Some British universities have recently completely succumbed to progressive efforts to fundamentally revise teaching, with the alleged aim of ensuring equality between students of different backgrounds, even at the cost of reducing their language skills, spelling, and grammar.
At the University of Hull – but not only there – academics have come to the conclusion that students do not benefit from the assessment of grammar and spelling, as well as attention to “technical imperfections” in English written language. As part of the effort to “decolonize the curriculum”, professors are now advised not to give more weight to grammar than is necessary, as it is an elitist, White, and masculine form of expression, The Telegraph reported.
The University of Hull in England explains that assessing students’ “technical prowess” in written English may disadvantage and discourage some students for whom English is not their mother tongue, or if they simply come from lower-quality educational institutions.
“It can be argued constructing an academic voice means adopting a homogenous Northern European, White, male, elite mode of expression dependent on a high level of technical proficiency in written and spoken English, a mode of expression that obscures the students’ particularity,” Hull’s policy reads. “Our learning community will encourage students to develop a more authentic academic voice, a voice that can communicate complex ideas with rigor and integrity — that celebrates, rather than obscures their particular background or characteristics,” the University further pledged.
A similar new standard of “inclusive assessment” is being introduced by the University of Worchester, which notes that it is fairer to focus on the quality of ideas and knowledge than on their spelling and grammar. The University of the Arts in London is taking a similar route, telling academics to actively accept spelling, grammar, or other language errors as long as they do not significantly impede communication.
Universities not only in the UK have recently been facing strong progressive pressures to significantly revise their curriculums and, at the same time, to increase the representation of students from different nationalities and social groups in ongoing migration and the growing share of national minorities in the total migration population.
Title image: In this Nov. 7, 2019, photo, Crosby High School algebra teacher Jennifer Desiderio works with Lyndon Frederic, right, in her class in Waterbury, Conn. While students in the Waterbury public school district are predominantly black and Hispanic, the vast majority of its educators, as in school districts across the country, are white. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
