A friend once stated that students today have it easy with all the chances to re-sit, the information on the web, extra time for those with "made up" educational needs.  He thought that when we were at school, as my father did before me, life was tougher and that you had to be more brainy to get less whilst students today are "spoon-fed" and grades inflated to boost government statistics.  He claimed that if he sat A-Levels now he would get three As easily. Perhaps he would, yet that might be for many other reasons besides easier questions and lighter marking.

In fact, I think with all the new initiatives and diversions students actually have a much tougher time than we did back in the heady days of 1994!  The claim is that students are indolent and use their free time in pointless pursuit of itunes, blogging (ha-ha), Playstation and horror-of-horrors - socialising!

What type of student wants to get the top grades but would rather not work for them?  A question posed (albeit in variations) from teachers the world over.  Well, to be honest, probably about two thirds of them.  It's like the lottery, all you have to do is find the energy and a pound to buy a ticket, you don't even have to choose your own numbers.  If you strike gold, you never have to worry about money again.  Sounds like a plan, and it's not surprising that the get rich quick mentality spills over into academic pursuits.

In my time I've seen essays swiped straight from Google, written by parents/sisters and so on. Students are so desperate on many occasions that they would gladly pay money to have the work done for them - and why not?  If I want my car fixed, I go to a garage and get someone who knows his gear box from his crank shaft and pay him the money, if I need my plumbing sorted I look in the Yellow Pages under plumbers, where's the difference? Well, you'd have to look closely at what we mean by authenticity.

Authenticity implies that the artifice is genuine, original and honestly assembled.  Students' work must be their own and they must sign up to this when they put in their precious coursework.  They can't just copy others' ideas because every time they cite a critic they have to address the concerns of that critic and the text in question - my generation didn't touch this holy grail until university.  Yet authentic also somehow implies that it's not real but only "like" real.  Similar to real.  

It's funny how often students fall foul of this when submitting literature essays and I have to wonder if they're entirely wrong.  At some stages of academic life it's depressing to find out that you can get very far with simple re-hashings of others' ideas, that originality is actually dangerous and treading the well-worn path is the best way as if there are right answers to how one must feel about literature.  Perhaps but it's not very Robert Frost, is it? Which path to take when so much rest on the acquisition of a certain point score from a possible 300?

I'm asked about the A-Level system and its temptation to re-sit until students eventually pass - I've been asked "where else in life does one get this opportunity?  It's not fair...in my day...etc, etc."

It took my two attempts to pass my driving test - I wonder?