The University Teacher

Abstract

University students are always the product of some form of selection scheme. The selection criteria vary from one country to another and from one era to another within a country, but broadly speaking it can be assumed that the ordinary student comes from a family with a belief in the value of education and that he or she is above average in intelligence, in ambition, and in interest in the particular subject of study. This would seem to be a very positive foundation on which to base the tertiary educational phase but there are also some negative factors. In the United Kingdom at the present time the ordinary student has a low standard of living in that the disposable income is much smaller than that of contemporaries who have started to earn a living; this has many repercussions such as difficulties in finding an adequate private study environment, the steady reduction of the habit of book buying, inadequate diet, a shortage of cultured or exciting leisure pursuits and perhaps most important of all, a low morale because of the feeling not only of lack of privilege but even lack of sympathy from the supporting community.