1. WHAT SHALL WE TEACH THEM?
Add subtitle information here The history of the
higher education
curriculum
Mike Ratcliffe
Oxford Brookes University
4 April 2012
Room 4.214

2. WHAT ARE UNIVERSITIES FOR?
Anyone who attends to the history of debates about
the values and purposes of universities needs to
cultivate a high toleration of repetition.
In Britain, though also elsewhere, these debates tend
to fall into a particularly dispiriting pattern, which might
be parodied as the conflict between the ‘useful’ and
the ‘useless’. (Collini, 2012, p 39)

3. CULTIVATING HUMANITY
It is relatively easy to construct a gentleman’s
education for a homogeneous elite. It is far more
difficult to prepare people of highly diverse
backgrounds for complex world citizenship.
Nussbaum, M, 1997, Cultivating Humanity, Cambridge MA, Harvard p295

4. SOCRATES
If I tell you that this is the greatest
good for a human being, to
engage every day in arguments
about virtue and the other things
that you have heard me talk
about, examining both myself and
others, and if I tell you that the
unexamined life is not worth living
for a human being, you will be
even less likely to believe what I
am saying. But that’s the way it
is, gentlemen…
Socrates, quoted in Plato, Apology, quoted in Nussbaum, M, 1997,
Cultivating Humanity, Harvard UP, Cambridge MA

5. PLATO’S EDUCATION FOR THE GUARDIANS
(1) Up to 17 or 18, the early training in literature and music and in elementary
mathematics will be carried on with as little compulsion as possible.
(2) From 17 or 18 to 20, an intensive course of physical and military training
will leave no leisure for study.
(3) From 20 to 30, a select few will go through the advanced course in
mathematics… with a view to grasping the connexions between the
several branches of mathematics and their relation to reality
(4) After a further selection, the years from 30 to 35 will be given wholly to
Dialectic, and especially to the principles of morality. Plato once more
insists on the danger of a too early questioning of these principles.
(5) From 35 to 50, practical experience of life will be gained by public service
in subordinate posts
(6) At 50 the best will reach the vision of the Good and thereafter divide their
time between study and governing the state as the supreme council
Cornford, F, 1941, The Republic of Plato, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p250

6. A LECTURE BY HEINRICH THE GERMAN
IN BOLOGNA CIRCA 1380
Nobles and persons of elevated
charisma have the best places...
The bearded gentleman in the front
pew might be the tutor of the
auditor next to him…
Since attention seems greater in
the front two and side pews, the
image intimates that those of
higher standing pay most attention
– a curious notion, today at least.
Clark, W., 2006, Academic Charisma and the
Origins of the Research University, Chicago,
Chicago University Press, pp70-71 Laurentius de Voltolina,

7. THE PLACE OF THE ARTS COURSE
Faculty Degrees
Trivium BA
Grammar logic rhetoric MA
Quadrivium
Arithmetic geometry astronomy music
Three Philosophies
Moral and natural philosophy metaphysics
Canon Law BCL/LLM
Civil Law DCL/LLD
Medicine MB BCh
DM
Theology/Divinity BD
DD

8. HIGHER FACULTIES
William Brewster licence to
practise medicine throughout
England, issued to William Brewster,
Bachelor of Medicine,
by the University of Oxford.
Produced in Oxford.
17 December 1692

9. INNS OF COURT
Originally hostels hired from a
landlord by a group or society
of ‘Apprentices of the Law’.
The ‘societies were not
incorporated, their status was
similar to that of the hall-
communities’ [of the
Universities]

10. FOUNDATION STORIES: GRESHAM COLLEGE
1597
The College was intended to be
supplied with seven Professors in
subjects selected by Gresham,
with a bias towards those areas of
study relevant to the City context.
The Corporation was to have the
nomination of four of the
Professors: in Divinity, Astronomy,
Geometry and Music. The
Mercers’ Company was to have
the appointment of the Professors
in Law, Physic and Rhetoric.
Sir Thomas Gresham
Chartres & Vermont, 1998, A brief History of Gresham College,
London, Gresham College p6

