PREJUDICE sits heavily on the shoulders of Mr Andrew Lockhart Walker (May 26), holding, as he does, a rather select and slightly old-fashioned view of the desirable student composition of a university.
It is many years since the far-sighted Dr Kurt Hahn envisaged and established the highly successful, international Atlantic Colleges, founded to encourage and further cross-cultural interests and broaden understanding between nations. What a contrast to the insular, pull-up-the-drawbridge philosophy of Mr Walker.
Surely a cosmopolitan element in any university should be sought after and encouraged, rather than reviled or guarded against. It will do our halls of learning no harm at all to admit the best of students from whichever source they spring, providing their admission is compatible with the national interest.
Fear of anglicisation should be the least of our worries when written assignments, at third-year level, of the quality indicated by S Trainer in his letter, Student cannot spell, prevail.
The generally incredulous reaction of industry, commerce, and the professions to the poorly spelt, badly presented job applications submitted by ordinary, run-of-the-mill graduates - often involving written and spoken incoherences of thought - indicate that all is not well in the higher echelons of education.
The systematic lowering of academic achievement over the last 20 years - vigorously denied but proven by hard experience - leads inevitably to the conclusion that there are far too many universities in the UK (the drop-out rate being as high as 14% in some of them) and that the quality of students on entry is abysmally low, making a mockery of any supposed intellectual discipline which should be the sine qua non of any worthwhile educational institution. Students are being admitted to university who, frankly, do not have the intellectual ability to benefit by the experience.
If anglicisation will help, in any way, to alleviate a growing tendency to illiteracy on the part of undergraduates, or vigorous, cosmopolitan competition inspire our students to higher, personal standards, then our collective educational conscience may yet be relieved.
Andrew G McWilliam,
13 Boreland Road,
Kirkcudbright,
May 26.
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