If we're so intent on shortening degrees, why bother with the lectures at all? Just put a price tag on the parchment and be done with it.

[User11010866]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/university-three-years-student-loans-opinion-5HjdWx2_2/

Having just read this article, it seems to highlight a worrying trend in UK Higher Education. Compared to other global leaders, the UK already has the shortest academic years and the lowest contact hours. One has to wonder how our new graduates are expected to remain competitive on the international stage.

@Dffhjpittr
I agree that there has always been a difference between STEM and humanites degrees in terms of contact hours. I think most people didn't care when tuition fees were free. Now that degrees are so much money, students and parents are not happy about it.
I agree that degrees in Europe are longer but they are also more flexible and cheaper. The real reason people are considering 2-year accelerated degrees in the UK is cost. If degrees in the UK cost less then noone would suggest shortening them.
I had more than 6 exams in the summer term when I was at university- but I still had lectures leading up to them.
@phyllidafosset
I accept that academics have too high a workload. Is the problem that too much money is being spent on management? Are the league tables the problem? I think it is ridiculous that the number of 1st/2.1s awarded is even part of the league tables. This just leads to grade inflation.
I also don't think universities should be measured on student satisfaction as this is too subjective and could lead to universities offering less rigorous work for higher grades.
Employability is something worthwhile measuring.
What I do know is that students and parents are finding university unaffordable.

Yes, degrees are expensive but that doesn't mean that degrees can be taught in two years. Academics do have to do research that's the jobs and in fact what we get judged on. We are not teachers whose only job is to teach.

@fairyring25 They should care about research. In msny cases it’s what differentiates lecturers and university from FE. Years ago even the best HNC courses were taught by people who were researching! However if people don’t care about research (and I cannot see how many academic courses can be offered without it!) then these should not be degree courses. They are simply courses of HE to upskill. My view is that these should be separated out into HND/C level and not be degrees. This level would last for 2 years, and then require 2 more years for the degree. A decent degree in 2 years is not really possible snd is of questionable quality. Students, where terms are short, should be required to do much more reading and work.

The other huge issue with long terms is what time is there for internships or work to earn money? Both of these are important. Buckingham has many students from abroad with a different view of a degree and holidays and don’t necessarily need summer work or internships. They just want a quick fix degree. They are not too bothered about quality of university or where they live.

Agree to a certain extent. My eldest did an Erasmus year and much preferred the high contact hours in Italy and in Spain . There has to be a happy medium . I know students who are in for 6 hours a week . That’s ridiculous ,

“Teaching universities” - how about accepting that trying to downgrade the main purpose of a university and turn it into a school is what is killing the sector and trashing its global reputation? Academic research institutions should never have been turned into sausage factories for faux-academics, and polytechnics should never have been turned into universities, because that just confused people on what the purpose of different types of higher education actually was. At the same time as converting to universities, the former polytechnics began reducing the number of courses that were directly linked to valuable technical and commercial skills and offering more of the courses already offered in long-standing universities. What should have happened is an increase in respect for the differences and the worth of different purposes and approaches to learning and teaching. Instead, we have a continual dumbing down of academic work and reduction of value in degrees which no longer satisfy either academic or employment needs.

Not so in my experience. I remember some peers on some courses having about 8 hours in the nineties. You'd be hard pressed to have so few hours now. You wouldn't recruit to the course.

The challenge is that ‘holidays’ aren’t holidays

That’s why we don’t call them holidays. They are called vacations. Periods when the undergrad students vacate the university.