11. LAUDIAN REFORMS 1636
Archbishop Laud has the statutes
of Oxford thoroughly revised.
Mallet describes:
All these public lectures were to
last three-quarters of an hour.
They were to be given in person,
not by a deputy, and Professor and
Readers who failed to give them
had to pay five or ten shillings as a
fine.
Further rules stipulated that
Elaborate and immoderate hair
must never be encouraged

12. NEW STATUTES FOR DEGREES
Faculty Degrees
Arts/Philosophy BA
first year: Grammar and Rhetoric MA
second: Logic and Moral Philosophy, Geometry;
third and fourth: Logic and Moral Philosophy, Geometry and
Greek
fifth (bachelors of first year): Geometry, Metaphysics, History,
Greek – and Hebrew if destined for the Church;
sixth and seventh: Astronomy, natural Philosophy, Metaphysics,
History, Greek, - and Hebrew, if intending divines.
Civil Law BCL/LLM
DCL/LLD
Medicine MB BCh
DM
Theology/Divinity BD

13. CURRICULUM AT NORTHAMPTON ACADEMY
1643
First Year Second Year Third Year Fourth Year
Logic Trigonometry Natural History Civil Law
Rhetoric Conic sections Civil History Mythology and
Geography Celestial Anatomy Hieroglyphics
Metaphysics Mechanics Jewish Antiquities English History
Geometry Natural and Divinity History of Non-
Experimental conformity
Algebra Orations
Philosophy Divinity
Divinity Preaching
Orations Pastoral Care etc
Parker, 1914, 86

14. DISSENTING ACADEMIES:
ACT OF UNIFORMITY 1662
That every Dean, Canon, and And if any Schoolmaster or other person,
Prebendary of every Cathedral, or Instructing or teaching Youth in any
Collegiate Church, and all Masters, private House or Family, as a Tutor or
and other Heads, Fellows, Chaplains, Schoolmaster, shall Instruct or Teach any
and Tutors of, or in any Colledge, Hall,Youth as a Tutor or Schoolmaster, before
House of Learning, or Hospital, and License obtained from his respective
every Publick Professor, and Reader in Archbiship, Bishop, or Ordinary of the
either of the Universities, and in everyDiocess, according to the Laws and
Colledge elsewhere, and every Statutes of this Realm, (for which he
Parson, Vicar, Curate, Lecturer, and shall pay twelve-pence onely) and before
every other person in holy Orders, and such subscription and acknowledgement
every School-master keeping any made as aforesaid; Then every such
publick, or private School, and every School-master and other, Instructing and
person Instructing, or Teaching any Teaching as aforesaid, shall for the first
Youth in any House or private Family offence suffer three months
as a Tutor, or School-master, …, Imprisonment without bail or mainprize;
subscribe the Declaration or and for every second and other such
Acknowledgement following, Scilicet, offense shall suffer three months
Imprisonment without bail or mainprize,
and also forfeit to His Majesty the sum of
A. B. Do declare … that I will conform five pounds.
to the Liturgy of the Church of
England, as it is now by Law
established.

15. A PLACE OF USEFUL LEARNING
John Anderson’s Will No one connected in any
Professors in Arts faculty: capacity with Glasgow
University:
Physics, Ethics, Logic ‘thus… the almost
and Rhetoric, Greek, constant intrigues, which
Senior Latin, Junior Latin, prevail in the Faculty of
Civil History, Mathematics Glasgow College about
and Chemistry their revenue, and the
Nomination of Professors,
Further faculties of or their Acts of Vanity, or
Medicine, Law and Power, Inflamed by a
Theology Collegiate life, will be kept
out of Anderson’s
University…’

16. SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT & CRITIQUE OF
OXFORD
Edinburgh Edinburgh Review 1808
Strengths include the international “We believe, however, that it is chiefly
standing of the medical faculty; more in the public institutions of England,
that we are to seek for the cause of
students attending the anatomy class the deficiency here referred to, and
in one year than were matriculated at particularly in the two great centres,
Cambridge and Oxford combined. from which knowledge is supposed to
radiate over all the rest of the island.
In one of these, where the dictates of
Aristotle are still listened to as
infallible decrees, and where the
infancy of science is mistaken for its
maturity, the mathematical sciences
have never flourished; and the
scholar has no means of advancing
beyond the mere elements of
Geometry.”

17. UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN 1807
The pursuit of Wissenschaft in the new University
of Berlin was to be an ‘unceasing process of
inquiry’
‘The progress of science and scholarship is
obviously more rapid and more lively in a university
where their problems are discussed back and forth
by a large number of forceful, vigorous, youthful
intelligences. Science and Scholarship cannot be
presented in a genuinely scientific or scholarly
manner without constantly generating independent
thought and stimulation…’
‘Never before or since have ancient institutions
been so completely remodelled to accord with an
idea’ (Flexner)
Humboldt, W Von., (1970), On the Spirit and the Organisational Framework of Intellectual Institutions in Berlin,
translated by Shills, E., in: ‘University Reform in Germany’, Minerva Vol. 8, 1970, pp 242-250
Flexner, A, (1930), Universities: American, English, German, New York, Oxford University Press, p311

18. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA – OPENED 1825
"we wish to establish in
the upper & healthier
country, & more centrally
for the state an University
on a plan so broad & liberal
& modern, as to be worth
patronising with the public
support, and be a
temptation to the youth of
other states to come, and
drink of the cup of knolege
& fraternize with us."
• Secular
• Elective system
• Professorial

19. ‘UNIVERSITY OF LONDON’ 1826
For effectively and
multifariously teaching,
examining, exercising and
rewarding with honours in
the liberal arts and sciences
the youth of our middling
rich people… an
establishment availing itself
of all the experience and
experiments that can be
appealed to for facilitating
the art of teaching, a
University combining the
advantages of public and
private education, the
emulative spirit produced by
examination before
numbers, and by honours
conferred before the public,
the cheapness of domestic
Extract from letter of Thomas Campbell to Mr Brougham, published in the Times,
residence and all the moral 9 February 1825, quoted in Allchin, W, 1905, An Account of the Reconstruction
influence that results from of the University of London, London, HK Lewis p3
home.

20. 'UNIVERSITY OF LONDON'
It consists with the liberal principles
of the present age that the projected
College should leave its students
free to attend whatever classes and
in whatever succession they may
think fit. There should be no
excluding laws except on the score
of infamous character or behaviour.
Campbell T, 1825, 'Suggestions respecting the plan of
a college in London', in New Monthly Magazine, vol 10
pp1-11

21. 'UNIVERSITY OF LONDON'
It was the plan of the University “The Universities of London and
that most of the students should Virginia” Long wrote to Cocke,
follow a regular course and “are the same in their general
submit to periodic examination, plan... We allow, for instance,
upon which should be awarded students to chose their own
professors' and university classes, but the Council, who
certificates. In the event there correspond to the visitors,
prevailed something very like recommend a certain course to
what is known in the United those who enter at an early
States as the 'elective system', period of life.” …
and very few troubled to qualify It was intended that a daily report
for certificates even in those of attendances should be kept,
subjects which they chose. and monthly reports sent to
parents and guardians, but these
rules were not kept.
Bellot, 1929, pp179-181

22. KING’S COLLEGE 1828
King’s College
‘A college for general education be
founded in the metropolis, in which,
while the various branches of
literature and science are made the
subjects of instruction, it shall be an
essential part of the system to
immure the minds of youth with a
knowledge of the doctrines and
duties of Christianity as inculcated
by the United Church of England
and Ireland.’
D’Oyly, G, 1828, Letter to Right Hon Robert Peel on the
Subject of the London University

23. YALE FACULTY REPORT 1828
The two great points to be gained in intellectual culture, are the
discipline and the furniture of the mind; expanding its powers, and
storing it with knowledge. The former of these is, perhaps, the more
important of the two. A commanding object, therefore, in a collegiate
course, should be, to call into daily and vigorous exercise the faculties
of the student. Those branches of study should be prescribed, and
those modes of instruction adopted, which are best calculated to teach
the art of fixing the attention, directing the train of thought, analyzing a
subject proposed for investigation; following, with accurate
discrimination, the course of argument; balancing nicely the evidence
presented to the judgment; awakening, elevating, and controlling the
imagination; arranging, with skill, the treasures which memory gathers;
rousing and guiding the powers of genius. All this is not to be effected
by a light and hasty course of study; by reading a few books, hearing a
few lectures, and spending some months at a literary institution.

