Open Eye Letter: Help and support

Since 1983 I have taken part in 25 Summer Schools, seven as a student, four as an OUSA rep and 14 as a tutor, so am fairly well qualified to speak on this.

As a tutor, I have seen students arrive who were on the point of quitting the course. By the end of the week, they had agreed to stay on, sat their exam, and achieved what they would possibly not have achieved, but for the help and support given at the Summer School. Without them, the pass rate will go down, and the dropout rate will increase.

The apocryphal hard drinking, etc., is around, sure, but not any more than on any other residential course I have attended, and it is an optional extra, as it were, not a compulsory part of the curriculum. The participants are the exception, not the rule. Most of us have too much work to do.

Mary Grosvenor [via the website]