INFORMAZIONI UNIVERSITARIE

British universities do not deserve their reputation as among the world's best, an expert claimed last night. There is an "unspoken conspiracy" that conceals poor teaching and inconsistent standards, according to the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI). Many undergraduates do far less work towards their degree than students at universities elsewhere in Europe over the three years of their course, Bahram Bekhradnia said. Professors allow this because most students are happy to let academics focus on research rather than make them study harder, he claimed. Giving a lecture in London, Mr. Bekhradnia cited four surveys of undergraduates by the think-tank, which found that British students studied on average for fewer than 30 hours a week. This was only three quarters of the time expected for a degree course, he said. He also pointed to surveys of EU students studying for a year at English universities on exchange programmes. These found that 38 per cent said their course in England was less demanding than at university in their home country, while 41 per cent said it was the same and only 22 per cent said it was harder. The proportion saying their course was easier in England was higher than in France, Germany, Holland, Sweden or Norway. The average across Europe was 30 per cent. Mr. Bekhradnia said the only area in which British universities excelled was research, due in part to the high number of academics recruited from across the world; as a result, they neglected teaching and set low expectations for students. "Research takes time and effort and staff is under great pressure. Student staff ratios are no better than in other countries, in fact they are worse than the OECD average," he said. The reputation of Britain's universities as second only to America's was based on "flimsy" grounds and arose because international rankings reflected the quality of research rather than teaching.
(Fonte: The Times 27-11-2013)