Speaking before an audience of international vice-chancellors at the Association of Commonwealth Universities Conference of Executive Heads in Adelaide, J.M. Coetzee has called for a change in the emphasis of university teaching.
"Should we be worried that the graduating students are equipped to write novels and stories and plays for today's literary market but not well informed about the history of these forms or about what has been achieved in the forms in the past?" Coetzee asked.
It is a question, he says, that has bothered him for some time.
