Dear Tero, I confess that I'd like to believe that all these wonderful ideas of yours could be transformed into reality. My personal experience is that quality and quantity exist in a reverse proportional relation. More students means often lower quality. Since I've studied different subjects under different periods in my life and in the different countries, I can report that less popular programmes are often better since the number of students is lower (philosophy, literature, languages etc). People involved in these programmes are driven more by passion and less by 'reason' (get a well paid job afterwards).

Just the opposite, economists, engineers, lawyers and sociologists are 'produced' on the conveyor band. The universities receive funds from the state counted on student-capita, more undergraduates implies more funds. Of 500 students at the start maybe 60 will receive a master degree. The problem is that big groups mean less direct contact with the assistants and professor. It's an industry by that meaning that no Einstein or Galileo will ever be discovered by the 'factory' manager, but the reality is, in my opinion, that Einstein and Newton and Galileo had to fight to make people redefine their system of values. A system which is too organized is often oppressive, it protects often mediocrity and it fosters envy and it serves the old order. Brilliant minds have to be free, not captured in a confined system of rules on what you need to know for B degree. It's a fact that Einstein did not have very high degrees, mainly because free mind means also less disciplined and more challenging.

In order to conclude the schools of today might give a fair chance to succeed to disciplined, ambitious, hard-working and normally gifted person. This is the prototype, the target of the educational system. Very talented people need luck, patience and energy in order to succeed, if we haven't discouraged them already at a lower level, in high school. On the other hand, I know that the Finnish system is better, at least on the matter of efficiency and general school results.

no now education system has become business specially in case of private university although some private university are better than some govt. university.In present lower level education(standard 1-8) is become strong but higher level education is good.

Hi, I have attached hereby a connected question because people might be interested to watch the video on this one. It is an interview taken by an outstanding Professor in EU law to a member of the European Commission on the matter of education and internet.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_universities_pointless_What_is_your_stand_point_on_this_matter

Dear Akshay Srikanth, please tell me whether you could access the link above. I have detected errors in the system (the question was not accessible in the search, it does not appear on my list of questions and not on the list of the persons who follow/upvoted or answered it...

We have more people and more works that need higher education. This is first thing, why I see universities are valuable. Works has to be done. The other thing is that we don't know, who will be the next Newton or Galileo. The possibility to "catch this big fish" increases when we have more universities and more education opportunities. One "big fish" can be more valuable to human kind than all the other researchers same time.

Dear Tero, I confess that I'd like to believe that all these wonderful ideas of yours could be transformed into reality. My personal experience is that quality and quantity exist in a reverse proportional relation. More students means often lower quality. Since I've studied different subjects under different periods in my life and in the different countries, I can report that less popular programmes are often better since the number of students is lower (philosophy, literature, languages etc). People involved in these programmes are driven more by passion and less by 'reason' (get a well paid job afterwards).

Just the opposite, economists, engineers, lawyers and sociologists are 'produced' on the conveyor band. The universities receive funds from the state counted on student-capita, more undergraduates implies more funds. Of 500 students at the start maybe 60 will receive a master degree. The problem is that big groups mean less direct contact with the assistants and professor. It's an industry by that meaning that no Einstein or Galileo will ever be discovered by the 'factory' manager, but the reality is, in my opinion, that Einstein and Newton and Galileo had to fight to make people redefine their system of values. A system which is too organized is often oppressive, it protects often mediocrity and it fosters envy and it serves the old order. Brilliant minds have to be free, not captured in a confined system of rules on what you need to know for B degree. It's a fact that Einstein did not have very high degrees, mainly because free mind means also less disciplined and more challenging.

In order to conclude the schools of today might give a fair chance to succeed to disciplined, ambitious, hard-working and normally gifted person. This is the prototype, the target of the educational system. Very talented people need luck, patience and energy in order to succeed, if we haven't discouraged them already at a lower level, in high school. On the other hand, I know that the Finnish system is better, at least on the matter of efficiency and general school results.

