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Is it possible to join academia with a structured PhD?
There are two types of PhDs in Germany(or, in other parts of the world, like, Ireland): structured, and individual.
A definition of structured Ph.D. is as follows:

Usually, in structured Ph.D. programs, the thesis advisor has a
  pre-planned or a pre-defined research proposal which he intends on
  carrying forward through his Ph.D. student. The Ph.D. student then
  does some preliminary studies based on this proposal, based on which
  the student sets his own objectives. Basically, in such structured
  programs, a few of the objectives are already set and the may, or may
  not add a few more, depending on some of the results obtained in his
  preliminary work.

Is it possible to join academia with a structured Ph.D.?

In practice the distinction is gradual. Some structured programs don't function as well as advertised, meaning that the PhD students are pretty much left on their own, while some advisors of individual PhD project are very structured. Sometimes individual PhD students can participate in (parts of) a structured program, etc. etc.
In the end if you get a PhD, then you got a PhD regardless of the type of program. No one will know, and no one will care one way or another. In practice a well functioning structured program is beneficial as the students tend to learn more and the network of a given cohort in such a program tends to help as well.


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Why does a US/Canadian STEM PhD 'almost' always comes with monetary assistance while a British PhD doesn't?
A US/Canadian STEM PhD 'almost' always comes with monetary assistance from the supervisor. In some universities/programs, supervisors are able to individually recruit students along with monthly allowances. In most cases, students don't even need to submit a separate application for money.
Even PhDs in Hong Kong and Singapore come with full funding. Students don't even need to submit a separate application for money.
Why doesn't that happen in  UK?

Even in Northern America, this likely depends on the field. I don't think that funding is (almost) universal in the social sciences, for example.

Pretty rare in math and cs as well. It depends on the PI having heavy heavy grant funding.

@MorganRodgers, what they offer is TA positions, managed by the department, not by individual professors. You work for your stipend. It is also not normally related to your research.

Buffy makes a very important point - financial support in the US is common throughout STEM, but what is rare is any form of guarantee that this support is to work on research. Note that the US has become famous for having the most expensive undergraduate (and usually masters) degrees anywhere in the world - in this context, being paid to TA for such classes being the common form of support should be much less surprising.

It does, supervisors in the UK can support PhD candidates with funding - based on the research projects they are recruited to...
Some PhD's have funding through external companies especially those in some engineering disciplines - usually found in universities that have strong links with industry such as research involving stress & structures (I remember some funded by Westland...)

I can't comment on Canada (or UK), but most US Ph.D.funding ends up coming from Federal funding.  The US has traditionally had a massive post WW2 investment in basic science at universities because of the Cold War (they also spent more on their military).  In addition, there is very large funding of biology because "curing cancer" is a pretty easy sell politically.  A few other areas (e.g. climatology) have benefited from recent interest and willingness to fund.
There could also be an issue of the US being more willing to fund university research than established researchers, but I doubt that (as there is a huge national lab system, NASA, NIH, etc.).  Probably, it just comes down to the US government spending more on R&D overall.

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Why do PhDs from a same university and potent subjects produce different outcomes?
This question has been bugging me for a long time.
I don't know how to put it according to Academia.SE 's prescribed standard. Kindly help me to formulate this question by editing my question if you find it not conforming to the standards.

I know a Pakistani guy who has a Ph.D. in leadership from the University of Malaya and working as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois and adviser to the PM.
I know a Bangladeshi girl, who completed Ph.D. in accounting from the same university and now working as a professor in a Malaysian privately funded university.
I know a Bangladeshi guy who completed a Ph.D. in IT from the same university and now working as the head of the computer center in a Bangladeshi university because of the political lobbying and backing of his father.
I know an Indian guy who completed Ph.D. in physics from the same University, and now working as a private tutor online.
In my opinion, the latter two are failures. Coz, they have failed to make proper use of their PhDs.
My question is if the latter two are not as competent as the 1st and 2nd one, how did they manage to acquire a Ph.D.?
N.B. kindly feel free to comment if you want to know more about these persons.

Why are the latter two failures? Why are they “not as much competent” (sic)? Most people who get a PhD end up not working in an academic role. Whether they’ve failed depends rather on what they set out to do. Just because you think they are failures doesn’t mean that they are.

Sorry but the "potent" really made me laugh, I wouldn't associate that adjective with a subject.

@HermanToothrot, potent means more job opportunity. Some subjects like History and Philosophy are less potent.

@user366312 That's not a typical use of the word in English, even if that's the meaning you intended.

Perhaps you mean you would think you failed if all you can get is a tutoring job.  That would be fine.  As the question is written, you are insulting tutors everywhere, which is probably not you intention.