24. YALE FACULTY REPORT 1828
The two great points to be gained in intellectual culture, are the
discipline and the furniture of the mind; expanding its powers, and
storing it with knowledge. The former of these is, perhaps, the more
important of the two. A commanding object, therefore, in a collegiate
course, should be, to call into daily and vigorous exercise the faculties
of the student. Those branches of study should be prescribed, and
those modes of instruction adopted, which are best calculated to teach
the art of fixing the attention, directing the train of thought, analyzing a
subject proposed for investigation; following, with accurate
discrimination, the course of argument; balancing nicely the evidence
presented to the judgment; awakening, elevating, and controlling the
imagination; arranging, with skill, the treasures which memory gathers;
rousing and guiding the powers of genius. All this is not to be effected
by a light and hasty course of study; by reading a few books, hearing a
few lectures, and spending some months at a literary institution.

25. DURHAM’S CURRICULUM FOR THE
ARTS COURSE
Classical & General Literature Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Aristotle's Ethics. Euclid, i.-vi. xi.
Xenophon's Memorabilia.
Arithmetic
Thucydides
Herodotus, v. vi. vii. viii. ix. Algebra
Æschylus, Persae, Plane and Spherical Trigonometry
Agamemnon, Choephoroe, Analytical Geometry.
Eumenides.
Conic Sections.
Sophocles, Electra,
Philoctetes, Antigone.Œdipus Mechanics.
Tyrannus. Hydrostatics
Euripides, Alcestis, Medea, Astronomy
Hecuba, Heraclidae.
Livy, Second Decade. Differential and Integral Calculus
Tacitus, History. Newton i. ii. iii. ix. xi.
Calendar, 1842, subjects for examination, third year

26. DURHAM’S CURRICULUM FOR
ENGINEER STUDENTS
Who in their final year covered:
Arithmetic. Algebra. Euclid. Logarithms. Plane and Spherical
Trigonometry. Analytical Geometry. Conic Sections. Theoretical and
Practical Mechanics. Differential and Integral Calculus. Dynamics.
Hydrostatics. Hydraulics. Pneumatics. Surveying, Levelling, and the
Use of Instruments. Practical Mapping and Architectural Drawing,
Theory of Perspective and Projections. Hydrostatical and Hydraulical
Instruments. The Steam Engine, Optics and Optical Instruments.
Astronomy and Astronomical Instruments. Theoretical and Practical
Chemistry. Theory of Heat. Metallurgy. Geology. The French and
German Languages.

27. THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY:
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1852
John Henry Newman
First rector of the Catholic
University of Ireland, later
incorporated into the
National University of
Ireland as University
College Dublin
‘Knowledge is capable of being
its own end. Such is the
constitution of the human mind
that any kind of knowledge, if it
really be such, is its own reward’

28. THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY:
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1852
‘A university is according to the usual description, an
Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a
foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill’
A University training “aims at raising the intellectual
tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at
purifying the national taste, at supplying true
principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to
popular aspirations, at giving enlargement and
sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the
exercise of political powers, and refining the
intercourse of private life’

29. HONOURS SCHOOLS & TRIPOS
Oxford Cambridge
Literae Humaniores (1800) Mathematics (1748)
Mathematics (1825) Classics (1824)
Natural Science (1850) Moral Sciences (1851)
Theology (1869) Natural Sciences (1851)
Jurisprudence (1872) Law (1858)
Modern History (1872) Theology (1874)
Oriental Languages (1886) History (1875)
English Language & Literature Semitic Languages (1878)
(1893) Medieval & Modern Languages (1886)
Modern Languages (1903) Mechanical Sciences (1894)
Economics (1905)