Thank you for your comment. I would like to tackle one part of your text. That is "More students means often lower quality". This can be true, but are the students better in less popular programs? Generally, I don't think so. Maybe in smaller groups there are big advantages of "grouping of students" and "peer learning".

The problem in small or highly limited programs is following: How can you be sure, that the bests are really in ? Can you tell before studies, that Student A (highest rank in pre-exam) will be the best and Non-Student B would not be successful even if he/she have got the position in university? I think that it is impossible to anyone. So if there are more positions in many universities, the bigger change is to get all the bests inside programs.

My opinion is that university should offer possibilities. In some level, every students in university get tools for making difference, someone can use the opportunity, some other doesn't. Of course, there are limiting resources and it is waste of everyone's time if no-one tells a student directly that he/she is in wrong place if needed.

I understand your worry about "factor-like" universities, especially when the process is funding driven. However, IF "factor-like" process in universities "produces" highly qualified graduates, what is wrong with it ? University give the tools, not the solutions.

The next Galileo could be low-rank student in the first program she chooses but if she can use her opportunity and combine gained information into further studies, the results can be outstanding.

BUT you are correct, there is big risk in the system :). And about the original question, if university does not provide correct tools for students, it has no value.

In my view, there is actually a somewhat bigger problem with institutes that call themselves universities, but are actually nothing more than a thin veil of online courses and an empty office building. I'm by no means claiming that online learning cannot efficient/high qualtity, but I've often felt that certain institutes deviate quite far from the traditional idea of a university as being an institute that most importantly:

- educates students

- performs research, preferably in collaboration with industry where possible

- brings knowledge to the public/the community/the taxpayer

In my opinion, each university that satisfies these three properties is worthwhile- indeed, they are doing what they are intended for.

With respect to the issue of high population implying lower quality: I think this is not necessarily the case. Yes, there are more students, and many of them don't bother with a master (especially if it is expensive). However, I feel that students should only do a master if they're actually interested in doing so. I don't think it is a bad thing that there's more bachelor students per master student.

As for 'burying' the intelligent minds of the world (so to speak, those that are willing and able to start a phd)- I do partially agree, but my personal experience is that those minds tend to recover when they attend universities due to the higher quality of eduaction** there. However, this issue has highly political components (which, while interesting, doesn't really seem appropriate for researchgate), as well as localisation being an essential part. I'm thus hesitant to draw any conclusions.

** of course, that's another issue entirely. Teaching is fun, and it is something one feels obliged to do as well as possible (at least, I personally do), but it costs a lot of time, and it is sometimes hard for young, new researchers like myself to find the right balance between teaching and research.

I also vote for passion! I didn't claim that students/their results in the less 'commercial' departments were better, not at all. I'll try to explain what was in my mind.

Often the relations are more beneficial in the arts faculties, the students are closer to the staff and the students spend more time together outside the school involved in different creative activities. I have studied humanities as a pure passion driven by a good reason namely to complete my horizon and to discover new perspectives, which I've also did. If university studies were defined as a service, then the quality of this service would be a matter of customer experience. The customer is the student; if the relations student-student and student-professor are closer and more giving than taking and the interactions occur at a more personal level, then the experience is more beneficial from the customer perspective.

Better quality is related to these aspects, what the client (student) gets for the time and effort and money spent in the school. The results have a different logic, because the results depend on the students themselves, their skills, talents, capacity, efforts and other circumstances. Informal events, contact with alumni, trips and many other activities are just favourable occasions to discover what you can give, what can be your contribution to the general experience. Big groups mean anonymity, sharing the room at certain well scheduled time points is for me 'industrial' academy and this 'service' can be easily replaced by internet. Human contact is an important ingredient and it must be conceived as a big responsibility going beyond the usual indicators of academic success.

One side-note to the customer anology is that in most European countries, the government also pays for part of the university fees. In Norway, for example, there are no tuition fees at all (at least, for Bachelors, I'm not sure about Masters), while in the Netherlands there is a yearly fee (~1600€) that is amended by government funds to the "real" tuition fee (~20000€) that applies for students that do not live 'nearby' (= in the Netherlands, Belgium or bordering German states). This doesn't actually affect as much people as you would think (after all, to study at University, it helps to live somewhere in the vicinty), but it does show that students are not the only ones that have an interest in the quality of education.

