We're Doomed!

Ok, so work's really been annoying me lately. It's because we've got to that point in the term where students have to hand in essays. This means that the only student contact I really have is with those that can't work out how to read instructions or use a computer. Oh the joy!

Since I started working at the university I've become convinced that students are a lot more feckless than when I was an undergraduate. This could just be because I do only deal with the 'problem children' but I have seen evidence reported from various scientific studies that back my opinion up.

Here's the latest one. I found this in The Journal, the student paper at Edinburgh University. This is the bit that makes my heart sink into my (Duo) boots:

"Concerns over online journals and the value of university degrees has also coincided with research published at King’s College London, which argues that the intellectual abilities of Britain’s brightest teenagers have decreased rapidly over the past three decades.

Michael Shayer, professor of applied psychology, ran tests on 800 13-14 year-olds’ ability to think logically and analytically. In one of the tests, 24 per cent of the children from 1976 scored high marks, compared to just 11 per cent of teenagers today.

However, the research found a significant improvement in the performance of the average pupil.

Mr Shayer said: "Teachers are concentrating on giving the basic skills to more pupils, so the average ability goes up, but they fail to stretch the brightest, so the high-end ability falls."

So, the general population are getting more basic skills at school but those that go on to higher education are less capable of coping with it. Great! That's why I spend all my time dealing with kids that seem to have no common sense whatsoever.

My worry is Darwinian though. Where does this leave survival of the fittest? If one considers intelligence as a 'fit' characteristic of human beings (which I do).

My friends, this is more evidence to suggest that Idiocracy could be a highly accurate vision of the future.

Oh bugger.