Vice-Chancellor Considers Proposals to Give Students Narcolepsy Drug to Boost University Ratings

Following the revellation that an increasing number of students are accessing 'technically' legal drugs to improve their academic performance (see article by John Sutherland in today's Guardian on-line 'Gown, mortarboard and caned'), the Vice-Chancellor is considering proposals from the Senate that such drugs be made compulsory for all new entrants into Newchange's degree programmes. Commenting on these proposals, the Vice-Chancellor commented:

"For many years, the Senate has been concerned that we need to boost results in order to forge a higher position in the University rankings. The Senate's view was that we should be aiming for all students to attain first class honours - this has been difficult to achieve in practice. Various alternatives have been considered, including what is commonly known as 'dumbing down' - something that was unanimously rejected by our staff body. However, this left the Senate conscious of the need to explore more contemporary solutions to the problem of less than 100 per cent of our students attaining first class honours. Last year only 78 per cent of our students attained first class honours, and this was disappointing.

As the Senate considered in their extensive review of the University's position, given that our lecturing staff are dedicated to students, are required to keep their teaching methods under constant review, have increasing numbers of students to look after, and work an average of 86.3 hours per weeks in order to fulfil their often competing duties in teaching, administration and research, there is no way that we can ask them to do any more - unless of course, we make it compulsory for them to take performance enhancing aids too. This could maximise their performance yield. But boosting student performance may well be the first solution to the contemporary dilemma we current face - so while these proposals are somewhat radical, I think we should give them serious consideration. And consider them we shall."

The Vice-Chancellor's office will be considering these proposals over the next week and consulting with academic staff as to how and whether these can be implemented. In addition the Vice-Chancellor shall also be considering additional proposals to make such technically legal drugs compulsory for lecturing staff.