Secondly, with respect to the results and quality- experience tells us that while some students are really interested in what they are doing, but there are also always some students that are interested in the end-result (a diploma). This isn't necessarily a bad thing -it keeps us lecturers and TAs on our toes to keep interesting and relevant content-, but it does mean that most students aren't going to come by and ask questions unless they have to. I often feel there is still too much of a border that prevents students from going to one of our offices and asking questions (in my opinion the best way to include human contact in the education itself). I've percieved this as a student aswell, although I'm not sure where it is coming from.

Dear Rens, your argumentation is indeed very relevant (more than just an one-side note). It is obvious that the profession we chose has an influence on the manner how we perceive and judge the reality. You are involved in the life of academia more directly, while myself I am an antitrust lawyer who wants to be a good one and really means to manage in depth the theory of antitrust. That's to say my interest for academia is indirect, but this does not mean that I care less, but I see things in a slightly different perspective.

Almost everyone who has studied some political science has discussed the liberal theory of consensus. This theory is anti-progressive theory, but it did some good anyway, it made people to return to Hegel and see things in a more dialectical manner.

In my own field, there is a similar fallacy with the one exposed by you that the best interests of the student correspond with the general welfare, with the public interest. The fallacy (which belongs to an area where I do work right now) is that the best interest of the consumer (consumer welfare) is in line with the public interest of maintaining competition on the market. By making assumptions of this type, we often miss the point that the general interest of consumers might be actually in conflict with the interest of some class of consumers, a conflict may exist between short and long term objectives, between the general welfare and the consumer welfare and in the end a conflict with the main issue of preserving competition can also prevail. When you set your mind off the 'consensus' mode, you will suddenly discover a whole universe of conflicts that ('attention') can not be solved, but discussed and understood case-by-case.

I see a strong analogy between the interests of:

1. students in general

2. a specific category of students

3. the short term objectives of the student

4. long term interests of the student

5. an individual student and so on

and the interest of the society (on short and respectively long term). This dialectics must be studied in order to improve the schools.

Free choice is another tool from the magical box of liberalism. It's also a fallacious theory. Neither the market for education nor the labour market are 'free'. Free choice is used to shift the responsibility on the weak party, the student, the consumer, the patient etc

If something was managed better than today in the ex-communist states was exactly the relation between studies and the labour market (though many other aspects of the plan economy were not so 'smart'). In short, the communist system had as pursuit 0% unemployment after graduation, while the current system has a vague hint on this issue and the free choice card is shown every time when somebody starts to disturb the politicians with questions. The plan-system belongs to the past, but some elements of that system connecting the schools with the practice would be beneficial in my opinion (in this case the student and the society would be placed in a better position, since a reality check must be done before the graduation)

I hope universities are valuable, but they have to change to cope with the new information age. Learning is entirely different as information availability has increased. The role of the university should be to create information and to focus students attention towards the learning experience.

Has size anything to do with that? In the information creation, maybe, as stronger universities are able (if willing) to attract better professors and provide them with more research means. In terms of education, i am not sure size is relevant, as long as the university manages to focus students attention towards relevant topics for their development. E-learning is the end of the line for universities focused on knowledge transfer, and a new beginning for universities focused on learning experience and attention management.

Universities are valuable if they embrace the new, and lead the way.

Dear Bradut Bolos,

I agree with you and the universities much focus on the quality than the quantity of students and research. The university must be ranked as per the Impact factor can be helpful in determining its quality of education. The current situation in India is so worse than any other, as the Universities are approaching the independent counsel's where the council there are not at any role to play. Some of the medical universities offering Engg and the Technical universities offering the Medical courses, which are not focusing on the objectives of the universities. But, there are no strong regulatory bodies in the world to monitor the quality of the universities. Every university has a solo regulatory system to exploit the education but not the quality.