This article is basically a puff piece for the institution. UA92 is a very new university that doesn't award degrees under its own name. It offers very limited courses and the teaching staff are predominantly"just teaching" rather than researching and publishing. Their model seems to be much more like an apprenticeship or the old poly set up. A huge amount of the UA 92 value comes from fact it was established by ex Man U players and then their industry links. It's very vocational courses, business and journalism (which is sadly a very niche field now that local news effectively no longer exists)
Many of their staff are studying for their PhD themselves although they have considerable industry experience. It's also got very limited facilities: oddly for a place offering sports degrees it doesn't have its own sports facilities. And a common complaint seems to be the students still have to pay for 41 or 52 weeks accommodation even though they aren't at the university for that many weeks.
UA92 has a balance of 30% contact time face to face, 8% online and the rest is independent study. I just don't think that model is replicable at traditional universities with less vocational courses with lots of reading or practicals in specialist set ups like chemistry labs plus
I'm not sure how easy it would be for courses that require lab time to compress degrees into 2 years. And for degrees that needs a certain number of practice hours like nursing or social work where they already are working alongside study it just wouldn't work.

@Mumteedum I think you need to look a bit more closely. Politics, history, English and similar will be 8 hours or even less. Very common. My friends DS said he had 6 hours on a politics degree. Students signing up rarely look at contact hours and there’s a huge difference between sciences and some humanities. But - students have to read! Contact time isn’t everything. My DD did 2 MFLs. Lots of self study to get up to speed. It’s more about dedication and self direction as opposed to teaching as in a school. That’s how it should be.

I just find it bizarre that in England a degree takes 3 years to complete whereas in Scotland it’s 4 years.

my youngest is in her 5 th year at uni as is completing a masters.

Yes, contact hours for humanities and social sciences is 8 hrs....it might reduce to 6 in final year when they are doing their dissertation but they will see their dissertation supervisor. Thats nothing new and has been a set up for decades ...definitely in the 90s ans 80s....it's basically two hours per module...4 modules per term.

STEM is very different and they will follow their own model.

However, is it about contact hours or getting a job at the end of it. You can do a nursing degree with lots of hours and a job at the end but maybe not well paid. You can have 8hrs per week in law and end up a barrister.

The point isn't contact hours but the perception that STEM degrees are more likely yo get you a job. It's true sometimes but not always.

Surpises me, truly. It's not so in my institution even in Humanities. There are fewer hours of course at L6 when they're doing independent research and dissertations, but L4 certainly would get around 12 hours as standard.

Absolutely agree about contact time not being the be all and end all. I do think it varies though. A higher entry tariff course will have students who will transition more easily to independent study.

I can't remember where I read it now but even the current crop of ivy league students are not reading like they used to be. Phones have ruined us!

@Mumteedum how do your contact hours stack up. For us...our students have one lecture and one seminar per module...they take 4 modules per term. That's our student load. We do expect quite a lot of self-study.

And no students no longer read...it's depressing. I actually still see the point of lectures but not seminars. They can't engage with anything in small groups if they haven't read anything.

A lot of the students I know ( not doing stem ) are on 6-9 hours a week , up to 12 at a push .

@Dffhjpittr in my subject area it's 4 modules and X3 hours contact time in a block usually but we're visual arts so bit different. Humanities often do a two hour lecture and an hour seminar I think.

We would hope/expect them to do around 6 hours independent study per module but it's realistically tough for many of them to do that. A lot of them have jobs doing a lot of hours and/or commute. My committed students never have a day off. It isn't like to was for me, that's for sure I'd work in the holidays and earn enough to sub the rest of the year but I had plenty of time for work and play as a student.

I'm not too sure about compressed courses. It would suit some students but wouldn't suit a lot of mine for sure. I don't know how we'd staff it either. We struggle to take time off or do research other than Easter and the summer as it is.

Well that’s because they go at 17 in Scotland, and don’t need to do advanced highers. Weirdly the uni system in Scotland is set up to reflect the qualification system in Scotland.

I know parents aren't bothered by research - it's not directly affecting their kids - if a uni open day goes on about research rather than teaching we've tended to see that more as a red flag as parents.

However the government interviews I've heard seem to value univeristies more for research being done than students and teaching side. I assume they see it as an economic driver. It's also a huge motivator to many staff about why they go into HE in first place. The could hive it off to teaching vs teaching research but I don't think that would be popular with anyone either.

