Competitive Intelligence

Student Intelligence

Are students more intelligent now than they were, say, twenty years ago? Are we, as a nation, getting smarter, that’s the big question really isn’t it?  When you think that the majority of parents strive to give their children more chances and opportunities than they had themselves, then it would stand to reason that human intelligence should be on the increase. We’re learning new teaching techniques all the time. No more “parrot fashion” classrooms, children are now encouraged to learn by discovery – but does it make them more intelligent? If so where will it end, people will just get smarter and smarter all the time.

A report by the Association of Graduate Recruiters has claimed that many employees are now raising the bar when it comes to the expectations of their new graduate applications, insisting on a 2:1 at the very minimum, however, are universities combating this by moving in the opposite direction? According to numbers from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the number of students who actually get a first class degree or a 2:1 is rising. Does this mean that it’s now easier to get a 2:1? Well, it certainly means that for all those students who do leave university with a 2:1 degree, the competition has really hotted up on the jobs market, your degree might be of a higher standard but then again, so are lots of other peoples.

Student Intelligence

So is student intelligence improving? Is it easier to get a first class degree now than it was ten or twenty years ago? Are students actually working harder because they know that they’ll face stiff competition to get a decent position? One thing is for certain, there are lots of different things to take into consideration but according to many experts, Universities are simply not interested in the “whys and the wherefore’s”, they’re just happy for their own graduates to leave with good grades.