
Universities admit students who are 'almost illiterate', lecturers warn - ktamiola
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/02/16/universities-admit-students-almost-illiteratelecturers-warn/
======
monodeldiablo
This smells a lot like anecdata. "Almost illiterate", in the age of the Web? I
smell bullshit.*

Something tells me that this is more a reflection of the rapidly changing
state of our language -- and the mounting generation gap therein -- than some
sort of universal dumbing down. The Boomers' parents had a similar reaction to
all the groovy new lingo and loosening linguistic conventions. When they said
"illiterate", they really meant "nearly unintelligible _to me_ ", or had a
negative reaction to being called "man" instead of "sir".

The definitions of literacy are changing. They're always changing. Without a
quantitative measure to back up the claims, I'm inclined to think this is just
reactionary garbage masquerading as fact.

* I'd absolutely believe that critical thinking skills are on the decline, however. I blame the balkanization/insularity of internet communities and the industrial commodification of higher education. Teaching critical thinking requires individual attention that is increasingly scarce in the rush to get everybody "educated". Simultaneously, the web has allowed and encouraged people to choose increasingly niche communities in which to spend their time, reducing their contact with different or challenging ideas, cultures, and experiences.

~~~
gambiting
_total anecdote_

In my MSc in Computer Science in the UK we had 9 international(Chinese)
students.

8 of them dropped out after 3 months - they could barely speak English, they
definitely could not write in English, and the reason why they dropped out was
because for 3 months they used our lab as a place to play League of Legends,
and nothing else.

To be accepted, they all must have already obtained a BSc degree in Computer
Science or related field from somewhere, and have at least 7 on an IELTS exam
to demonstrate their English proficiency. I honestly don't see how either one
was possible.

That has nothing to do with being called a man instead of a sir. They
literally couldn't speak the language of the course they got accepted into.

I am tempted to say that it's the fault of the university for accepting them
in the first place, but in a way, their hands are tied in how much vetting
they can do, and things like IELTS are meant to be completely objective.

~~~
monodeldiablo
Curiously, I had the same experience with Chinese MSc/PhD students. My
graduate-level CS discussion sections and labs skewed heavily Chinese,
American, and Indian. The Indians seemed most prepared, the Americans right
behind, and the Chinese were way behind. Group readings of recent research
papers were an exercise in torture. Poor comprehension, near zero
communication skill, and a total inability to find flaws/ask questions.

None (that I know of) made it out of the program. I have no clue how they ever
got in the door, as this was a international top 100 program. I actually
finished the semester by skipping the discussion section altogether, doing the
readings in my own time, and going straight to the professor's office hours
with my notes and questions. He understood completely. I think he actuall
envied me my freedom.

On the flip side, my partner (whom I met in college) was a refugee with poor
English her freshman year. Yet she graduated -- with honors -- in a shade over
three years, with two degrees in the soft sciences and better written and
spoken English than myself. Then she got a degree in a hard science. Then a
masters.

And that's the problem with anecdotes. I could choose either to be
representative of my experience, but I'd be wrong either way. Without some
quantitative data, we really can't know if this is a real phenomenon or not.

------
tonyedgecombe
The most interesting point in the article is the plan to shift university
ratings away from research and towards student satisfaction. I can't see how
they can do that without taking away responsibility for grading.

~~~
tajen
Do we still have grading in university? Since we started removing marks in
middle school, should we keep going in adulthood by keeping students away from
being evaluated? so universities don't have to make students unhappy.

------
zakk
The same headlines in Italy, last time a couple of weeks ago. And still the
European Union calls for a higher percentage of university students.

I have come to the conclusion that not everyone is fit for higher education,
unless we lower the bar.

~~~
CalRobert
I've come to the conclusion that much of "higher" education isn't. More a
mediocre patch on nearly nonexistent secondary school.

------
lunchladydoris
Perhaps universities have overlooked a simple solution to illiterate students:
don't admit them!

But of course, that won't look good on the bottom line, so in they come.

------
teknologist
While living in China I've met several postgrads who studied in the UK or US
but speak only pidgin English at best. How did they get through it? With money
and copious amounts of cheating, probably.

~~~
bryanlarsen
While criticizing someone else's English it's almost guaranteed you'll make an
error of your own. It's 'pidgin English', not 'pigeon'.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I upvoted you, but the comma after 'pidgin English' should really go inside
the quote. i.e.

    
    
        It's 'pidgin English,' not 'pigeon'.
    

:)

[http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-
around...](http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-
quotation-marks.html)

~~~
aninhumer
That's a style choice, and one that's largely rejected by this audience
because we're used to logically nested programming languages.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
We're also used, I hope, to juggling multiple types of syntax in the same
project. This is no different.

~~~
aninhumer
Yes, and if the person you replied to were writing an academic article for the
American Psychological Association they would be wise to follow their style
guide in that context.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
APA style is used far beyond psychology, and is one of the three most common
styles of writing, the other two being MLA and Chicago.

------
Main_
I actually had the opposite experience. Whereby, I as a non-native english
speaker was surprised at the level of english of born and bred english
speakers. It was disastrous at times.

Most did not go over a single sentence without using auto-correct or other
tools. I've seen some copy text from the internet and put it through an
article spinner, then paste it to their assignments. Not just because of
laziness or the desire to cheat, but because they couldn't spell or form
appropriate sentences.