Miss. Emanuela, the link provided is not working and please check it and repost.

Dear Aksay,

Maybe universities are not meant to be specialized. Should the focus of a university be "to be medical" or should it be to "provide scientific creation and education as needed by the society"?

Best regards,

Bradut

Dear Akshay Srikanth, I would be very careful about ranking universities, especially using Impact Factors to that. The whole ranking system in many level is somehow absurd and change the focus in wrong direction. The goal will be increasing in ranking as soon as possible, not to make research that matters. The ranking is for money makers, not for scientists.

I agree with Tero, IF is a wrong target on the long run

Actually if i were in position to decide i would focus on research contracts with industry and expanding the HR base of the university with young ambitious researchers. IF would be a consequence not a target by itself as IF does not pay for research, do not finance wages and laboratory equipment.

If a university is well connected to the environment it can ignore wrong directions and focus on what the market, either research or education, wants. I couldn't care less about top universities as it is a matter of financing, and financing should be the focus area, not empty classifications and rankings. I only need a few corporations to select preferably from my graduates and to do research using my university resources to be highly efficient.

attn Akshay Srikanth

Another mystery of the RG is that some links are available just to some people. I have checked it again and it worked for me. I have copy-pasted the text of the question and its additional information.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_universities_pointless_What_is_your_stand_point_on_this_matter

Are universities pointless? What is your stand point on this matter?

The title of the interview taken by Professor Miguel Maduro might sound quite anarchic, a real mind challenger. Ben Hammersley, member of the European Commission High-Level Group on Freedom and Pluralism of the Media, the subject of this interview knows a lot about Internet and its avenues. The proposal made by him is an interesting one and I must confess that I have met many people in the IT domain who express this type of enterprising ideas. The basic message is that people applying for higher education are not all interested in becoming doctors or researchers, many of them are 'forced' into studies by a society where checking the right box is the proper thing to do.

Ben Hammersley suggests that for those who want to study just to obtain a diploma, schooling on internet while working and thus being integrated on the labour market would be a much better solution. Having at the end of the studies both a diploma and adequate experience and a stable foot on the labour market sounds like a mind blower. Why should somebody punish him/herself with lower income during 3-4 years if at the end of the road is an insecure future emerges? The discussion is very topical in Sweden at a lower level, where vocational education is seen as a more realistic alternative to normal high school education.

The interview takes only 12 minutes, watch it and share your own opinion. Mine is that academic education has begun to be as general as the high school was 50 years ago. It is absolutely wonderful to socialize in a beautiful atmosphere of great enthusiasm and academic idealism. However, the sad reality is that Academia no longer can guarantee a key to the middle class club. It has become almost a type of conscription passing from an elitist advantage towards a selective system and reaching the stage of a pseudo-compulsory service: just check the box and move further with your life. The implications of this trend can be really gloomy for the whole (global) society. What is your stand point on this matter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8p1iUZ2o18

Well, there was many good points in the video. Personally I liked the idea of using lots of material from internet; if we have one good lecturer and one excellent lecture, why not to use it many times ? (of course, update is needed time to time).

But education is not just many credits and degree. It is important that also those, who wants degree only for getting certain jobs in future, knows people in the academia. This system linking people together more proper way than e-systems. If you have no real contact with university, the degree is worthless, you can learn everything while you are working.

Why job needs some academic degrees ? Not because people with academic degree are better than people with experience but because those who have degree, they understand, how universities works. They have seen it. They know how to use system and they know how not to break system. Of course, in some jobs, it is just habit to require masters degree or similar.

So, let us not break the bridges into the ivory tower. It is easier to us separate those who are "serious-students" and those who are "check the box-type-students", but, in long run, it is against us. Lets consider it as "transferring information between the universities and the real world"

We live in a 'Keep the appearances' kind of world, the appearances are more important than everything else. In this re-re-re- (...)-reconstructed reality we are told by parents, society and the unemployment statistics to go to university in order to get a job after the graduation. There are few people who go to study 3-4- or 8 years just because of pure passion (it's passion & reason in a more or less successful mix).

