Tim Harford recently wrote a piece called: “Policy Lessons from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party“. For those not from the UK, Screaming Lord Sutch was a novelty candidate who ran for election as an MP (Member of Parliament many times and never had a chance of getting elected. However, as Tim notes, he was also highly successful if we look at things differently, as many of his “crazy” election promises actually became law later on, so what was “loony” ultimately looked sensible. Tim’s piece then suggests a few “loony” ideas that, you never know, may ultimately be thought of as sensible and adopted.
Inspired by Tim, here is a thought for you. What if universities stopped giving exams? “Loony”, huh? How will we know how hard students have worked? how smart they are? what they learned? Also, how will employers then be able to use university education (and the grade achieved) to filter applicants and give them jobs?
A few thoughts then that were part of what led me to this “loony” proposal.
- Inspired somewhat by something a “Don” (Professor) said to one of my sons when he had an interview to get into Cambridge, “we aren’t interviewing you to test what you know, we want to understand how you think”. Exams are, even at degree level, testing for testing’s sake, they aren’t doing enough to teach people how to think, how to learn beyond specialist subjects.
- AI and large language models are now being used by almost every student to do part of their work, even now being shown to be able to outwit examiners up to Ivy League masters level. Some universities are responding by moving away from remote assessments (as introduced in the pandemic) to now bring people back into examination halls and hand-writing of exams. Rather than taking that defensive tack, perhaps have the students continue to submit work, but just have AI mark it, leaving the valuable time of lecturers and professors to spend time with students in other ways that can help them learn and grow.
- Filters for employment are faulty. Employer after employer is now realising that they are losing many great employee candidates as they insist on “the best” but only categorise that by those who follow the simplistic path of passing exam after exam at high grade to get into university, then the same again to get a (in UK parlance) a “first or 2:1” at bachelors level. These filters radically restrict opportunities for people of diverse backgrounds, neurodiverse and other different ways of thinking and processing. Again, back to AI. Within a very short period of years, large language models will wipe out the need for conventional thinkers, so we will value (in business and society) those who are different from the (exam-passing filtered) norm.
What if, then, a few universities radically restructured themselves around providing bachelor degrees that involve no marked and graded exams, but instead focused on teaching young adults to think, to learn, to be curious, to be rounded?
Now, fast forward just a few years to when those first new groups of graduates are looking for work. Within just a very few years, AI will wipe out so many “conventional” jobs that current graduates currently go into.
I may be a “loony”, but I may also be at least partially right.
I do like my question though. What do you think of it, and, of much more interest, what “loony” policy ideas and questions might you come up with?