I teach graduate and undergraduate students. Postgraduate students are a big source of income for Universities here in the UK. For an overseas pgrad student their fees run to about £10,000 per student. Often we get people who have English as a second language. They are supposed to have passed a certificate in English. They do produce this at interview, but we have no way of telling if they sat the exam themselves or got someone else to do it for them (quite common, it seems).

I despair of many of my students' inability to express themselves through writing. Many of them email me using 'txt speak' and without signing their name. They add smilies to their emails. It's only 10 years since I was an undergraduate, buut I would never have been so informal when writing to an academic. I hope I'm not just being old-fashioned - I was at a training day yesterday with other young academics and we're all worried about it.

The system is not ideally set up for us to correct it though. Contrary to popular belief we do not have an easy life of 10 hours giving lectures a week and nothing else. The rest of my working week - which is frequently 50 or 60 hours long - is spent with final year dissertation students, pastoral care with our tutees, departmental administration roles, course management, and then the biggy - independently atteempting to generate thousands of pounds worth of grant money so we can do one of the main parts of our job: research.

I would love to be able to spend the time teaching grammar, spelling and basic literacy to students. As it is, I correct it on a basis of feedback. It's not enough, they ignore it, I get the same mistakes over and over again. Plagiarism is an even bigger problem - I spot plagiarised material about once a fortnight. That's despite dire warnings and a lot of education about how NOT to plagiarise.

The whole Higher Education system is flawed. Many students are on the conveyor belt degree system where they turn up and do the minimum so they can graduate and get a degree. Is it political? Are they all, as someone I spoke to yesterday described them, mini-Thatcherites who feel entitled to a degree a money making job straight after? Is that all they seek? I have a couple of students who actually want to learn and who enjoy their course and make a contribution. They're a joy.

The Labour government wants 50% of the population to have been through Higher Education. That is possibly the most stupid and devaluing thing I've heard from them.

Crap, I have to go to work now.
Oh well, it's the last day of term: I can finally start my research for this year.