First off, sorry for the size of this reply.
Secondly I totally agree that a great deal of universities seem to offer very little content in terms of education.
- In the first year they teach some new stuff, but it’s all very basic, so as to get people up to a similar level.
- Second year is a little more development in certain areas, however I found that some lectures were just as basic as the contents given in the first year and the amount of regurgitated/reused material was very high (certainly 40%).
- The third year teaches you even less than the first or second year. What we were told is that we must do own learning (LOL, so basically what we they are saying is that they aren't going to teach us much about anything in the third year). I found support for my final year project to be very small, with the lecturers using the excuse that they cannot do your project for you! (This is actually a lie as some tutors did pretty much tell some student exactly what to do each week).
The trick that the universities have is that you don’t actually pay for your course until you leave and then you realise what a big waste of time the contents actually were, but it’s already too late.
The way they differentiate students work also seemed to apply directly to the amount of work produced. Sure they tell you stories of people achieving firsts with 3000 word dissertations, but I never actually saw that happen!
I am not saying having a degree is a bad thing because it certainly helps you get your foot through the door and I did learn new things that I wouldn't have if I had not attended.
What I feel though is that university degrees could and can (in some cases) teach a lot more content, hence why some universities are good and the vast majority are filled with people who have stories about how they used to work in industry, but gave it all up to work as a lecturer (i.e. they were lazy and bad at their jobs and so did something more towards there ability (*I am not applying this to all lecturers))
It is true that there are some great lecturers out there who inspire and show enthusiasm as well as this they are willing to help (basically do their jobs correctly, which shouldn't really be any cause to celebrate).
I feel universities should be made to charge students on a day to day basis and so if the content is bad then it should be seen so by students not paying or not attending and again not paying. This would encourage more monitoring of lectures and more moderating of universities.
One of the main problems with universities is that it is actually VERY difficult to fire their staff. I know of lecturers who were not teaching or doing a minimum amount of teaching for two years and still getting paid. Show me another business where staff can do this?
It's important issues like that this make you appreciate what is going on in the rest of the world, Irag, Afghan, N.K., Africa etc...
Education is a very important world issue and I think talking about it is a way of addressing the issue. Some of those problems might be better avoided with advance in education for the populace. Just because the media isn’t putting it in the limelight at present it doesn’t mean it is insignificant. I for one don’t want to engage in a further conversation about other countries problems because apart from supplying aid what else are we supposed to do (rhetorical)?
