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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 22. 4th September 1974

Victoria: An intellectual, social and cultural crapout

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Victoria: An intellectual, social and cultural crapout

Victoria University is an intellectual, social and cultural crapout; Why? The elitist argument might be that the NZ University has "sunk into the bottomless depths of socialist mediocrity". This view sees the benefits of "higher education" as' something which can only be the prerogative of the privileged classes. The Egalitarianist argues for "equal opportunity for all", and this is supposed to be the basis of New Zealand's education system. Both sides talk essentially in terms of classes without looking behind the dogma to see the causes.

The classical university of the past was a place for the children of the well-off. It was a place primarily where people went because it was the 'done thing to do'. It was also a place of academic learning only. But it did provide a rich matrix of social, intellectual and cultural interaction. It mirrored what the contemporary society (at least the ruling parts of it) wanted.

Taking this as a basis, one would think that the modern-day university would be constantly striving to redefine its role and modify its teaching methods so as to reflect or even to direct the changing needs and aspirations of society.

The NZ university might have evolved in one of several different directions. It might have developed to the stage where it felt it could do away with formal assessment as the basis for the learning process. In which case actual learning would be the responsibility of the student himself, staff-student contact serving for group discussion linked with original research.

It might have decided to produce 'complete people' who, like Leonardo da Vinci, would have ability in everthing: music, sculpture, mathematics, astronomy, athletics, biology, engineering. Or it might even have decided that the university as such has outlived its useful life and should give way to some other form of learning institution.

It might have.... but of course it hasn't. Instead Victoria has become something very different—an arid wasteland of disillusioned and frustrated people. Prestige-conscious academics, who, on the way to the Staff (only) Club, anxiously discuss the lack of communication between themselves and their students Students, who, as far as can be made out, find next to nothing to interest them in university life. Learning, instead of being an integrated whole, is divided into separate, almost mutually-exclusive subjects, and the expected enthusiastic exchange of ideas and viewpoints between departments seems almost entirely lacking.

Lectures involve throwing as much material as possible at the students in the shortest possible time. 'Tutorials' are a farce, for try as they might, the staff cannot get the students to utter a word. Then there's the strictly limited social life. This is not to say relaxation should consist of having learned philosophical discussions all night, far from it: shouldn't a full life [unclear: havre] both a physical and 'cerebral' part? But there must be something more satisfying than the semi-religious ritual of boozing to the point of throwing-up.

There are many more who fail at university than only those who fail exams. Many successful students also 'fail' in that they cannot benefit from the varied exchange of ideas and viewpoints which (supposedly) university life has to offer.

So what is the cause of this chronic, debilitating, degenerative disease from which Victoria University is suffering? Surely the blame must lie with the education system itself.

"Open admission" will always remain a misnomer as long as schools cater for the few children who are by reason of their home environment already highly-motivated when they come to school, other kids dropping by the wayside. Most children are brought up in a home environment which hampers the development of an enduring childlike inquisitiveness in later life. Most of their potential for creativity is suppressed or ignored. Even as babies they lie for many hours a day staring at a blank ceiling. Later they live in an environment geared to receiving entertainment rather than creating it. Many hours a day are thus spent watching the television. Children are constantly socialised away from really looking at the world about them. How many children are actively encouraged by their elders to question what goes on around them? Again, is it the best possible policy to siphon off today's university drop-outs and give them jobs teaching tomorrow's potential thinkers?

If the NZ educational system were truly egalitarian it would be geared to compensate for the fact that most children have their creativity crushed, or at least severely confined, from their first breath onwards. People who endure such an upbringing are hardly likely to retain the indiscriminate curiosity with which they were born and which should be central to all education, and certainly university education. Will the ideal of equal educational opportunity for all ever be realised until schools provide not only knowledge but motivation?

It is only to be expected that so many university students suffer from the 'relevance neurosis' and go around saying how 'bored they are, how pissed-off they are, what a waste of time everything is. They apparently cannot comprehend what can excite the imagination in the elegance of the Schrodiger Equation, the miraculous symmetry of a leaf, or the insight to be gained from the study of other cultures.

Whatever the reasons, the facts are clear. Victoria has moved away from the classical traditions of university education; but in doing this it has not developed and adapted to keep pace with the changing needs of society, but rather it has degenerated and divorced itself from the values of today's generation.

Overtaken by "future shock", Victoria University has died quietly during the night; will no-one mourn its passing?

—Mareko Maruru