@TerryLoring, Coz, they have failed to make proper use of their PhDs

In most universities, what you must demonstrate to obtain a PhD is that you have made a novel contribution to knowledge in your field of study. Specifically at my university the requirement is worded as:

A candidate for the degree of PhD, PhD with Integrated Studies, MD, DDSc, DMedSci,
EdD, DEdCPsy, DClinPsy or EngD is required to satisfy the examiners that his or her
thesis:

Is original work which forms an addition to knowledge
Shows evidence of systematic study and of the ability to relate the results of such
study to the general body of knowledge in the subject
Is worthy of publication either in full or in an abridged form

All of you above examples could easily have demonstrated the above. I'm assuming you believe that individual who works as a private tutor is the least successful of the four (this is only true if this is not the life they wish for themselves, many might see this as a nice life). Do you have any reason to suspect that this individual is not capable of making a novel contribution to knowledge? But passing this bar does not mean you will be a good government advisor, or professor.
The larger point is that PhDs are not tools for ranking people.  People with PhD are not just people with better bachelor degrees - PhDs rather are apprenticeships in knowledge generation. Nor are jobs on a single ladder, each job has its particular set different skills it requies. Its not like being a government advisor requires a higher level of competence at the same skills as an IT centre manager. It requires a different set of skills.
Of those that you describe, the job that is closest to being a match for the precise skills a PhD teaches is Professor (although not even then really, as a professors job is far more than research). But there are far more PhD graduates each year than professor jobs. Consider: To maintain a constant number of professors, each professor needs to be replaced by one person when they retire. However, during their career, a professor might graduate 20-30 PhD students. There is no way all of those student can become professors. Luckily professor is a job that only appeals to a subset of people, and not everyone that does a PhD wants to be a professor.
It is important for any student to realize, before they embark of a PhD, that irrespective of how prestigious a school they go to, a PhD cannot guarantee anyone a good job.

Your judgement of the two latter cases is unfair and misinformed. They are only "failures" if they, themselves, consider themselves to be failures. They may feel wildly successful, doing precisely what they want to do. The doctorates may have had less to do with their happiness and sense of personal fulfillment than being active in some way.
It is a bit dangerous to judge other people. You say you know these people. What do they think? What are their objectives? What opportunities or obstacles do they have?
Not everyone feels that academic success is the highest value that life can be judged by. Not everyone has the same opportunities, even with good degrees.

In any reasonably large population of this kind (e.g. PhDs from a particular university)
there will be a large range of outcomes. You have chosen to examine two outliers at each end of a spectrum you have vaguely and arbitrarily defined and called "life success" and asked for an explanation.
The answer is "variation". In that population there are many randomly distributed determinants of "success" (by any definition). Some of those people are smarter than others.  Some are more ambitious. Some are luckier.
Your question really has nothing to do with academia, or doctorates.
I think your underlying misunderstanding is of statistics.

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How is East European PhD viewed in the USA?
Eastern Europe is composed of the former Warsaw Pact, plus the European part of Russia (e.g. St. Petersburg).
I believe Eastern Europe's higher education is influenced by the former USSR. On the other hand, there has always been a political tussle between the USA and Russia. Therefore, there should be some kind of stigma in the USA in recognizing Ph.D. degrees acquired from those countries. No?
How is East European Ph.D. viewed in the USA? Are they considered on par with American PhDs or at least compatible with American education?

Given the number of PhD scientists who have moved to the US post-Cold-War, your fears seem overblown.

Is your goal to get a job in academia? In many fields, nobody cares where you got your PhD. What counts is whether you have good publications (and in decent quantity).

I downvoted because you've edited since receiving a helpful comment but did not bother responding to that comment.

@BryanKrause, which comment?

"Is your goal to get a job in academia?"

@BryanKrause, His comment didn't wait for my answer. It was formulated as rhetoric. However, the answer is YES.

this is a bad, opinion-based question design to stir discussions, question without achievable goal.

The education in Czechia is heavily influenced by the old Austrian tradition and not so much with the Russian tradition - the exception being the creation of the Academy of Science.

Neither Hungary, nor Romania is Slavic. And they're definitely in Eastern Europe.

@Riwen Nope, Hungary is definitely Central Europe.

@VladimirF I mean, using the given definition, so ex-Warsaw Pact members.

