Since when did good learning take place by ignoring the points of view, needs and wishes of the learners? By dismissing student surveys as mere concern for image, Frank Furedi supports the authoritarian view that academics (or other education professionals) know best. It was only a few years ago that as leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) Furedi was telling us that he favoured a revolution in which he and his elite group would take power.
It has been claimed that Furedi and many of his former RCP colleagues are now involved in pro-corporate right-wing "libertarian"
politics. So does this latest diatribe indicate the emergence of the acceptable face of libertarian authoritarianism? Why does The Times Higher give this man space?
Amanda Root
Oxford Brookes University