26th February 2016 2:00
By Blue Tutors
The University of Reading has just announced plans to offer guarantee places to applicants who miss their offers by one grade. This move is largely about marketing, making the university more attractive to students and ensuring that they are able to fill their cohort for each year. Many universities are making lower offers in order to attract students, and some are making unconditional offers and offering free equipment in order to entice students. This is a product of the marketization of education, where students equal cash and must be recruited like customers. However, from the students’ perspectives, having the pressure taken off when it comes to exams results can be a huge relief.
From the perspective of a private tutor, it’s wonderful when exam results don’t rule the agenda. Sadly, the majority of private tutors receive explicit instructions to ensure that students are prepared for upcoming exams, including ensuring that students understand the curriculum, that they have done appropriate revision, and are practiced in sitting exams. While this is a tutor’s bread and butter, it can be very demoralising to have to teach to exams, ensuring that students receive top grades. This kind of pressure reduces the possibility of creative thought and discussion, which tutors enjoy and which is much better for students’ education.
Without the pressure of having to achieve top grades, students can have the freedom to explore their subjects in detail. Tutors are free to suggest literature that isn’t on the curriculum, to have broader discussions of the topic or even arrange field trips in order to teach in more depth about their subjects. This is the best kind of education, and it’s very sad that the pressure to ensure that all the exam boxes are ticked actually precludes a high quality education. Regardless of the motives for lowering offers for university students, if the result is that they are able to engage for fully with their subjects, then as a tutor, I’m glad.