"Eastern Europe are the Slavic nations" is plainly wrong and so is "Eastern Europe's higher education is highly influenced by the former USSR"

I haven't observed direct stigma against Eastern European schools, but the big indirect problem may be that US academics are not familiar with your school
When viewing large numbers of applicants or correspondents, this makes it hard to categorize things.  Rightly or wrongly, there is often a need to filter more individuals than you have the ability to research in depth, so that can count against you.  Note that this isn't restricted to one direction; I lived in Eastern Europe for years, and I had a friend who went to the US to study at Brown.  Now, she was in the private sector, but was routinely frustrated that no one in her country had heard of her school, and therefore didn't place much weight on her educational achievements relative to how an Ivy League education would be assessed in the US.
This is similar to the impact of studying at a respected, but small, regional school.  There are many of them around the US, and within that school's geographic region you're likely to be interacting with people who are familiar with the school, or possibly even went there themselves.  But in a different part of the US, the name of your school would impart no real information to the observer.
Similarly, publications may be in a language US academics can't read, or may be poorly translated, or may be published in journals they've never heard of.  In my experience it's very likely that academics will be inclined to judge you, your work, and your program, on their merits once you get past that initial filter.  So if your goal is to work in the US,  try to build personal contacts with academics in the US (e.g. at conferences, via email), try to publish in English, attend a school with some international recognition (in Prague, for example, you have CERGE-EI which is deliberately US-styled), and anything else that helps overcome that initial "I don't recognize any of this" when someone in the US reads your CV.

"Similarly, publications may be in a language US academics can't read, or may be poorly translated, or may be published in journals they've never heard of." That is very unlikely even in specialized disciplines that solve local issues. CERGE is a very small specialized institution for one discipline only.

@VladimirF In my experience it's not very unlikely, but maybe your field is different.  And yes, I just listed CERGE as a small example off the top of my head.  It was not intended to be a specific recommendation.

Of course it depends on the university, but Eastern Europe has some very fine (and very old) universities. My advisor was educated at Charles in Prague and worked there before his escape. I also know some excellent scholars in Poland and in Hungary. I can't speak personally about the entire region, but certainly, other things being equal, there should be no concerns.
My advisor was among the finest mathematicians I've ever known and I've know some famous ones.
A former student of mine, now a professor in CS, was from St. Petersburg. His father did important work in mathematics that is widely recognized.
Of course I'm speaking of older people, trained in the "old days". The Soviet days, actually. Standards were very high in some fields at least. What has happened since then, I can't speak for.  But many of these older academics came to the US since that time and would possibly be some of those you'd be appealing to.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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Is it advisable/sufficient to enroll and finish my MSc degree in an accredited private university in the same country with no ranking in Times or QS?
I have dropped out of 2 MSc in CSE programs because of my health issues and lack of proper math background.
You can check the full story from my previous question.

What should I do now to go ahead and restart my aspirations to become an appropriate candidate for a Ph.D. program?

Some answerers suggested that I should go back to my incomplete M.Sc. degree. Another answerer in the comment suggested that even though my dropped master’s degrees were 2y in length, completing 1y or 1.5y programs will also be sufficient.
My new question is, does the reputation matter in this case if the program is accredited?
My previous universities were state-run mainstream universities with the times Subject-rank of 601-800.
Is it advisable/sufficient to enroll and finish my MSc degree in an accredited private university in the same country with no ranking in Times or QS?

If you target a Ph.D in the same country of your potential Masters university, an unranked place might still be considered pretty good there - especially if you’d maybe pursue a Ph.D. at the same university. But, in most cases, being off the (ranking) grid will make you not very competitive abroad I fear. Again, this might not be true for the particular place you have in mind, or if the place is higher ranked in related fields. If possible, do some research about how it’s viewed.

@gnometorule, I don't want to be confined in the EU. I want to be eligible for North America as well.

In the short term, what you are asking is that the "new" university accepts some of the exams/courses/credits you gained previously.
That's entirely up to each single university how they will manage that. You need to get in touch with the universities you are aiming at.
Your goal is to complete a MSc, they usually are 2 years in length (read: they require you to pay 2 years of tuition fees) but how you complete this journey (if you pass the exams or if you can have the past exams recognized) it is entirely to the single University internal regulations.
However, in the long term the lack of proper math background is what should worry you, more than the rating/ranking of a specific university, especially if you aim at pursuing a PhD.
Good luck, from what I understand you feel a bit of time pressure. Don't. Many PhDs in Europe start their PhDs when they are well over 25 years old, even around 30 years old, so do not rush and take your time.
Especially in having good math fundamentals, if your goal is to pursue a PhD.


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Do having 2 masters increase the possibility of acceptance in a joint PhD program?
Suppose, a research school in the USA offers a  Joint/Dual (Education + English) PhD  program. That university has an acceptance rate of 27%.
Understandably, someone with either an MA in Education or MA in English can apply for that program.
Do having 2 masters (MA in Ed + MA in English) increase the chance of getting acceptance in that joint PhD program for the student?

