Degrees 'do not offer test of knowledge'

Published on Thursday 24 July 2008 15:35

UNIVERSITY degrees no longer provide a "serious test of knowledge, intelligence or critical ability", a historian said today.

Professor Kevin Sharpe said that in recent years "the bar had been lowered" and students were now simply required to stick with their course and competently complete a number of tasks.

He said in the past, a university course was three years of attaining knowledge, developing understanding and acquiring skills.

But a shift towards modular study and coursework and the demise of final exams had changed what is required for a degree and how it is assessed.

Prof Sharpe, who teaches Renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London, said

: "Our degrees have profoundly changed and are no longer in any sense a serious test of knowledge, intelligence or critical ability."

The number of students achieving a first class degree has more than doubled since the mid-90s.

Prof Sharpe said: "If one sets the bar very low, one cannot blame the judges for awarding all the successful jumpers' a high mark."