Students are so "spoonfed" at school and "infantilised" that they are unable to cope with university life, is the consensus of two contentious arguments reported today.
David Robb from Imperial College London, speaking to the schools select committee yesterday, said that universities routinely have to run catch up classes for students that receive excellent A-level results, but still struggle with basic maths and science.
And two Oxford Brookes University academics, authors of a new book, claim in Times Higher Education that an all pervasive "therapy culture" in schools and universities is creating a generation of "hapless" students and lecturers.
In the same magazine, the head of Hull University's psychology department, Peter Clough, suggests children are "mollycoddled" in school and are less tough than they used to be.
Academics often say students need to be brought up to speed on basic skills when they reach university, but the government insists that qualifications are sound and the quality of testing is as high as ever. An A-grade at A-level should be comparable with previous years. Is it?
Parents are certainly more protective of their children than ever before. Universities have seen a marked increase in parents on campus since the introduction of fees. And disadvantaged students often need more pastoral support than their peers.
But are children and students really unable to cope? Have they learned skills that will serve them well in life, even if they don't have the core knowledge they would have had in the past? Shouldn't universities be adapting to these new ideas rather than sticking rigidly to academic models of old?