We should definitely not blame the box-checking generation since this is a natural response, an adaptation to a system created by their parents. As I've already mentioned in previous answer above the interest of the student and the one of the society must be seen in their dialectics. In our society education is a service and in this sense it must serve in the first hand the best interest of the service receiver, not the one of the service provider (as it is today).

Let's compare education with the pharmaceutical industry, since it is also a research intensive, long term investment business where the interests of the society are primordial. However the first and most important aspect is serving the needs of the customer while having in mind the large interests of the society. This is not really the situation today, this means that we do not actually have a market economy, but just a 'keep the appearances of (pseudo-social) market economy' type of system.

In order to summarize a story which is unfortunately true; you finish the high-school and are told that you must go to university (either you want or not) if you don't want to risk to fall in the category of unemployed young people. Many of the graduates become unemployed anyway and are forced to accept an employment that they could have had even w/o university education. This is obviously a problem that can not be ignored. In a real market economy, this would not be the case. In a real state ruled economy, this would not be the case either. What's wrong with our current system of academic education?

I would not blame universities so much when it comes to unemployment. Jobs are scarce, good jobs are hard to find. But also new investments, new businesses are slowing down, the work market is flooded with workforce because of globalization. truth being said investors want cheap work, so high quality, expensive workforce, is less on demand. Besides, the future is highly uncertain, the 3-5 year timeframe required for education is longer than forecasting can work. So there is a real risk that people cannot be objectively oriented towards the future work demand, instead they are more influenced by present demand.

Dear Bradut, of course my main qualification being business law, my mind set is friendly to business and less favourable to state intervention. The raison d'être of being involved on RG is the fact that a lot of information is manipulated to such an extent that no one almost is capable of distinguishing between appearances and essences. This reality disturbs me. You don't have a free choice because you are told to choose between A and B. You only have a free choice if A and B are actually different in essence (not only apparently different).

We have million universities to choose when we decide to study. It's apparently a free choice. But how much better off I'd be by choosing A instead of B? Do I actually have a free choice after including in the calculation all the parameters? The idea expressed by the guy from the European Commission is that academic education has become quasi-compulsory. (See the recent development, for our grand-parents the 7-9 years education was compulsory, for our parents the high-school became a MUST, for us a Bachelor degree is the minimum, for our children ....) If it is compulsory (even quasi-compulsory), it must be justified and the efforts required must be proportional with the results obtained. It's simple in fact.

I am a friend of globalization and an un-friend of some negative effects of globalization. These negative effects are a matter of abuse that should be more often sanctioned. We have laws for that. The problem is that the Big state has become entangled with a constellation of Big pockets (multinational corporations) and this marriage has been done and reinforced before our eyes and ears again and again. There are words for that: bribery, traffic of influence, exploitation of children as cheap labour, exploitation of women in the textile industry etc. These are serious crimes. Don't blame globalization for all this unethical/illegal conduct. Part of the nationalistic extremist trends are based on this narrow view that globalization is to blame, that EU is a conspirational organization etc.

The reality is clear to me. We have serious structural disorders in the socio-economical system and the research done is too 'tame' to deal with these issues properly. Why is 'tame'? Because it is state funded and dependent on the mainstream vision on what is 'free', what is 'socially just' and best of all is the expression 'politically correct'. This is synonymous with apparently correct, though essentially wrong. I don't buy the globalization discourse, not at all. In fact we must understand that we all play a role in this parody (no one is fully innocent).

(see the video for a more visual expression of the conduct)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-pPRByl11oM#!

http://www.ecchr.de/index.php/takeaction.html

I would like to explain what I've meant in relation to globalization as being good. It's good when a SME (small & medium enterprise) can enter new markets at lower costs, it is good when an engineer educated in Calcutta can work in NY and return home with new ideas and capital to start a business. It's good if we can travel more to more distant places, interact more often to diverse cultures etc

Like all the other good things it can be abused. The fact that always somebody, somewhere wants to take advantage of a principally good thing/idea has to be expected. What I've tried to emphasize above is that conflict (dialectical dialogue) is the proper manner to improve a certain situation. The consensus thinking is sometimes associated with democracy and liberalism is in fact an anti-democratic and anti-liberal construction. It's wonderful to disagree because only by way of disagreement the choice A and B will remain distinct. This type of freedom is the ultimate condition for both democracy and (genuine) liberalism.

