Consuming passion

Frank Furedi's predictable rant, this time against "student-centred policies", is yet again ill informed. A recent international study of the two best teaching departments in each of ten of the world's top research- intensive universities found that what they most had in common was involvement of the students - in diagnosing teaching problems that needed to be addressed, in discussing what was likely to work, in collaborating with academics to implement changes and in jointly evaluating the consequences. Students were treated as junior colleagues in a joint enterprise. The consequences for teaching quality were impressive.

Graham Gibbs, Oxford University.