Adrian Chiles, in his article (English students spend a fortune to go to university. Shouldn’t that buy them more teaching and less partying?, 29 March), praises the French university system and contrasts it with the UK, where students are free to do as they please.
The author of this letter explains that, 60 years ago, his history teacher told him that he would not be pursuing them to hand in essays on time because he understood that they wanted to go to university, which made them self-motivated. This attitude resulted in the author doing nothing for a year and a half and failing his mock A-level history exam, but eventually, he worked hard and got a B in his A-level.
Going to university not only taught him history but also taught him to be responsible for his own learning. According to the author, Chiles is correct to blame the university culture in some UK universities for subpar degrees.
To address this, universities should make it mandatory for each student to join a work group. When the author’s daughter studied in Belgium, a group of Germans invited her to join their study group when she didn’t have one, and she worked harder than ever before.