30. A SCIENCE DEGREE FOR THE
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
In fact, a fifth branch of knowledge - Science - the result of
the search after the laws by which natural phænomena are
governed, apart from any direct application of such laws to
an art - has gradually grown up, and being unrecognised
as a whole has become dismembered.
The remedy for these evils appears to us to be, that the
Academic bodies in this country should (like those of
France and Germany) recognise 'Science' as a Discipline
and as a Calling, and should place it on the same footing
with regard to Arts, as Medicine and Law...
Memorial, Senate Minutes, University of London, 12 May 1858

31. A SOCIAL SCIENCE DEGREE FOR THE
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
For the benefit of students intending to enter on a Public or
Commercial career, or whose inclination leads them
towards Social or Political inquiries your Memorialists
respectfully recommend to your consideration, the utility of
establishing a Degree of Bachelor in Moral and Economic
Science
Memorial, Senate Minutes, University of London 20 October 1858

32. UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 1858
Second BA Examination Second BSc Examination
Mathematics & Natural Mathematics & Natural
Philosophy Philosophy
Statics, Dynamics, Statics, Dynamics,
Hydrostatics, Hydraulics Hydrostatics, Hydraulics and
and Pneumatics, Optics, Pneumatics, Optics,
Acoustics, Astronomy
Acoustics, Astronomy
Animal Physiology
Classics Organic Chemistry
The Greek and Latin Animal Physiology
Languages Geology & Palæontology
Logical and Moral Logic & Moral Philosophy
Philosophy

33. MILL ON PROFESSIONAL DEGREES
Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for
some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not to make
skillful lawyers, or physicians or engineers, but capable and cultivated human
beings …
Men are men before they are lawyers or physicians, or merchants, or
manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will
make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians. What
professional men should carry away with them from a university is not
professional knowledge, but that which should direct the use of their
professional knowledge, and bring the light of general culture to illuminate the
technicalities of a special pursuit.
John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address, St Andrew’s University 1867

34. ELECTIVE PROGRAMMES:
CHARLES W ELIOT
… ‘what he wished to
do in higher education
was … [to] shift from
external compulsion
and discipline to
internal compulsion
and discipline.’
Morison, S. E., (1942) Three Centuries of Harvard 1636-1936,
Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press p344

35. ELECTIVE PROGRAMMES:
CHARLES W ELIOT
‘The endless controversies
whether language, philosophy,
mathematics or science supplies
the best training, whether
general education should be
chiefly literary or chiefly scientific,
have no practical lesson for us
today.’…
‘We would have them all, and at
their best’
Eliot, C W., (1869) ‘Inaugural address’, in Addresses at the inauguration
of Charles William Elliot as President of Harvard College, Sever &
Francis, Cambridge MA

36. RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES
Daniel Coit Gilman & Johns
Hopkins
‘The most stimulating influence
that higher education in
America has known’
Lernfreiheit - freedom to study
Lehrfreiheit - freedom to teach/
research

37. THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 1866
‘Among the most necessary and the most easily and immediately
applicable, is the extension to women of such examinations as
demand a high standard of attainment. The test of a searching
examination is indispensable as a guarantee for the qualifications of
teachers; it is wanted as a stimulus by young women studying with
no immediate object in view, and no incentive to exertion other than
the high, but dim and distant, purpose of self-culture. ’
‘The extension of the London examinations to women need present
no greater difficulties than those which have been already overcome
in throwing open the Cambridge local examinations to girls…’
‘The conclusion arrived at [is] a large day-school attended by
scholars either living at home or at small boardinghouses has a
clear advantage, both as regards economy and mental and moral
training’
Davies, E, 1988, Higher Education of Women, London, Hambledon Press

38. WOMEN AT CAMBRIDGE
‘They provide … a
published list … shewing
the place in order of
standing and merit which
such students would have
occupied if they had been
men. But they do not
permit the University to
actually confer upon
women the time-honoured
degree of BA or MA, and
they do not admit them to
the standing of Members of
the University’

39. ROYAL COMMISSION ON SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION
1872
... I, myself, and some others,
have been for years been in
the position of urging upon the
University that they should
spontaneously come forward
and take the step which is now
proposed, that they should
institute a complete course of
scientific instruction, which
should be entirely detached
from the literary instruction in
the University
Pattison, M, 1872, Minutes of Evidence, p240