Dear Emanuela, i do not blame globalization, i state a fact. Globalization means free flow of workforce and capital, and it's logic for capital to flow where wages are low and workforce to flow where wages are high. Even students will learn to migrate towards the best affordable cost/benefit mix.

Of course information is asymmetric, some will know better than others where to go, what to do, ,

Yes, exactly Bradut. Even if it is an over-used cliché, when a door has been shut before one's nose, somewhere else a new door opens. You just have to pay attention. But in my thinking the individual can only do the best he/she can under given circumstances. My criticism goes against these circumstances. i.e. an unjust and ineffective structure of possibilities.

An example for that, I can give you from Sweden. Women still have 2/3 of the salary of a man with the same position, skills and competences, despite the fact that the matter has been constantly on the table of all the governments since 1960. The problem is structural and the discourse is not followed by a change in the mentality. We affirm in high voice the idea of non-tolerance against sex-discrimination which is the politically correct discourse, and then we re-implement the same old mentality that the man has to support the family.

There is a consensus on the matter of no sex-discrimination, it is said. This consensus actually negates the existence and the magnitude of the problem. It perpetuates the social injustice. The same type of make-up is used also in the education system to give an impression of openness and other good humanist ideas, when in reality it's more and more a structure of administrative power.

Nobody ever said life is fair. We are shaped by circumstances, just as much if not more than we shape circumstances.

In light of the question we debate, a university is valuable if it embraces, promotes and create positive value in people, being students, professors, or the society it is rooted in.

In a sense, university values should be above standard social standards, but that's just as much about ethics as it is about information transfer and skill-building/refining.

So, can we define a "perfect university"? If this university would exist, would-it survive in an imperfect society? Suppose a 'perfect university" shape "perfect students", would they fit in the society, and if not, would they be able to shape a better society fitting them?

Coming back to the topic of jobs, I would like to point out that most places in Europe still have a university and a college-level. Unfortunately I don't have exact statistics at hand, but if I recall correctly, in the Netherlands at least, the distribution of high school graduates that can go to both university and college (dutch: HBO) is more or less 2:1. The second highest level of high school has students that practically always go straight to HBO (these two levels of high school made up ~40% of the student population when I was still there). Besides that there still exists MBO, where the majority of the population goes (~55%).

The point of this story is, there are many jobs that simply cannot be done by "us university-educated people". There are many hard-working people that couldn't care less about the qualifications you can get at university, because they are simply not useful. There is a significant gap between university and industry, and often industry prefers people from HBO, because they are cheaper and (initially) better at what they need. Take computer science/informatics as an example: my brother does HBO Informatics, and his programming skills are way beyond what I can do as a university graduate/first year PhD student.

There's one other important concern I missed in your argument: the motivating power of university. Speaking from personal experience, career was probably the last thing on my and my collegues minds when we went to study computer science. University is the place where people become motivated to work as a scientist. It is where students interact with researchers and take away some pieces of knowledge into the corporate world. Universities are valuable for those two reasons, both to society as a whole and even to the corporate world, despite the sometimes low appreciation (in both directions).

As for the defintion of a perfect university- I can be brief about this: a university that transfers as much knowledge to the students and the public as possible, while providing maximal space for researchers to create new knowledge, is a perfect university in my view. Of course, like all perfect things, such a university is unachievable, but we can strive for it. And we should. Putting everything on the internet and disregarding social aspects (i.e., replacing real universities by remote teaching) is not the way to do this.

Being a member of a medical university, one can not deny the need of a university w ith attached hospital.