One of the answers here emphasizes that all else equal, the extra prep is better.  I understand this rationale but think you may actually getting the wrong idea from it.
Of course all else is not equal.  And at the end of the day Ph.D. programs are WAY more interested in talent than experience.  So emphasizing doing extra time in the salt mines to make up for past issues (and we get MANY questions down that line of thinking) is probably not an optimal strategy.
This is a key insight you need to consider.  Given the massive overproduction of advanced degrees (and the miserable job possibilities because of supply and demand), you really should not enter this "tournament" unless you have confidence that you are well above average.  If you need to be doing extra degrees to even get into the tournament?  Bad sign.
I realize this answer is both contrary and discouraging.  But I would at least consider the alternate insight.

This isn't terrible advice, though I'd say, instead of emphasizing how far above average you might be, that you, instead, emphasize how driven you are to doing deep research in a field. I got my doctorate simply because nothing else would do. That drive will get you over the hump and through the hard bits. But, yes, there is a lot of competition for jobs just now.

I feel like someone doing a series of degrees in education and English isn't particularly focused on job prospects.

It will of course depend on the specific school.
However, let us think logically: People are not admitted randomly. Most likely, somebody estimates who has the best chances to succeed in the program. So, all other thongs (recomendation letters, grades, motivation etc.) being equal, it is likely that those people have an advantage in getting admitted.

But of course, those things aren't equal. It is the individual record that counts above all.

Yes, sure. So one can not really answer the question.

Actually, no. I agree with you. Preparation is one of those things that help, but no single thing is definitive. And spending time on A (another masters) when you want to really do B (a doctorate) is maybe not the best path.


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Is it appropriate to ask a student who wears the full-face veil to speak louder?
The kind of full-face veil I'm thinking of is the Niqāb - it covers the entire face except the eyes.
I don't have any ideological objections to people who choose to wear the full-face veil. However, by its very nature, the veil makes it hard to hear what the student is saying since it muffles the voice.
If an instance arises where such students are hard to hear, is it appropriate to ask them to speak louder? I notice students who wear full-face veils already tend to be rather silent, and if doing so makes them even less likely to speak up, it might be counterproductive.
Edit: the alternative is to walk closer, which could be intimidating.

A bunch of answers-in-comments have been moved to chat. Please consider posting them as actual answers. Any answers-in-comments below this one will be deleted.

As an aside, covering the mouth while speaking causes problems with understanding even beyond the muffling effect. Hearing relies on visual cues, as well as auditory ones (see The McGurk Effect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect)

It is appropriate to ask a student to speak louder if, and only if, that is necessary for you to hear and understand what they are saying. Of course, I assume you will make the request politely and in a friendly tone of voice.
This applies to all students regardless of the specific reason why you are having trouble hearing them.
Don’t bring up religion or religious garb, they have nothing to do with the issue. Don’t say you “believe in tolerance”, “don’t have a an ideological objection” to anyone’s choice of what to wear, that you “respect everyone’s religious beliefs”, or anything of that sort that conflates the practical issue with irrelevant underlying causal effects. Such assurances may be well-intended and motivated by a desire to make the student feel at ease with your request, but they could easily have the opposite effect and be perceived as treating the student differently based on her religious beliefs. The best way to make the student feel respected is to treat the matter as the purely practical issue that it is (and to treat the student’s religion as the irrelevant factor that it is, by not referring to it).
Now, if this approach I’m recommending still has the effect of causing the student discomfort and making her avoid asking questions, that is not your fault. It is too bad, but even the responsibility of a teacher to be as supportive as possible has its limits. Teaching is a two-way street, and if a student can’t speak loudly enough so you can understand what they are saying, for whatever reason, your ability to offer them effective instruction is unfortunately going to be somewhat limited.

Prefacing the request to speak louder with assurances of religious tolerance is like wearing a shirt that says "I am not a murderer" and wondering why so many questions are raised that your shirt addresses. If there is no issue, then don't act like there is.

In addition to this good and popular answer, I'd like to recommend prompting the student to speak louder in a way that is not in front of the whole class. Catch them on the way in or out of class. Be friendly and positive, compliment their answers or ideas, make their contributions in class feel welcomed. I've noticed when asking for any student to speak up that some quiet/shy speakers get more overwhelmed when corrected at all in front of the entire class, even if about something simple like voice volume.

"I'm a little hard of hearing.  Could you speak up, please?"  I most recently said this to a  student wearing a cloth mask over her N95 respirator mask.

