Pathways to mediocrity - The Centre for Independent Studies
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Pathways to mediocrity

Merit is under attack – again. The University of Technology Sydney now offers 10 bonus points to female students who want to study STEM courses.

The move has,  rightly  been slammed for assaulting  merit, and patronising  women.

But universities have decided to prioritise special entry schemes and admission pathways over academic rigour. When applying to UTS, not only does your womanhood help, but students  ‘experiences of educational disadvantage’ earn them extra points.

The University of Sydney offers admission assistance to those who have had ‘disrupted schooling’, elite athletes and performers, and mature-age entry for the over-21s.

Of course, scholarships should certainly be offered to academically talented students who could not otherwise afford university.

But the ever-widening scope of ‘disadvantage’ and ‘admission pathways’ makes almost everyone eligible for special entry.

These entry schemes are worse than just banal bromides  – they are also lowering the standards of academia.  Basic literacy and numeracy skills are appalling in Australia teacher education programs. One in ten prospective new teachers fail the basics, even though the standards are set at a Year 9 level.

Standards have also been lowered at the University of Oxford. To overcome the ‘educational disadvantage’ of having attended a government school, it is now longer compulsory to read large portions of the Iliad and Aeneid in the original Greek and Latin.

America’s once prestigious institutions have gone further, by actively punishing excellence.

A court ruled Harvard can legally discriminate against Asian applicants in the name of diversity. Apparently, you can be doing ‘too well’ for admission to Harvard.

These institutions might have taken advice from the University of Sydney and simply ‘unlearned’ standards, academic integrity, purpose and common sense.

In this haze of innovation and ‘unlearning’ the students are the ones who suffer.

UTS is simply insulting hard working women by giving them pity points – “no additional application required.”

If universities want to truly inspire and broaden young minds, they should reward academic excellence rather than engage in anatomical discrimination.