I am surprised DD1 has only 6 hours contact time this term- though she does see her supervisor - different course and uni but I was still at 20 hours and a huge project/dissertation at same point. DS is in first year and having around 20-25 hours and like me at same age more actual time than on timetable as can stay in labs and staff often hang round or are contatcable.

@GoldenApricity Why would you ever think this? Research informs teaching. No research and we stand still. You are really describing the old HE model at colleges of HE. We cannot afford to stand still in this country! We need cutting edge research to progress.

@Dffhjpittr As DD is a barrister (non law degree) you would be hard pressed to find any barrister coasting through a law degree! Or any other degree. Around 40% are Oxbridge and the vast majority of the others are from the LNAT Universities/RG. There are thousands and thousands of nurses doing degrees and all get jobs after their degree. 30,000 do law at university and barrister pupillage is offered to around 450/500 a year. Plus they compete with non law grads. It’s a completely and utterly different scenario. Also baby junior criminal barristers earn less than nurses. So just a few facts to aid the very odd comparison.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner it's not odd comparison. It's a comparison between a degree with lots of hours and one that does get you a job but much less prestigious, when compared to another degree that has a lot fewer teaching hours (and you are right potentially not giving you the rewards) that people do think is worth it. The difference is not contact hours but perceived difference in financial compensation you get if you do end up being a solicitor or barrisJon.

So the point isn't contact hours but whether it's going to get you a well paid job. I teach in an RG uni....but apparently our 8hrs contact hours per week isn't enough. But they were enough when students could walk into a well paid job.

The problem isn't contact hours, the problem is the perceived collapse of the graduate market. Why take on a massive loan when there is no guarantee of a well paid job at the end of it.

But @Dffhjpittr said nothing whatsoever about coasting through a law degree, they just said it required fewer contact hours than a nursing degree. Fewer contact hours does not equal less work, unless you are a lazy arse who wants to be spoon fed and finds reading and independent research too much like hard work; or are too busy doing paid work to fund your degree to actually do what is required to get true value from the degree and you only really want a piece of paper saying you passed a degree you didn’t put much effort into because you hoped it would make you look more employable…

I'm out of university for over 10 years now but I did my masters 10 years after my undergraduate and the shift in quality of all levels of provision was really stark. I had been thinking of staying on to do a research degree but my MA experience really put me off staying in academia and this was at a Russell Group University. I really did feel like post grads were just an income source for the university and I saw some higher fee paying students get away with murder.

Looking at reviews online things have only got worse. Not blaming the lecturers at all but I think something has gone badly wrong with further education in the UK.

What went wrong is that government turned HE into a business and withdrew the cash. That's what happens. I mean it's the same in the NHS with its bizarre internal market, schools that are now all in trusts that top slices everything, hotels that fleece local councils for accommodation they are mandated to provide, old people's homes that have been bought by private equity firms.

It's really not a mystery and it's really not just higher education. It's become a bit of a thing because the employment market is also collapsing.

@Dffhjpittr The universities did that by expansion. We didn’t need the expansion in the way it happened. No cap on student numbers for 13 years when there should have been. They knew they were not getting state subsidy. Oxford didn’t expand! They have themselves to blame. They were not required to grow like topsy. Plus when we all paid, around 20% went to university. 10% in 1970. Of course we cannot pay for multiples of that. The only way is for loans. But who pays up front for the loans? Of yes, the taxpayer. Now and with huge borrowing by the government! We will all be paying for profligate unfettered universities one way or another.

I'm always a bit baffled by the range of non STEM contact time. I went to Oxford and you got 12 hours of contact time a term (all tutorials) and then you could choose to go to any lectures on top of that if you wanted to (or not if you didn't). Lectures were by and large what the lecturer wanted to talk about rather than what was on the syllabus. Almost all study was independent reading. I'm not sure why todays humanities undergrads need so much more.