How can medical students be trained, hands on and evidence based medicine without university

Yes, exactly dear Muhammad J! In this perspective, I must underline that a clearer distinction must be made between academic education meant to 'produce' professionals (doctors, lawyers, economists, engineers, architects etc) where the need of 'reality check' is crucial and 'philosophy' students that are supposed to became researchers and professors (where the practice is of less importance). Even for the latter must exist a possibility for optional practice (because you never know whether you will make an academic career and as back-up practice is a good investment). Therefore I said above that I vote for passion but with 'reason' i.e. by keeping a view on the reality and on actual (not only potential) possibilities to succeed.

A fact of life is that a lot of the theoretical knowledge is lost (some students know nothing after just some months because the exams and the preparation for exams were meant to show-off knowledge, instead of showing a deep understanding- not all of them, but enough many exams are like that. I know people who use memory instead of logics to cope up with mathematical formula and their application...all this is lost and gone for ever after the exam has been passed.) Theoretical knowledge applied on reality will have a more solid ground to stay on.

Another "new blood" indicator in my opinion is trademark registrations, and it has not recovered in Europe, USA and Japan (2010 number is below 2007 number) and it has almost doubled in China... Actually in 2010 there are more trademarks registrations in China than USA+EU+Japan...

I have a really bad feeling about this, it shows markets being difficult to enter for new products and services.

Yes, I agree with Emanuela and Bradut Bolos.

I don't know how the US and European universities are getting value. There are plenty of hidden universities that are providing excellent resources and knowledge better than the Top universities. But, they are incompetent to share the results with the Globalized Universities.

I had a strong question from my side which disappointed me. For applying to US universities every candidate must crack the GRE and TOEFL exams. Though TOEFL is reasonable to understand the English to assess. But why take the GRE (with maths and statistics) where the science graduate doesn't have any interest and intending to work on it. If so, then why science and other subjects are not included for the sake of knowledge and analyzation skills. I feel the most important subject that no university doesn't value is the Humanity and Morality. Subjects like Morality, reasoning, humanities and Justice are very essential than thinking of maths and statistics. As the graduate without the value of humanity and purpose of the study, then its waste of making the graduates even from the TOP universities. Universities offering high courses with high fee, But why they are not including the Important to know how a student can pay such huge money, without expecting the reward of his job scope. Theoretically it can be criticized and argued, but practically it happens with each and every student in the course of life of every UG or PG graduate.

Of course, it is reasonable to require language competence. However it is not reasonable to ask that a specific test is passed (when this test is not easily accessible to everyone and its cost may exclude students with lower financial possibilities). The purpose is not that TOEFL shall earn lots of money by organising tests, but that the student shows the ability to speak/write/understand English at the academic level. The reality of today is complex. Many of us have never studied in their native language. Many of us are polyglots and it is clear that the level is not equal in all the languages we speak. However it's nevertheless true that when a person already speaks 4-5 European languages, she/he will easily assimilate a new language.

If a person e.g. started the study of English in the elementary school and had high-school exams in English, has already studied around 300 ECTS in English achieved at good universities and still has to pass a formal test in order to be admitted at a British university, this demand would be clearly unreasonable. Language as a criterion is a potential source of (indirect) discrimination on grounds of nationality.

When it is not clear from the previous school degrees that the person could cope up with studies in English, alternatives (less expensive and more efficient) must be made available. I know examples of fraud in connection with the test (a different person solved it) and in some countries is easier to succeed than in others.

My opinion is that students should pursue with a complaint against this practice, insisting on the possibility to show the language competence in other ways than by passing a test. (TOEFL, GRE) In my case for instance, all of my academic papers, except two of them are written in English. This can be an argument.

I have done an international master in English and I know that we can always make the difference between a paper written by a native and one written by a non-native (especially by paying attention to the syntax and the use of prepositions). But the meaning of the test is not ensure that all these differences vanish and your English will be perfectly British over the nights. English as means of communication in school, in business, in court is different from cultural English, the language of Shakespeare and Thomas Wyatt. If somebody wants to study English on that level, in this case the test is too easy and hence inappropriate.