Students' views ignored in tutorial debate
Members of the Law Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) are angry their views were ignored in the latest bout of 'stint-reform' proposals.
Medicine and Physiology tutorials are also under threat under new plans to revise the amount of tuition time given to students at the university.
The Oxford Student has learned proposals to cut the number of tutorials given to Law students have been put forward by the faculty and recommended by the Senior Tutors Committee (STC). The plans would see students have two tutorials a term replaced with classes.
The plans were passed despite documents seen by The Oxford Student which confirm that the committee recognised that: "students, in general, remained concerned about any reduction in the number of tutorials given."
It has also emerged that the faculty is seeking to organise tutorials and classes centrally, ending the more informal system in place at present whereby college tutors arrange teaching amongst themselves.
Despite a questionnaire sent out last term by the faculty to assess students' opinions, many law students feel that they have not been adequately consulted regarding fundamental changes to the system which attracted them to Oxford in the first place.
However, the faculty has defended the plans, arguing that fewer tutorials per term will assist students as well as teaching staff and insisted that the JCC was being fully consulted on the issue.
In an extract from last summer's 'Report of the Review of Law', members of the faculty noted that: "not only is this sound educationally but also necessary if concerns expressed about the load on staff and time for research are to be dealt with".
Some law students were broadly supportive of the plans, with many feeling they get more intellectual value out of a large class than a small tutorial.
Ankit Ruia, an undergraduate law student at Queens, argued that too many tutorials can be counter productive: "The whole system gets a bit hectic when it's just tutorials".
Meanwhile, Pysiology students have had tutorials cut from two per week to just eight per option - an average of just one tutorial per fortnight.
The faculty spent the last academic year redesigning the course and although students were made aware that changes were being considered, there was no consultation over reducing the number of tutorials. Lectures were also cut.
Students joined forces to fight the cutbacks due to their severity, with nine Keble students sening an email to the Head of Physiology and the course director outlining concern that the Final Honours School had been altered.
There is now fear that the latest stint reform proposals in Law and Physiology are part of a wider trend towards the university making cutbacks in undergraduate teaching.
The university denies stint reform is part of a wider programme that is a serious threat to the tutorial system. In a statement this week, the University insisted: "there is no question of Oxford University abandoning tutorials as a core part of its teaching provision".
"I'm totally in favour of tutorials. The level of response you get from them is completely different than from classes, and classes are nowhere near as stimulating."
Elizabeth Boon, third year Law, Worcester
"The whole systemgets a bit hectic when it's just tutorials. A bad tutor can make a tutorial useless"
Matt Goss, third year Law, Corpus Christi
13th Jan 2005