@BobBrown sure, that’s one way to do it. Personally I’m not a big fan of the “it’s not you, it’s me” category of white lies, but they seem to be pretty popular, so I’ll grant that they may be a reasonable solution to thorny social etiquette dilemmas, including possibly the current situation. (And if it’s not a white lie but actually a true statement then it’s certainly an appropriate way to handle the situation.)

@DanRomik Th' good news in this case is that I actually am a little hard of hearing.  The less good news is that I probably would have done the same thing 40 years earlier.  The other approach is, "I'm having trouble hearing you.  Could you speak up, please?" Always true in the given circumstance.

@jdf That might work if speaking is a regular part of the class. It's not as effective if the student is asking a question, or offering input to a discussion that no one is able to respond to.

@Issel Which is why your shirt shouldn't be so vague.  For example: "I have never been successfully convicted of 2nd degree murder." would reassure the reader that you aren't using a technicality to hide guilt.

@yakk that sounds even more suspicous, like you have been convicted for of 1st degree murder or manslaughter, and you specifically say 2nd degree murder to dance around it.  The least suspcious thing is to not mention murder on your shirt. Kinda like how racists always preface something by saying "I'm not racist" before saying the racist thing. If the posters intentions aren't prejudiced, the natural thing to do is not preface it.

@Issel, I agree with you, but I think Yakk trying to be satirical by suggesting an even more absurd suggestion for the shirt to produce the exact reaction you had. :-)

Just say, and don't sweat it
Ironically enough, this is a problem which Covid has made a non-issue. Everyone has been wearing face masks, and many of us still are in enclosed spaces. We all  know how masks make your voice less clear, and we're all pretty used to saying when someone's mask is affecting you hearing them clearly.
Sure, her reason for wearing a face covering is different from the rest of us - but the effect is the same. Do the same as you would for anyone else wearing a facemask, and don't worry. You're not discriminating against her, because you're applying the same criteria which you've been applying to everyone else for the last 18 months.

I notice students who wear full-face veils already tend to be rather silent, and if doing so makes them even less likely to speak up, it might be counterproductive.

Perhaps, but I also can't imagine it's productive if they speak up but you can't hear them (and therefore presumably can't respond properly to their question/comment).  If you can't hear what this student is saying, for whatever reason, then I see no reason that it would be impolite to ask her to speak louder.  In my case, I have quite bad hearing anyway, so I sometimes ask students to speak up, and I often accompany this by telling them that my hearing is not so good.  Sometimes I have to do this a few times if a student is speaking softly.  If you would like to "soften" the request to speak up then you could put the blame on your bad hearing (as I do).
As a secondary matter, I see the duties of a good academic as going beyond the teaching of their narrow specialty area, also encompassing the teaching of the kinds of adult soft-skills that separate professionals from young adult students at university.  If I encounter a student who speaks too softly to be heard (or in this case too softly to be heard through an impediment) then I consider it incumbent on me to encourage this person to remedy this soft-skill deficiency (i.e., they need to speak louder).  If we were in a theatre class then the student would be encouraged to "project their voice" and so I would encourage the same.  I know that when the student gets into the professional environments she may have to speak to crowds, and this will require a confident audible speaking voice.  By encouraging this in the university learning environment, it will not be a stretch for the student when she gets into a professional situation where she really needs it.

For a long time, this kind of problem would have concerned only the few fully veiled persons, but in times of COVID and everyone wearing masks in a lot of conversational situations, the issue that you cannot (fully) understand what people are saying because their mouth is covered has become more ubiquitous. A cloth (of whatever nature worn for whatever reason) in front of the mouth impedes understandability not only because there is a barrier for the sound waves, but also because lip movements (which might enhance the understandability) are also obscured. If you would not understand a mask wearing person, you probably would not think twice to ask them to speak louder, and I don't see this situation as any different. It is completely appropriate to ask someone to speak lowder because their mouth is covered.

Let me mention a related issue and a possible solution to this one. I'm very deaf. The nature of it is that, even with a hearing aid, conversation, even in ideal circumstances, is nearly impossible. The level of sound is increased, but not the clarity needed to understand. But I partially lip-read. I've had to ask doctors to remove their masks in consultations, though we step well away from one another. Only then can I understand their instructions.
For many people and in many situations, mask or other face coverings can't or won't be removed. And some people just have learned to speak very softly, for whatever reason.
But, written communication can help. If electronic mediation is possible, students can type questions and responses, perhaps even anonymously.
An instructor in a face-to-face situation can carry a few index cards, perhaps, that can be give to students to write out questions, or whatever.
But there are also microphones that can be employed. There is one kind that feeds directly (bluetooth) into a hearing aid. It can be handed to a student that has a question (face-to-face).
So, old (paper) and new (electronic) tech can be used to mitigate issues, including the one raised by the OP, but also beyond that.

