The Student Academic Experience

Abstract

I can still remember going to my first economics lecture when I arrived at Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. It was a rather plodding account of the main British industries of the 1970s—manufacturing, mining, etc. The only vivid moment came when we were breaking up at the end and a student sitting nearby turned to me with a question: ‘What’, he asked, ‘is coal?’ International students really do bring different perspectives. Looking back now I can see that the economics faculty could have done so much more with that first lecture. They should have fielded Oxford’s most eminent professor to give us a powerful account of the shape and significance of economics. That first lecture was always going to stick in the memory: it was a missed opportunity. Oxford subsequently reformed their lectures for new students and deploy their most prestigious academics. Other universities have done this too. One academic told me, with just a hint of cynicism, the first lecture to new students was like empty skips appearing in your street—you need to fill them with your rubbish before anyone else can put their rubbish in. The teaching of economics has been caught up in swirling controversy. It involves big arguments about the role of the state and how the global financial crisis should change the discipline. But it is also about what constitutes good teaching. Here is an account of how the subject was taught at one university: ‘Tutorials consist of copying problem sets off the board rather than discussing economic ideas, and 18 out of 48 modules have 50% or more marks given by multiple choice.’ Proper teaching involves keeping a subject fresh by endlessly updating it as some contested issues are resolved or just become moribund whilst new areas of exploration and dispute emerge. Einstein is supposed to have set students the same physics questions two years in succession, but when he was challenged he replied that although the question was the same the answer had changed. The quality of teaching is the biggest problem facing our universities.