Professor David Butterfield, who has resigned from teaching at Cambridge University, says students complaining of mental health problems are being excused from writing essays and meeting deadlines.

I think this is a moment of profound significance, exposing a fatal flaw in the current academic system that has utterly lost its backbone. Butterfield’s account speaks volumes about the erosion of academic standards in institutions that once valued resilience, discipline, and intellectual fortitude. What kind of future are we creating if our leading universities no longer expect students to meet basic requirements—such as writing essays and meeting deadlines? Are we really to believe that anyone in the world outside of these university walls will offer such latitude? Cambridge and many others have allowed this farce to continue, trading in rigorous education for a culture of excuses, so long as they can be justified under the modern buzzwords of “well-being” and “mental health.” This isn’t progress; it’s intellectual cowardice.

I guess it is lucky that the students who suffer anxiety won't ever have to face a stressful situation in life after they graduate.

My daughter was seriously ill for months with gall bladder issues and then post op complications and then broke her ankle,had a huge operation plus post op recovery and wasn’t allowed to not submit course material or not attend exams. She now has her degree thro determination

@serenelyjoyful Once stress becomes a valid reason for avoiding a system that was originally at least intended deliberately to be intensely stressful we know there's no longer any point to most degrees. Replace them all with apprenticeships.

My daughter told me of classmates in 6th form that would get more time in exams for these excuses and I told her she should calm the same as its unprovable and is giving a unfair advantage to her classmates ...

Students should defer until they recover, if you can't write up an assignment then stay at home until you're fit to do so. Jesus wept, this generation are absolute wimps.

The generation of adult children is upon us. Unable to cope with anything. The future looks bleak.

@Emma_A_Webb For more on this, see chapter six of this book ⬇️

I think this has been going on a long time. I don't think prospective employers should rely upon a person have a degree as any kind of indication of the applicant's general ability.

If a person cannot run in a race due to health problems , they should not be included in that race, they should first correct their problems and then take part.