Sir, – The success of Ireland's second-level education system used to lie in its capacity for turning out broadly and soundly educated students. Now, however, Colin Walsh (April 15th) would like university humanities students to study differential equations, and university engineering students to learn about the German Enlightenment. The problem with this proposal is that many entrants to humanities programmes in our universities today have literacy and literary challenges (whichever Enlightenment they are focusing on), while many engineering students have considerable difficulty with differentiation (never mind differential equations). The urgent crisis for the universities, then, is in the core formation – and not in the broad formation – of their students. The rapidly increasing demand on the universities to compensate for the academic shortfalls of entrants undermines their ambition to deliver the core learning outcomes of their programmes. Ironic, then, that the "rush to product" culture bearing down on the universities demands that graduates have degrees in the latest buzzwords ("internet of things" anyone?). Yet such buzzword topics demand technically sound primary degrees in order to be understood and marshalled. This tugging at both ends of university degree programmes weakens them. The challenge is compounded by rapidly increasing throughputs of students, rapidly decreasing supports from society and government, and a worrying dalliance among university managers with broad curricular and American-style major-minor degree models. To protect the quality of our degrees, the universities – and the society they serve – must commit to avoiding hubristic flights of fancy. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY QUINN,
Kilmainham, Dublin 8.