In all the oceans of coverage devoted to tertiary education, one crucial area is sorely overlooked. Precious little notice is taken of the student pub.

That’s a big mistake. Lectures, libraries and the pursuit of academic achievement and vocational advantage are admirable things, but the pub is where you take a crash course in social skills, coming face to face with the fact that there are people in the world who don’t come from down the road. It’s where you go beyond the textbook and pick up essential educational tips, such as whose notes to copy and how to plagiarise in safety. It’s where you make lifelong contacts, build networks, develop your tastes in fashion and music, grasp the possibilities of being your own person, and learn how to make very little money go a very long way.

It’s the place where most students first dip into the basics of pub culture and all its glories, learning its egalitarian traditions, socially cohesive ways and complex protocols, and take a vital step away from the juvenile belief that drinks worth drinking must be sweet, sticky and furtive. That some people never grow out of such a view is a much clearer sign of educational failure than low participation rates.

Many student bars offer only the barest steps towards this particular enlightenment, and the keener seekers after knowledge often need to go off campus to be more thoroughly educated. But not at Leeds, where the University Union Old Bar offers budding intellects — and, before 9pm, intrepid non-students — a rich serving of wisdom from the big book of beer, with seven different real ales and a week-long beer festival in November, all delivered in an instructive environment of proper pub atmosphere. With pubs such as this shaping the minds of the youth, the future is in safe hands.

Old Bar, Leeds University Union, Leeds, West Yorkshire (01133 801316).

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