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Tuesday Jan 31, 2006
Attend your lecture... or else
According to The Times, Oxford University is introducing a contract system for students, which apparently will force students to attend lectures or face a 'breach of cotnract'. The reasoning is that with increased tuition fees, there is a greater chance of students sueing for poor results. This way, the university is covering its behind.Michael Beloff, QC, President of Trinity College, who drew up the contract, said: "We took the view that we were out of kilter with the modern age. Fifty years ago no one would have thought of such a thing but we live in a much more litigious society."¿
Maybe so, but forcing students to go to class? Doesn't this seem a little backward? Switched-on publishers of content - and you could view university lecturers as part of this - realise that a generation is now growing up expecting their media when they want and how they want. And if this isn't 9am on a Monday morning then so be it.
There are examples of educators getting this: in the US, Duke College started handing out MP3 players to students in 2005 so they could listen to lectures outside of the set times. And now Apple have got involved, enabling students to access lectures and other video and audio course materials through the iTunes U initiative.
It may be a more litigious society but it's also a much more dynamic one.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 5:05 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
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