"None of this surprises me at all, I'm a mature(very) law student, and the corruption and lousy standards coupled with a generally 'here's the outline of the course, now clear off and teach yourself' attitude has been a real eye opener for me. Universities are just profit machines." - AGREED!

D. Jackson, Canterbury, U.K.

The only statistic that really matters is the employability of students from the university, for the particular subject everything else is open to interpretation.

Perhaps university applicants ie six formers and mature students should do their research first ,and visit the universities applied to

C.M, Beaconsfield, UK

As mentioned earlier these are two of the best lecturers on the course, and the statement is true. I was also in the lecture, the problem is with the ranking system. A person can leave uni and will still be tied to the university, no matter how well they performed when the person attended.

Mychael Fergus, London,

None of this surprises me at all, I'm a mature(very) law student, and the corruption and lousy standards coupled with a generally 'here's the outline of the course, now clear off and teach yourself' attitude has been a real eye opener for me. Universities are just profit machines...

Francis Dwyer, Preston, UK

I'm in my final year at Kingston, and my lecturers said the exact same thing. They probably are told to say it though so you can't really blame them. Kingston truly is an awful university, I don't care what they say about slagging kingston off devaluing my degree, the worst years of my life.

Z, London, UK

Both lecturers concerned are among the best in the faculty and having worked with them persoanlly its a shame to see them discredited like this. I'm a psych students and I was in the lecture that day; Fiona spent 10 mins encouraging us to take part and maybe 10 secs joking about giving high rating.

Fara, Harrow,

I agree with Erica. they are under pressure to make us perform and make the university look good. It is also a dog eat dog world and if it makes my degree look that bit better then i would comply.

jennifer, southampton,

The head Leicester Medical School sent us several emails encouraging us mark them favourably.
The underlying message was 'if you put down a bad comment, your degree will be thought of as second rate and you won't get a decent job in the future' - very manipulative and unacceptable in my opinion

anna, leicester,

One aspect that needs to be looked at is the pressure these lecturers are under from their managers in terms of getting favourable results from the survey.

In another university the principal did not like the results - a couple of years ago - so he asked the registrar to re-run the survey!

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Bristol, UK

Not only do i go to kingston university, but i was a student sitting in this lecture!!!

These lecturers are fantastic and i really hope that nothing happens to their positions at kingston as a result of this unimportant, irrelevant issue!!

I know many students who are willing to back them!

Erica Grima, Wallington,

Does anyone really imagine that this isn't the standard practice at every college and university when inspectors are due to interview students or surveys are taken that affect the institution's image?

Anne, UK,

Professor Peter Scott, Vice-Chancellor at Kingston University, called this an isolated incident. Either he is part of a cover up or he very out of touch with what is going on. Either way he should consider his future.

Liz B, Kingston, UK

I agree, whatuni.com is a much better website for a feel of what a uni is really like. Although it has views from fewer people, it comes from students and isn't written within the uni walls so the pressure to write something good isn't there. Told my daughter to use this website over any govt survey

Elizabeth, London, UK

I agree with Rob from Banbury. I much prefer hearing it from the horses mouth so to speak. I've just visited whatuni.com and was really impressed by their reviews. They are all from students and all look very genuine to me.

Paula, London, UK

I prefer using something like Whatuni.com. That way i can here what a uni student would really say about their course/uni and even see what the actual uni says as well. I can't be bothered with tables.. a friend always told me to find the course that suits you & it doesn't really matter where it is!

Rob Horne, Banbury, UK

The statement made by those lecturers was correct, so why should they be penalised? The real problem are all those rankings and league-tables, which are based on simplistic methods and criteria. Would you "rubbish" the are you live in, if you tried to sell your house?

Adrian, London, UK

I am a Kingston Graduate and frankly this does not surprise me. The year before, lecturers were worried that many students were not doing the survey. We knew that it was rubbish, but was warned that if students did not do the survey the university would be de-listed and would look bad.

Danny, London,

This is just proof of the big flaw of rankings... Universities should be standardise not ranked... The government should empower them to have the same "high" standards. Rankings is just another effect of the British clasism. Said that, I study in Kingston, and I think is an awful university...

Tony, Kingston Upon Thames, UK

By the way, I invite The Times to investigate regarding the ranking of masters in marketing... The webstie of Kingston university in the section for its MA in Marketing ensures that Kingston ranks as the 1st univeristy for MAs in Marketing. That ranking website looks suspicious and no official at al

Tony, Kingston Upon Thames, UK

The denial by Peter Scott, vice-chancellor, is transparently disingenuous. All you need is to listen to the recording to realize that it has been scripted by the University. Who told these lecturers what to say? Was it their Dean, or did it go as high as the Vice-Chancellor? Why was he knighted?

BobbyD, Kingston, UK

These lecturers comitted a dreadful crime - they told the plain unvarnished truth. In so doing they showed an unwillingness to play the game the way government wants.

No doubt they will be tried and given life sentences for this heinous offence

Bill Q, Derby,

Confirmation of the intrinsic flaw in using league tables. The only surprise is that it has taken this long for the truth to emerge. Pity the teachers caught up in the middle of this mess, pity the students whose futures are compromised by this mess BUT blame the government for creating this mess.

David, Manchester, UK

But what is actually going to happen to these two? Are they going to be disciplined?, fired? what?
Let me guess..................

John Wood, Uxbridge, UK

If the government will insist on setting up lists of criteria and boxes to tick, people who are put under pressure by them will do whatever they can to tick those boxes and meet the criteria - all you end up with is a culture of 'playing the system'. I'm sure this is not an 'isolated incident'!

Maddie, Manchester,

I'm student at Kingston and the best thing about it is that lecturers would make comments like these. The lecturers are happy to present themselves as regular human beings who can have a laugh and joke while still being talented teachers. Everybody knows league tables are worthless anyway.

mikewhills, Kingston, UK

If the Government didn't require this blatant nonsense, there would no temptation to behave like this. What the hell was the point of aiming for a 50% participation rate at universities, then downgrading the status of most of those universities in the eyes of employers?

John Nicholson, Hampton, UK

It's unfortunate that lectures are put under this type of stress, I live in Kingston and have always thought of it as a good university. All UK degrees are of very good quality in my opinion.

Martin, Kingston, UK

Another one of labours targets proves that it actually holds no real value. Just pay another set of civil servants to do a worthless task. Tick the box, pay your taxes, move on.
Thanks Gordon.

Dave, Gibraltar,

ALL government league and performance tables are suspect, in many cases because organisational performance has been changed in order to meet scoring criteria but with no improvment to the quality or efficiency of the service.

Changing the recording of crime is an obvious example.

MarkS, Leeds,