40. ROYAL COMMISSION ON SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION
1872
'Some persons have schemes
for giving degrees in science
alone, and for giving a medical
degree without those literary
requirements that I speak of
[especially Greek], as is done
at other universities; but an
Oxford degree, whether rightly
or wrongly, is thought to have a
value that the degrees of those
other universities have not, and
if you took away the literary
part, I imagine that you would
take away that value from the
degree‘
Jowett, B, 1872, Minutes of Evidence, p250

41. TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN LONDON
CENTRAL INSTITUTION, Exhibition Road
Three Colleges: Royal The object of the Central Institution is to give to
College of Science, City London a College for the higher technical
& Guilds College and education, in which advanced instruction shall
Royal School of Mines be provided in those kinds of knowledge which
bear upon the different branches of industry,
whether Manufactures or Arts. The instruction to
be given will be such as shall qualify persons to
become—
1. Technical teachers.
2. Mechanical, civil and electrical engineers,
architects, builders, and decorative artists.
3. Principals, superintendents and managers of
chemical and other manufacturing works.
Laboratory Instruction will be given in Chemistry,
Physics, Mechanics and Engineering, and
special lectures will be delivered on the
Technology of different Trades.

42. VICTORIA UNIVERSITY 1902
The degree of Bachelor of Arts The degree of Bachelor of Science
with Honours is granted in the with Honours is granted in the
following schools: following schools:
Classics Mathematics
History Engineering
English Language & Literature Physics
Modern Languages & Chemistry
Literatures Zoology
Philosophy Physiology
Architecture Geology, mineralogy,
Economic & Political Science palaeontology
Botany
University College Liverpool, Calendar for the session 1902-1903, University Press of Liverpool pp44-65

43. MODERN UNIVERSITIES
‘To an Englishman, a university ‘The … Englishman … [is]
is something very old, very aghast at our newness, our
venerable, very picturesque, inconspicuousness, our ugly
very large, very select, very mundane surroundings, our
detached, and, of course, very incompleteness in range of
learned. Those who have had to studies, our poverty in the
fight the cause of the new number of learned men, our
universities have found poverty in halls of residence, our
themselves between the upper strange new studies about
and nether millstones which leather, dyeing, and brewing.’
bound this conception of a
university.’
Arthur Smithells -The Modern University Movement –address to the Leeds Art Club in November 1906

44. CORE CURRICULUM:
THE CORE IN A COLUMBIA EDUCATION
The Core Curriculum is the cornerstone as well as the intellectual
signature of a Columbia education. Students and alumni repeatedly
point to the Core as not only academically formative, but as personally
transformative. For many students, the most meaningful classroom
experience at Columbia-the insight about themselves that changes
their perspective on life, or the breakthrough understanding about
society that determines their choice of career-happens in the close-knit
environment of the Core classroom. Students in the Core encounter
texts, ideas, and works of art that have deeply influenced the world in
which we live, and that continue to shape how we think about
ourselves and our society.

45. GENERAL EDUCATION: CHICAGO 1931
Faced with the difficult cluster of questions which the
departmentalization of education raises, the faculty of the College at
Chicago has undertaken to determine the essentials of a liberal
education and to devise an integrated system of courses to provide
them. The programme of the College is consequently not elective. To
be eligible for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, the student must pass
examinations which test his competence in the basic principles, the
major concepts and methods, and the salient facts in natural sciences,
the social sciences, the humanities, and mathematics, and his ability to
express himself clearly.
Faust, C., ‘The Problem of General Education’ in Ward, C et all (1950) The Idea and Practice of General Education - an
account of the College of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Chicago University Press

46. ST JOHNS COLLEGE
‘Where Great Books are the teachers’
‘The first year is devoted to Greek authors and their
pioneering understanding of the liberal arts; the second
year contains books from the Roman, medieval, and
Renaissance periods; the third year has books of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most of which
were written in modern languages; the fourth year
brings the reading into the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.’

47. CURRICULUM AT KEELE
One of the main objectives which it is hoped
to achieve is to give every graduate as wide
an understanding as possible of the factors
which have been operative in building up
our present civilisation and the forces that
are current in the world today. …
It is intended that the foundation studies
taken before specialisation should be
presented as to give a comprehensible and
integrated conception of the basic facts and
principles of the main subjects…
It is desired to break down as far as
possible any clear cur divisions between
different branches of study and ensure that
each student has a sympathetic
understanding of the functions and
importance of all the main human activities.

48. THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY: THE ROBBINS
PRINCIPLE
Throughout our report we have assumed as an axiom that courses
of higher education should be available for all those who are
qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and wish to
do so. …
If challenged we would vindicate it on two grounds. First conceiving
education as a means, we do not believe that modern societies can
achieve their aims of economic growth and higher cultural standards
without making the most of the talents of the citizens. …
But beyond that, education ministers intimately to ultimate ends, in
developing man’s capacity to understand, to contemplate and to
create. And it is characteristic of the aspirations of this age to feel
that, where there is a capacity to pursue such activities, there that
capacity should be fostered. The good society desires equality of
opportunity for its citizens to become not merely good producers but
also good men and women.

49. A UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: ROBBINS REPORT 1963
253 We have received much evidence that is critical of present first
degree courses, and of specialised honours courses in
particular. It has come from the schools, from industry, from
professional organisations and some from university teachers
themselves. The complaints are under two heads: first, that the
courses are overloaded and, second, that they are not suitable
for many of the students who now take them. We shall discuss
these criticisms separately.
254 In a period of rapidly changing knowledge there is undeniably a
tendency to add new knowledge year by year to an already full
curriculum. It is easier to add than to take away. It is difficult to
reach agreement as to where to impart less knowledge and
where to concentrate more on principles. Especially where an
element of professional preparation is involved, the pressure is
all the other way.
P91-92

50. A UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: ROBBINS REPORT 1963
262 The present distribution of students between different types of
honours course is therefore unsatisfactory. A higher proportion
should be receiving a broader education for their first degrees.
This in itself calls for change. But if greatly increased numbers
of undergraduates are to come into the universities in the
future, change becomes essential. Indeed we regard such a
change as a necessary condition for any large expansion of
universities. Greatly increased numbers will create the
opportunity to develop broader courses on a new and exciting
scale, and we recommend that universities should make such
development one of their primary aims
263 In many universities the need to offer a more general education
has already begun to influence policy, and in recent years there
have been many interesting attempts to provide broader
courses of one kind or another. Yet the results to date have
been comparatively meagre...
p93

51. ANTHONY CROSLAND 1965: THE POLYTECHNICS
‘Why should we not aim at … a
vocationally orientated non-
university sector which is
degree-giving and with
appropriate amount of
postgraduate work with
opportunities for learning
comparable with those of the
universities, and giving a first
class professional training …
under state control, directly
responsible to social needs’
Quoted in Hutchins, R., (1968), The Learning ‘The College of Technology, Headington, 1963’ in Henry, E,
Society, Harmondsworth, Penguin, p 115 (1981), Oxford Polytechnic, Genesis to Maturity, Oxford, Oxford
Polytechnic

52. CNAA’S GENERAL EDUCATIONAL AIMS
The aims will include the development to the level required for the
award of a body of knowledge and skills appropriate to the field of
study and reflecting academic developments in that field.
The aims will also include CNAA’s general educational aims: the
development of students’ intellectual and imaginative powers; their
understanding and judgement; their problem solving skills; their ability
to communicate; their ability to see relationships within what they have
learned and to perceive their field of study in a broader perspective.
Each student’s programme of study must stimulate an enquiring,
analytical and creative approach, encouraging independent judgement
and critical self-awareness.
CNAA Handbook

53. GENERAL EDUCATION
1 An educated person must be able to think and write clearly and
effectively.
2 An educated person should have a critical appreciation of the
ways in which we gain knowledge and understanding of the
universe, of society, and of ourselves.
3 An educated American, in the last third of this century, cannot be
provincial in the sense of being ignorant of other cultures and
other times.
4 An educated person is expected to have some understanding of,
and experience in thinking about, moral and ethical problems.
5 We should expect an educated individual to have good manners
and high esthetic and moral standards.
6 Finally, an educated individual should have achieved depth in
some field of knowledge.
Rosovsky, quoted in Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1977, Missions of the College Curriculum –
a contemporary review with suggestions, San Franciso, Jossey-Bass

