NUS: “ban lectures”

The President of the National Union of Students (NUS), Wes Streeting, has called for the abolition of lectures, saying that the advent of virtual teaching has made them an anachronism. In what would surely constitute the most radical modification ever to hit the higher education system, he said students should rely on online learning, chat rooms, downloads and lecture handouts. Lecturers would then be freed up to conduct more personalised tutorials.

Writing in Policy Review magazine, Mr Streeting said: “Why is it, in the age of mass higher education, that we keep packing lecture theatres with hundreds of students for a format designed for teaching no more than 20 in an elite system? Come the revolution, I’d see virtual learning environments acting as a space for students to come together and collaborate.”

Speaking to The Times, Mr Streeting explained: “Over the last decade there has been a rapid expansion in higher education, with a whole new generation of diverse students from all walks of life. Why is it, that despite these trends, in many places the delivery and process of learning and teaching hasn’t changed much at all? In some cases there are hundreds of students in one lecture. They’re probably not getting any benefit. They want more personalised time and specific feedback on their work in smaller groups.

“You could free up staff time using podcasting and YouTube, or have students interacting online in communities of scholarship, within and between universities. Some universities are starting to do this and being quite radical. The internet changes everything.”