On 23 November? Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam will deliver an Inaugural address to an audience of the University’s external stakeholders? including representatives from national and local government? the higher education sector and business leaders from the region.

Staff will be able to read a transcript of the address as it is delivered and view a video at a later stage.

As part of the build-up to the Inaugural address, an opinion piece by the Vice-Chancellor?appears in today’s?Guardian (Tuesday 17 November). In this article? Professor Nutbeam discusses his views about A-levels and highlights his concerns that A–levels are channelling young people into narrow pathways of learning.

Don explains: “Having recently returned to UK higher education after a period in Australia, the contrast between the narrow specialisation of the UK and the broader-based education in Australia is striking.

The English education system is structured to encourage specialisation at an early age and channels young people into narrow pathways for learning from their mid-teens. Such a system ultimately serves both students and universities poorly, and is out of step not only with what many young people say they want, but also with their likely working lives after graduation.

Universities could positively influence the process but currently exacerbate the problem, both by continuing to rely primarily on A-levels as the primary form of assessment for entry, and by offering students an ever increasing number of specialised degree programmes. Young people learn more and more about less and less.”

A-level reform, and the role Universities can play by looking more widely for evidence of merit, will be amongst the topics raised in the Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural address next Monday.

If you would like to contribute to the debate on entry requirements or any of the issues that are being raised in the Vice-Chancellor’s open meetings then you can do so through emailthevc@soton.ac.uk.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/17/a-levels-degrees-narrow-education-broaden