~~~
Main_
Additionally, just because your english isn't so good doesn't mean you don't
know the subject you are writing about. Unless your thesis is about English
Literature, then I agree with the article.

I had a colleague who could barely write anything, but he was so outstanding
in Math, that the professor asked him politely not to attend the classes
anymore. His thesis was impossible to read but he still got the best marks.

Your intelligence and abilities to understand and master a subject have
nothing to do with how well you write/speak.

It is however crucial to learn to write and speak properly in the longterm,
especially if you decide to work/live in that country.

~~~
tnzn
There's still a strong myth that there is a causal effect between how well you
can write, and how well you can think, conduct a logical reasoning or w/e...
And of course most people who say that believe to know better than
linguists/psychology researchers on the matter.

------
DanBC
A big part of the problem here is over-emphasis on academic degrees, and
under-appreciation of the value of vocational qualifications. This pushes
people into degree courses because that's the only way they can get into the
job they want to do, even if that degree education isn't necessarily the best
way for them to gain skills and knowledge needed.

> Another senior lecturer in nursing at a university in northern England,
> said: “We can now see a whole generation of registered nurses who cannot
> read critically or write coherently but who have somehow passed a degree –
> this is worrying”.

There's surely a role for both here - the academic nursing degree for nurses
who want to move into management or nurse-practictioner or nurse-prescriber or
other specialised nursing roles (intensive care; eating disorder), and a
vocational degree for nurses who just want to nurse.

~~~
tremon
_A big part of the problem here is over-emphasis on academic degrees, and
under-appreciation of the value of vocational qualifications_

I disagree. I think that universities should focus on academic degrees, and
leave the vocational training to other shools and/or businesses. You even say
so in the rest of your post: the problem is that businesses tend to overvalue
academic titles and undervalue vocational titles, which leads to people
pursuing academic titles even though they have no use for them.

------
Joof
I'd love to see some data behind this. It's too easy to view this incorrectly
from the point of view of an educator.

~~~
closeparen
In the US, about 40% of students who enter college do not graduate [0]. This
has many surprising implications.

\- Graduating from college, any college, _does_ mean _something_ because many
of the people who try can't hack it.

\- Big state schools seem to be "of the people" while elite private schools
are, well, elite. But they are not so different. Elite private schools have
low admission rates but also near-zero dropout rates. Big public schools have
high admission rates but also dropout rates in the 40-60% range. They just
apply their filters at different parts of the funnel.

\- The way to a more educated population is probably _not_ to expand college
access. Already, far more people access college than can complete it. More
interesting questions are about how we best serve the people at risk of
dropping out. The answer might be to make state schools _more_ selective, not
less, so that we aren't wasting people's time (and money!) with programs
they'll never complete.

[0]
[https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40)

~~~
emondi
You can still learn a lot even if you don't graduate.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Sure, but the possession of a real university degree pretty much guarantees
you can at least read, write & reason. Most Americans without a University
degree can read, write & reason, of course, often better than a University
grad, but the University degree proves you can do it at least minimally. It
used to be that a grade 8 certificate would provide that guarantee, then it
used to be that a grade 12 certificate would do it too.

There are far cheaper ways of proving somebody can read, write & reason but
for some reason employers seem to be stuck on that University diploma. I guess
it's easy for them.

~~~
Melchizedek
At the company where I work there is a written test of language/logic/math
that applicants for jobs have to take. This has had the effect that almost
nobody at this company is stupid or incompetent. They are also easy to work
with - I would guess partly because social ability is correlated to
intelligence.

I suspect this test is the single biggest reason for the success of the
company.

~~~
anonymousDan
Is this something your company came up with itself? Is it available publicly?

~~~
Melchizedek
I think the test was provided by some company. There was nothing magical about
it though - part of it looked mostly like an IQ test, and there were math
questions and short reading comprehension tasks. It was fairly easy and the
biggest difficulty I thought was the short amount of time we had to complete
it.

I suspect any reasonable test in that general direction would do the job. I
don't think they use it to specifically hire the people who achieve the very
best scores, but rather to _not_ hire the ones who perform poorly.

------
enord
This is probably a result of New Public Management
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_public_management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_public_management))
in education governance.

When the pupil is modeled as a "customer" something has to take the place of
"revenue" when measuring the relative success of different management- and
educational strategies and comparing them to cost. There are different
quantifiable "revenues" in education like student-hours, grade averages,
diplomas etc. But the focus is on diplomas, passing grades and standardized
tests (as opposed to teaching hours or other measures of undefinable value to
the "customer").

To cover cost, teaching institutions rely on funding, and funding is tied to
"revenue" e.g. test-results and diplomas. This causes a misalignment of
incentives that reveals the real customer of teaching institutions: The
funding agencies (department of education, local state government etc.).
Students, or more specifically diplomas, are the product. And demand is
growing. The only rational response is to produce more diplomas and test
results. The supply of students who will thrive in a given educational
environment, now defined implicitly as "that which produces the desired
diplomas and test results" is fixed. Lower standards or lose funding. The NPM-
ethos is "run it like a business" so the choice is obvious.

------
vorotato
Well they can't go back to highschool, and clearly even if they did they
wouldn't get a better education. What do you recommend they do? They are
willing to take out loans to learn, we should have classes which handle less
educated students.

