Turn up and prosper

The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that students can raise their final degree award grade simply by turning up regularly to seminars and tutorials.

Until I read further I assumed this meant that turning up for classes increases your ability to achieve a better grade, which seems to support common sense.

But no, what was meant is that perhaps as much as 10% of the marks awarded may be for sufficient attendance! Spokesmen from several universities confirmed the practice of awarding marks for timekeeping. The reason is apparently that otherwise students might drop out and universities find themselves "punished" by a reduction in funding.

This betrays a notion that students are fed by what is said at lectures, and merely have to trot out the material in due course in order to receive a degree - "The mysterious process whereby notes pass from the notebook of the lecturer to the notebook of the student, without passing through the brain of either."

University spokesmen bemoaned the fact that many students did not want to engage in intellectual pursuits to greater understanding which are implied in tutorials and seminars.

If this is the case many students are attempting a fraud, - to pretend they are worthy of a degree. In this they are encouraged by universities under pressure from government to pass as many as possible through the factory system.