, that 50 judges sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975. You get the picture, and it isn’t pretty. (Gup, 2008).

The Brent students will likely find themselves in a rust-stained concrete former polytechnic not far from home in London, to save money. A seductive glimpse of Oxford might leave them feeling that they had failed, when to make it to university at all would be success against extreme odds (Polly Toynbee, Education Guardian, 5.8.08)

Outline

• Generational relationships• Student “co-creation”• The international campus• Student satisfaction

Generational fracture

The “University of Google”

We had to work it out for ourselves. It was an environment of fear: a fear of failure. At the very time that capitalism was benevolent, the university system was preparing us for the ruthless inequalities we would confront upon leaving a leafy campus.

Now that there are wars on terror, casualized workplaces, little union protection for workers and an economy based on credit card debt, universities are soft but cuddly institutions, shielding our students from the dire reality of life (Brabazon, 2007: 125)

The “information age mind-set”

– Computers aren’t technology– Internet better than TV– Reality no longer real– Doing rather than knowing– Nintendo over Logic– Multitasking way of life– Typing rather than handwriting– Staying connected– Zero tolerance for delays– Consumer/Creator blurring (Frand, 2000).

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“Payback”

I'm told that university students tell tales about their ballooning student loans with rueful grins rather than with floods of despairing tears. Everyone's in debt - so what? That's the way it is, and how else are they supposed to get through school? As for paying it all off, they'll think about that later (Atwood, 2008: 131).

Younger employers

The age of the recruiter came through as a key factor. Younger respondents were more prepared to employ school or college leavers and therefore had much less difficulty in filling job vacancies. Older recruiters found it much more difficult to buy into what school or college leavers had to offer (Lanning et al., 2008: 1-2).

The student estate

Percentage change in enrolments by subject area, 1996/7 to 2005/06

0

250000

500000

750000

1000000

1250000

1500000

1750000

2000000

2250000

2500000

1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

FT First Degree FT Other Undergraduate PT First Degree PT Other Undergraduate FT Postgraduate PT Postgraduate

UK HE student numbers by mode and level, 1979 - 2005

Percentage of young full-time first degree entrants from Socio-Economic Classification classes 4, 5, 6 and 7, 2005/06

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Sector

Russell

1994

CMU

GuildHE

Enrolment of students from social groups 4,5, and 6, by “gangs”

2006-7

31%

30%

23%

18%

18%

17%

12%

9%

8%

34%

37%

31%

14%

14%

10%

8%

4%

4%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

More spending in the library

Improved security

More access toP C's/technology

Smaller teaching groups

More contact time withlecturers

Improved teachingroom/theatres/labs

Better paid and motivated staff

Higher quality of studentresidential accommodation

Scholarships or bursaries

UoB

UK

2005)The views of students about what additional funding from differential tuition fees should be spent on.

UNITE, 2005

What should the new fee income be spent on (Unite, 2005)?

The international campus

The international campus

UK Institutions by number of overseas countries supplying students, UK 2004-05

>150 3100-149 7550-99 4520-49 32<20 13

“Graduate Citizens”

In their speech, our respondents recognised four circuits: (i) those of student peers; (ii) the intergenerational; (iii) that of imagined ‘abstract others’ as recipients of state welfare; (iv) and the formal constitutional dimension of their relationship to state and government. These circuits were governed by principles such as fairness, altruism, reciprocity and responsibility that we will sum up in the more general term, ‘mutuality.’ …. The moralising of extended relationships in this manner counters both the fears of those who believe that the absence of a language of formal citizenship indicates privatised withdrawal and those who would wish to celebrate the primacy of calculative individualism (Ahier et al., 2002: 141).

“Britishness”

The qualities of British life - the notion of civic duty binding people to one another and the sense of fair play which underpins the idea of a proper social order - come together in the ethic of public service [leading to] the great British public institutions admired throughout the world [among them] our universities, including the Open University (Brown, 2004).

The citizenship test

Things you need to know -

•data from the census and the history of immigration;•national and religious holidays (predominantly Christian);•Quangos and NDPBs;•the political process;•the Constitution (e.g. the Act of Succession)•international bodies (Commonwealth, EU, UN)•how to behave (motorways, estate agents, Post Office, pubs)

Ed Husain, The Islamist (Penguin, 2007)I loved my time at university. My understanding of my subject had hitherto

been blinkered by the arguments of Mawdudi, Qutb and Nabhani that history was a conflict between Islam and the rest of the world. But I was determined to open up my worldview and slowly, independently, question some of the concepts and tenets I had once held dear (156-7).

Another of my tutors was Professor John Tosh, author of The Pursuit of History. His lectures caused me to question my approach to history. One thing history was not was an idle intellectual pastime. Professor Tosh argued that the past created the present, and that the past was open to multiple interpretations. What seemed like blasphemy at first slowly began to make sense (159).

Student satisfaction: complaining and appealing

Conclusion

Which way for the Select Committee?