54. A UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: DEARING REPORT 1997
Breadth and depth of programmes
9.3 We have given much thought to the appropriate breadth and
depth of programmes, particularly at the undergraduate level. The
breadth of programmes was a particular theme for the Robbins
Committee. It felt that higher education was constrained by a
tradition of relatively narrow educational experiences, and that its
requirements drove a similarly narrow focus earlier in the
educational system. We believe that, while many students will
continue to welcome the opportunity to pursue a relatively narrow
field of knowledge in great depth, there will be many others for
whom this will be neither attractive, nor useful in future career terms,
nor suitable. In a world which changes rapidly, the nation will need
people with broad perspectives.

55. CURRICULUM REFORM: MELBOURNE
The core principle defining breadth is that students will take 75 points (or one-quarter of
their degree) from disciplines which are not available within the degree program. …The
Commission’s preferred structure for ‘breadth’ subjects is that students should be able to
choose from a range of subjects and clusters of subjects approved by the ‘core’ program
as adding strength to the degree.
Despite the variety of content and learning objectives among breadth subjects, all will
have common features. All will be intellectually rigorous and challenging and will all
emphasise the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills. In particular, breadth subjects
will provide a special opportunity for University of Melbourne students to develop
important graduate attributes that will allow them to become:
• academically excellent;
• knowledgeable across disciplines;
• leaders in communities;
• attuned to cultural diversity; and
• active global citizens.

56. CURRICULUM REFORM: ABERDEEN
We propose a set of Graduate Attributes. These are designed so that a
University of Aberdeen education will enable graduates to become:
– Academically excellent;
– Critical thinkers and effective communicators;
– Open to learning and personal development; and
– Active citizens.
…it became clear that there was a widespread view that, during their
degree study, students should have the opportunity to study material
beyond their chosen disciplines, which would set their disciplinary
study within a wider intellectual context. This, it was argued, would
enhance their disciplinary understanding, produce more informed
citizens and increase employability.

57. CURRICULUM REFORM: HARVARD
Program in General Education
The new Program goes into effect for the Class of 2013. The Harvard College Handbook
for Students states: Students must complete one … course in each of the eight
categories in General Education
– Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding ,
– Culture and Belief,
– Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning,
– Ethical Reasoning,
– Science of Living Systems,
– Science of the Physical Universe,
– Societies of the World, and
– United States in the World.
One of these eight courses must also engage substantially with the Study of the Past.

58. CURRICULUM REFORM:
HONG KONG UNIVERSITY
HKU’s new undergraduate curriculum will be characterized by seven
distinctive features:
(Inter)disciplinary inquiry
Multidisciplinary collaboration
Enquiry in multiple contexts
Diverse learning experiences
Multiple forms of learning & assessment
Engagement with local & global communities
Development of civic & moral values

59. THE RISE OF ASIA’S UNIVERSITIES
The leaders of China, in particular, have been very explicit in
recognizing that two elements are missing in their universities –
multidisciplinary breadth and the cultivation of critical thinking.
It is curious that while American and British politicians worry that Asia,
and China in particular, is training more scientists and engineers than
we are, the Chinese and others in Asia are worrying that their students
lack the independence and creativity to drive the innovation that will be
necessary to sustain economic growth in the long run. They fear that
specialization makes their graduates narrow and traditional Asian
pedagogy makes them unimaginative. Thus, they aspire to strengthen
their top universities by revising both curriculum and pedagogy.
Richard Levin, 2010, The Rise of Asia’s Universities

60. WELL-INFORMED STUDENTS DRIVING
TEACHING EXCELLENCE
Wider availability and better use of information for potential
students is fundamental to the new system. Students will
increasingly use the instant communication tools of the
twenty first century such as Twitter and Facebook to share
their views on their student experience with their friends,
families and the wider world. It will be correspondingly
harder for institutions to trade on their past reputations
while offering a poor teaching experience in the present.
Better informed students will take their custom to the
places offering good value for money. In this way, excellent
teaching will be placed back at the heart of every student’s
university experience.