Should a first from Poppleton mean the same as a first from Oxbridge? Should a degree in maths be “equivalent” to a degree in law? I see from THES (14th September) that 22% of mathematicians get firsts, but only 4% of lawyers. So are mathematicians brighter than lawyers? Are maths degrees easier than law degrees? Is subject benchmarking a wonderful wheeze to keep a lot of clever people very busy? Or are some things inherently incommensurate?
Try looking to industry for answers. Brian Sanderson, LSC Chairman, says (see elsewhere) post-16 has a lot to learn from the commercial world.
Industry knows there is no point refining a sports car if it will end up pulling ploughs. So industrialists go to some lengths to find out what people want, and how their products will be used. Tractors, hatchbacks, and people carriers come into being. Markets are identified, and met. Quality is focussed on the end product. Industry knows that if no-one wants to buy a sporty tractor, all the quality circles and controls in the world won’t help. Quality branding the sporty tractor is a waste of time.
And academe?
Most graduates forget most of what they learn. The odes of Horace and the oxides of Hafnium are beside the point. The products of academe are not the degrees in physics or philosophy so subject to scrutiny. The products are the able and adaptable individuals who emerge.
There will be correlations between subjects, like maths or law, and key abilities like problem solving or the persuading others. But is making those correlations the aim of subject benchmarking? Can the quality of a process be enhanced if no-one knows what the process is for?
Who benefits?
There are other confusions. The right to buy the product of a university is restricted to a carefully-selected few. But we can all buy a car.
Even in the commercial sector of education, selection is commonplace; there is deep resistance to the notion that the learner has rights, that the provider can forego his duty to select, to protect the learner from over-ambition and foolishness. We can’t sell you that course, they argue, because we think you’re not up to it.
