Changes Urged In Universities

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 16

Changes Urged In Universities

Universities should take only honourstype students concerned with the advance* ment of knowledge. The rest, who sought professional degrees and certificates of competence, should go to junior colleges, said Professor D. F. Lawden, retiring head of mathematics at the University of Canterbury.

This would cut numbers in New Zealand and elsewhere to about 5 per cent and enable universities to do their proper job, he said yesterday. Universities everywhere now had far too many students and were turning out stereotyped professionals, he said. His own department in Christchurch now handled about 2000 students. Cut in the way he suggested, the

number would be reduced to about 100. Professor Lawden said New Zealand would warrant about one “real university.” The present universities, under another name, could take students from sixth-form level to the completion of their first degree. All this would require radical thinking and action, Professor Lawden said, but it was the only solution he knew to the crisis in the universities. Professor Lawden will leave next week to become professor of mathematics and physics in the new University of Aston, Birmingham, also known as the “technological university of the Midlands.” It now had 2000 students and would increase to 5000 in 10 years, he said. Most of the students would be from industry, selected for ability and returning to their work in university vacations. Their degrees however, would have full university status. Coupled with experience they might even be more valuable.