I don't know enough about cultural norms to know whether the request to speak up would be interpreted as insulting. I can't answer the question here directly, but suggest that you need to explore those norms if you really want to keep "connected" to your students.

Just to add, I've been in an in-person workshop (pre-COVID) where the presenter had just such a microphone that fed into his hearing aid. The microphone was passed around the participants and it made for a good "prop" so everyone know who to listen to and whose turn it was to speak (as well as allowing the presenter to hear us all comfortably, I presume!). I liked the easing of social graces that this provided.

You could try asking in a way that does not single out any particular person, and that puts any "blame" in places that won't make students feel defensive. For example:

Hi students. I'm an old person with old ears. And when
I'm up at the front of the class there are air circulation fans up here in the room
and in the overhead projector and so on. (Or in my desktop computer in
these times of the COOF and zoom meetings and such.) So please try to
speak loud enough for me to hear you. If I say "sorry, please say again"
I am not trying to be unpleasant. It's really that I cannot
hear you. If it happens, please try speaking a little louder.

This is a thing that can cause friction between many cultures. And I'm not sure there will be a one-size-fits-all solution. But blaming yourself and the room is a good strategy.

Maybe you could talk to the student at the end of the class and tell her the problem. Maybe you could start with discussing the question/idea that she proposed during the class and then lead on to tell her the problem.
I think it would be perfectly fine to tell her, what you wrote above, that you don't have any ideological/religious objection, that you perfectly respect her religious beliefs or norms, but it just muffles the voice, so you have trouble hearing what she is trying to say.
Also, I think if she speaks up now, that means she is confident about herself and feels comfortable in your class and with other colleagues or classmates that are present in your class. So, if she doesn't mind speaking up now then after you tell her to be a bit louder, I don't think it would make her less likely to speak up next time.
Even for people who don't wear hiqab/full face veil, we sometimes have trouble understanding or hearing what they said (for whatever reasons) and we ask them to speak louder or repeat themselves; and that seems very casual and obvious response for a person who is trying to understand them. That also means you are paying attention to the speaker and not ignoring them. When you ask them to be louder or repeat themselves, nobody judges you or questions you why you asked them to speak louder or repeat themselves. I think same thing might happen in this situation as well, unless you ask her to be louder every time she speaks. But, in the latter case, I would discuss the problem with the student directly.

We don't hear your student, but it may be an issue regardless of wearing a mask, or a veil, which is independent from loudness of a voice: sloppy accentuation and lazy articulation.  To my observation, recent confinements and extended periods with lesser in person discussions just worsened the situation for many of us even with «mask off».
So, purchase a bunch of corks e.g., from the arts-and-crafts section of your DIY shop where you get clean ones, which never touched any beverage, nor alcohol:

(picture reference)
Then get all the students to speak with them (e.g., French demonstration, English example) since we all benefit from proper articulation.  It is a training seen e.g., among students of music and theology.  Just think about preachers who need to be both audible and intelligible in houses of worship till the rear benches and can not rely on the presence of microphone and loudspeaker.

As a student, I would leave the class as soon as the corks are on the table.

Never seen a flask of olive oil around the Mediterranean Sea closed by a cork? O la la.

It seems highly inappropriate to ask students to put anything in their mouths, unless you're specifically teaching a vocal training class (even then, I'd probably recommend getting them to supply their own corks instead). Also, this appears to be vocal training, not just something intended to improve the speech you're using it for. As such, it would be a huge distraction from the class and what you're actually trying to teach them (and it also seems like a great way to stop anyone from ever asking a question).

The class wasn't specified in the original question. And what you learn hopefully isn't only for the grades. But I accept your perspective.

Taking a pen into the mouth (here, public French school) seems less fine for me.

I feel like this is a creative, and potentially useful, solution to a completely different problem.

Some of the students have an objection to putting something in their mouths that they're unsure of the chemical composition of.  A woman who wears a niqab is particularly likely to have such an objection.

An interesting suggestion.  While others here are horrified by your suggestion, I don't think it is necessarily a terrible idea to give formal vocal exercises to students as part of their university education.  (+1) for an interesting idea, and to counteract some (possibly harsh?) downvotes.

