Letters: How to save the NHS

The survey says

Sir: David Butterfield’s 21 years of experience of higher education (‘Decline and fall’, 26 October) chimes with my 35. But the decline in the rigour of university education which he so deftly describes has not been entirely self-willed. Successive governments have championed a consumerist understanding of higher education. Students have become consumers and academics have become service providers.

The reduction in the intellectual demands of undergraduate courses and grade inflation are due to the annual National Student Survey. Universities are in thrall to this and make ever greater efforts ‘to enhance the student experience’. This includes pandering to the desire of most students to have fewer essays, slimmer reading lists, few exams and higher grades. The fact that so many academics prefer not to teach is due to the Research Assessment Exercise, which hugely incentivises research over teaching. The obsession with applicants’ school backgrounds and the discrimination against those from private schools are due to the ‘access and participation plans’ foisted on universities by the Office for Students.