Why is no one defending teaching at our universities?

Your undergraduate experience depends upon the quality of teaching staff - yet universities continue to put research first, argues Gervas Huxley.
 Much as we wish it weren’t so, Christmas shopping really boils down to one simple rule – the more you spend, the more you end up with under your tree.
The same does not seem to apply to our university system. Students are typically taught in tutorials of 15 or more students these days, whilst their parents (if they went to university) studied in classes less than half this size and of course paid no fee.
How can this be fair? For all the talk about market forces and value for money supposedly reshaping our university system, it doesn’t take an Economics lecturer to see there’s something amiss. Read more...