@Ben This accumulation of downvotes was not anticipated, since «cork training» was  shared among the students in their theater group they organized themself. It never was forced, either. Perhaps the perspective depends on personal background, frame (i.e., as an invite), and society. To those downvoters concerned about the chemical composition of cork, you equally may resort carefully e.g., to a spoon (if you don't nibble at the metal this time) or a softer chopstick; or simply balance a small rigid (piece of a) washed edible fruit from the school canteen between your teeth.  Bien.


text:
Why do colleges attempt to teach students who lack prerequisite skills?
Inspired by Tutoring is depressing because my students are struggling too much with my exercises. What do I do?
The text of that question says:

I am a tutor for first year math majors at a European university. By "tutor," I mean that I have office hours that all math students can attend. I am paid by the university.
...
Now, this is not the case anymore. Exercises consist simply of paraphrasing the definitions, and almost all the students are struggling pretty hard on these very simple exercises. Typically, they think that solving Ax = 0 when A is a 3×3 matrix is too hard. They have very little intuition about what is going on, especially in algebra. When they ask me questions, I try to answer so they see a way of thinking that can be generalized. But sometimes they just look at me as if I was an alien.

This is very surprising because I cannot imagine doing a math major without knowing algebra or matrix multiplication. Since they're commonly taught in high school, one would naively expect college-level math majors to not only know them, but to know them well. Without them, one cannot start learning the "real stuff". The obvious path of action seems to be to deny the student admission - if not to the college then at least to the major - due to the prerequisites not being met. But in this case, the linked question would be moot because it doesn't arise in the first place. Why doesn't this happen?
The only answer I can think of is that the students pay money to study math and the colleges are happy to take that money - but that sounds very cynical.

"The only answer I can think of is that the students pay money to study math and the colleges are happy to take that money - but that sounds very cynical." If that can alleviate your cynicism, universities in France are funded directly by the state (as opposed to paid for by the students, like in the US). Yet we have the exact same problem in France.

Related question: Does any country have free college & open admissions?

Why is everyone insisting in the answers that the question is about US community colleges. The OP quotes a question that begins "I am a tutor for first year math majors at a European university". Have i missed something?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

@IanSudbery the question changed substantially in an edit. Most of the answers about US community colleges are based on the version before the edit. I still learned things from those answers though, so I don't mind.

Hmmh. When I studied, Analysis started from scratch (but at incredible spelgebraed compared to high school). Linear Algebray started from scratch (but at incredible speed ... ). Algebra was third semester absolutely tough, and there was nothing I learned at high school.

The only answer I can think of is that the students pay money to study math and the colleges are happy to take that money - but that sounds very cynical.

I think this is effectively right, but it's maybe not as cynical as you would suggest. Consider: Bob is a student who has learning disabilities and spent most of high school experimenting with drugs. At the age of 27, Bob has gotten clean, gotten therapy, and wants to pursue a career as a programmer. He decides to start by studying math at a community college. At first, he is way behind and has to take remedial math. But over time, he builds his skills and eventually gets an associates degree in math. From there, he is admitted to a software engineering program at a reputable, four-year college. And after that, Bob earns a master's degree and a high-paying job.
I think lots of people -- from instructors to administrators -- pursue teaching less-qualified students because they want to help people like Bob. The problem, of course, is that students like Bob are vanishingly rare. In practice, most students taking remedial-level math courses will never achieve proficiency in basic math, and only a few will achieve anything useful (e.g., a better job) from their studies. And the college cannot help people like Bob if it goes bankrupt, so it's easy to rationalize difficult choices in the name of "we have to keep the lights on so we can help people like Bob."
So: is it exploitive that colleges take money from desperate people who (statistically) have little chance of getting a return on their investment? Or is it a good thing that colleges make opportunities available to students who would otherwise have no opportunity of pursuing higher education at all? Or are the students and colleges merely symptoms of a deeper problem? Opinions will vary.

That story is great, but makes it sound as if the "remedial math" that Bob studies is appropriate for his level in maths? The main issue raised in the question is specifically that universities' curriculum have a prerequisite, and that many (most?) of the students don't have this prerequisite. But the teachers don't have a lot of freedom and have to teach the curriculum anyway. So, tutors are stuck trying to teach "relatively advanced maths" to students who would actually need "basic maths" courses, and it's a waste of time for everyone.

@Stef Perhaps you aren't American, but there is a very important distinction between "community colleges" and "universities."

I love this answer, but I should point out that lots of people who need remedial math take it only as a general education requirement as they achieve great things in a math based field. This is true even for people that did relatively well (outside of math) in high school and went straight to college.

I went to uni in the UK in the mid-90s. Unis there got course fees from the government based on entry numbers, not on who completed the course (nor even the first year). There were many "access" type students who dropped out in that first year, around 10% of initial intake, all of whom didn't have the skills in the first place and should never have been there. With UK unis now charging tuition fees as much as the US or even more, I would be amazed if the problem wasn't even worse now, and I would be amazed if the same wasn't true in the US too.

