It’s the end of year marking season in NZ universities and it’s evident that something has gone badly wrong in our schools over the past couple of years.
Far too many students are now entering university lacking the basic literacy skills to succeed. Their ability to read at a tertiary level has been steadily dropping for a decade, but recently there has been a very worrying drop off in their writing ability.
Many of them appear to be functionally illiterate going on the incoherence of their written work. It does not matter what school they went to, or what gender or ethnicity, as it is an across the board problem.
If they are that bad, how did they qualify to enter university?
Compulsory writing or critical thinking courses do not seem to help as they can pass these and still regularly submit incoherent and illiterate work.
While the best are as good as they ever were, there are now a large number who lack the reading, writing or critical thinking abilities that a tertiary education demands.
I’d suggest that we are confusing an increased tertiary student population with a knowledge economy and knowledge society. We need fewer, and better prepared students at university, rather than the mass illiterate population now attending.
A friend commented when he was at high school in the 1960s there were a couple of hundred pupils in the third form, fewer than 10 in the 7th and not all of them went to university.
When his children were going through high school in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s, there were about 100 third formers, nearly 100 seventh formers (now years 9 and 13) and most went on to university.
“Are kids today really more suited for tertiary education than my generation, or are too many going to university for the wrong reasons?” he asked.
From what the professor has written, the answer is that too many are going, many of whom aren’t ready or sufficiently able for tertiary studies.
But the issues begin at primary and secondary school in a society that consistently undervalues education and educational standards and so also underpays and undervalues teachers.
Those involved in the pre-tertiary sector tell me teaching now involves too much social work and substitute parenting (in all schools), coupled with too many children who see little value in educational standards.
If universities are seeing those who have succeeded in NCEA then something is terribly wrong- and it’s getting worse very quickly.
It is a crisis.
. . .Mike is an associate professor and wants university to return to elitism.
He didn’t put it that bluntly, but he did use the word ‘elite’ and the word ‘elite’ is stoked with gun powder these days. It’s full of charge in this egalitarian society. . .
His argument isn’t actually new. The idea that kids pop out of high school completely unprepared for university has been an issue for years.
But once again, because we have decided university is a “thing” and you should go, you go whether you want to or are ready to go or not. . .
So Mike wants a return to a form of elitism. In other words, bums on seats has led to a lot of people getting bits of paper called qualifications that lead not a lot of places and often leave you with a debt you resent.
He argues for a higher quality of learning. It should be a place you need to achieve to get to, not just turn up.
It’s refreshing to hear it. Not just because he is right but because a lot of people think the same thing, but are just too afraid to say so, far less actually do something about it.
I returned to university more than 30 years after graduating.
At the start of the first lecture we were given a handout explaining course requirements and warning against plagiarism.
The lecturer then proceeded to read the handout to us, including the fact that attendance and participation would account for 10% of our marks.
I sat there thinking this is a waste of time, given we all ought to have been able to read it silently far faster than the lecturer could aloud, and wondering what had happened since I graduated that students now had to be spoon-fed.
Universities should be elite.
Going for quantity over quality of students devalues degrees and is poor use of resources – staffing and financial.
Universities are expensive for taxpayers and students. It is a waste of everyone’s money if people not sufficiently literate and numerate to cope with the studies are enrolled.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
This is rubbish, if the universities simply failed the under achievement it would be over.
Think in terms of physics as a subject, the proportion of entrant students who do physics has fallen, the the proportion of children who do physics has remained the same. Physics is hard less capable students would fail because there is nowhere to hide in physics.
Those less capable students do BS degrees they should do plumbing diplomas etc.
The universities are milking the state and the students of their lives and money stop the fraud. because that is what it is.
When I went to Uni in the UK in the early 1960s, I was told that only 3% of eligible-aged students went to Uni. I cannot verify that but for sure we weren't awarded degrees such as BSc, BA, MA, MSc, PhD for learning to add and subtract, knitting, hair-cutting etc.
One problem I see is that we seem to get many left-over graduates as teachers, mainly because they weren't good enough to be accepted elsewhere. Instead we need to offer salaries and career paths, together with post-grad courses about how to teach, to our best graduates to entice them into teaching at secondary level. But how do we improve primary level teaching, where it all starts ? It seems to me that many parents are not interested in educating their off-spring and just transfer their parental responsibilities to primary school teachers so both parents can work. Should there be an entrance test to enter primary school ? What happens to the child who fails the test ? Does one parent (if there are two, of course) stay home and bring the child up to scratch as quickly as possible so both parents can work again, or is the child abandoned to its own devices ?
We can learn so much from Asian families, how they view education as perhaps their prime responsibility. The results speak for themselves: in the USA most of the largest companies have Indians as their CEOs. Japanese, South Koreans, Mainland Chinese, Singaporeans, etc all put education at the top of their list. Why not NZ ?
In the 1960s, as numbers surged in all levels of Education, so demand for higher education increased. This was the "massification" phenomenon ( Martin Trow et al.)Top academically -inclined students could still excel in every field - but the need to recognize excellence across all areas of education ( notably trades) became evident. A horizontal - not vertical - system of excellence resulted to offer greater choice.
Sadly , NZ has gone down another route by dumbing down the academy into an indoctrination system. Law and " cultural studies" of the Social Sciences are the focus - and now "Maori medicine and science "is equated with universal scientific norms.
Quality is out - equity and indigenization are in. Auckland even plans a compulsory unit in Maori studies. This will not finish well for the quality of NZ's universities.
But will the government act to correct this circus?
The numbers at graduation ceremonies are preposterous; there cannot be that many far above average. The problem with standards is that these throw up racial ability differences and complicate the pretence that these do not exist. With such numbers now in the Upper 6th equivalent teaching should be better; in the 1960s, often so few they somewhat neglected unless enrolled for Scholarship,
Universities are doing exactly as Clark intended - mass producing marxist foot soldiers for the long march. Its worked in the social sciences - the infection of the public service, councils and media by these brainwashed zombies is largely complete.
DEI has undermined every public institution - as it works through the public economy we struggle to keep power and water on, ferries running, navies afloat, services affordable. The last HYEFU underlines its failure.
Meanwhile our right leaning government tinkers to improve Clark's socialist experiment.
It was Clarence Bebey and Progressivism that has destroyed our once excellent education system and resulted in poor literacy and numeracy . Bebey used seductive rhetoric about equality of opportunity to devalue academic standards and make schools into vehicles to promote socialism which has opened the door to Marxism into schooling.
The methods , ethics and discipline of traditional education were ridiculed but the methods , specifically are exactly what we need according to recent cognitive and neuro-science. We now have indoctrination not education.
Not only do we have poor standards for so-called higher achievers but one of the longest tails of underachievement in the developed world. Our education system is a fiasco in all areas Bullying and other bad behaviour is rife in classrooms.
We need a renaissance in learning and also according to recent articles by
other contributors on this site a reformation to cancel out the lack of freedom of speech which Marxism has produced combined with a counter reformation and anti Enlightened era.
When I went to school you had to pass the University Entrance examination; otherwise you did not get in. Seems a good idea.
I was thinking about the value of education and how kids today not “engaged’. Well they have no incentive to get educated. Certain political parties want us to be paid the same. And if that fails you can either go on the unemployment benefit or get pregnant.
I believe if you are of working age and physically fit; a benefit should be there to assist between jobs; not be a lifestyle.
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