I was very disappointed to read Brett Ellis’ piece on higher education (Waive tuition fees if students are not being taught, October 15). Mr Ellis makes a number of claims that are highly inaccurate.
Mr Ellis claims that the quality of provision has not changed in decades. That is grossly inaccurate. No offence to the staff who taught me when I was at university, but the imagination and pedagogical creativity that goes into the teaching by my colleagues across the country is lightyears beyond what I experienced as a student.
Mr Ellis further asks ‘why are lectures not running’. They are. I spent today preparing new materials for this year’s students, will spend hours recording the lectures to ensure they are of good quality, spend further hours later in the week engaging with students via online discussion forums, before travelling across London to deliver face-to-face teaching.
Should students pay fees? I would argue not, but the money has to come from somewhere, so there is a debate to be had there.
Should students have been encouraged to travel to halls, only to experience lockdown? No. Managers at many universities made serious mistakes there. However, perhaps we can start by dealing with what is actually happening, not indulging in uninformed insults.
Dr Robin Pettitt
Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Kingston University, and Loughton resident
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