Facts needed

For example, it is often asserted that students are inadequately prepared for university study. To support such a view it would at the least be necessary to document specific inadequacies, such as deficiencies in comprehension and facility in the fields of written (or spoken) English or Mathematics: it would be preferable to go further and specify the optimum academic preparation for different kinds of university work, and thus obtain an estimate of the extent to which individuals depart from such a criterion. Less specific charges of this kind include the assertion that post-primary schools turn out students who are ill-prepared to study under their own steam, but are more dependent upon the stick and the carrot. To put the problem more bluntly, many first-year students have in their post-primary school career been told what to study, when is study and how to study. At the university they will have to make many of these decisions for themselves; inevitably some fail to make the necessary adaption.

It has often been argued, often on the basis of non-existent evidence, that the counter-attractions to lectures and study that are in fundamental element in university life cause failure (such as student activities, the interest in social and community problems): e.g., the argument runs, that students pay too much attention to extra-curricular activities and too little to their studies. The argument may be reasonable, only the presentation of evidence can confirm or refute this.

I would content myself with a couple of rather trite observations: that extra-curricular activities are an integral part of a university education, and that students must work out for themselves the most judicious blend on the extra-curricular and the curricular.4 It could also be noted that the continual up-grading of university courses must eat into the time that students have available to them to participate in the "other activities": contrarily some employers place great emphasis a graduate's performance in student affairs.