Australia too, until they close this up. In Australia a student may enroll all over town and the Universities will get paid, whilst the student racks up a debt they may never repay. The attrition rate is very high in early semesters. Occasionally one or two lesser qualified students actually excel. I remember too that I wrote more in the first three weeks of Maths 110 than my final two years of high school.

“easy to rationalize difficult choices” — or, more cynically, “easy to perpetuate the status quo, which after all provides employment for oneself and all of one's colleagues”

An attempt is made to teach at the level where the students have arrived.  If they find themselves ill-prepared for the material at hand, then the solution is that they fail the class.  Attempting to find a solution at this point for a long-running problem in their previous years of education is unrealistic.

My experience is outdated but the core idea is probably still valid about 60 years later.
There is tremendous variability in the quality of secondary education in the US. Some high schools teach a lot (lot) of college level subjects. Others none at all. Philips Academy Andover (no connection) is one of the outstanding secondary schools. But I went to a very academically poor school. This was before the AP program existed, of course, but I was deficient in many subjects.
In particular, I knew nothing of trigonometry, much less Calculus or matrices when I graduated. I was fascinated by geometry (my first true educational success, actually). Some of the math courses were taught by a golf and football coach.
I did well enough that I was accepted into a very good, but small, teaching focused university. The first course for majors was Calculus and while I was permitted to start, I was also required to take a makeup trig course. I worked hard and was able to pass out of that by exam, freeing up some time for calc.
Eventually I wound up with a math doctorate from a State University (R1) institution that had some of the top professors in the world in a number of fields.
But, in my university and graduate education, luckily, none of my professors (few anyway) had the attitude that "here it is, take it or leave it". The best and those I followed as mentors, were available for questions and would occasionally even give unsolicited advice.
The why of it isn't surprising. For those interested in education, it is a mission to nurture those who show promise, even if it is largely unrealized at the time. For state universities, such as my graduate program, it is an economic imperative to educate the citizenry for the future. So, even at top R1 institutions, a lot of effort goes into building an undergraduate program that is accessible to most people willing to put in the effort. Not everyone has the Philips Andover advantage (nor the money to attend, of course).
Sadly, secondary education isn't improving fast enough. There is tremendous reluctance to fund it properly. Thus, the variability in quality is probably worse now than in my youth. There are too many forces that don't seem to recognize any value in the "common good" (and not just in education funding).
Currently, my school taxes are very high and I don't have kids in the system anymore. But the future depends on my willingness to pay them so that today's youngsters can have good teachers and teachers get both a decent salary and the ability to increase their skills.
And it also depends on the willingness of colleges and universities to deal with the realities. I am thankful that it still seems to be the case.

What did you study in secondary school math classes if you didn't study calculus/matrices/trigonometry? Did you have math standardized exams that were required for admission into a math major at university? If so, how did you pass those without these topics?

Maybe if the maths department was funded as well as the football team the quality of the education would be better.

@Allure I can't speak for Buffy, only for myself, who did my undergrad recently. My school offered only Algebra I and II(which covered a bit of trigonometry and precalculus) and Geometry, for which there are standardized exams in New York State. I took calculus at a local college while I was in high school, and was able to test out of the pre-calc course requirement. In general, there are no entry exams for admission to a major at US universities, only prerequisites for individual classes. Once you're admitted to the university, you can take whichever courses you want, from whichever major.

First of all, these students are almost all not math majors.  In the US, college education includes a lot of general education, because we think all adults should have a broad range of knowledge.
Isn't adding fractions a basic life skill that everyone needs?  If you are in court, wouldn't you want the people in the jury deciding your case to know how to add fractions?  (Most cases do rely on some basic mathematics!)
As for why these people are admitted to college, what's the alternative?  Remember that, for the most part, it's not that they don't know how to add fractions but are particularly adept at something else.  Most of them probably could not handle the drive through line at a busy Macdonalds.  (That's not an easy job!)  What do we do?  Put them on disability for the rest of their lives?  It's not like there are lots of jobs out there that they can do.

What a curious answer. How do you know they aren't particularly adept at something else? Let alone know that they could not handle a drive through line?

This is an important answer. Once people graduate high school, what choices do they have to pick up the skills they failed to gain when they were young (and perhaps less motivated or disciplined)? Self-study? That very rarely works for people. College seems to be the most obvious location where adults could remediate their knowledge, and they'd not have many options otherwise. There should be less shame in learning a subject later than the "normal" age.

@Johan Obviously there is some number of spectacular novelists who never learned to add fractions. But there is a far, far larger number of people who never learned to add fractions, or much of anything else. All intellectual skills are very highly correlated. I wouldn't necessarily defend the drive-through line jibe myself, though; or at least, I'm doubtful whether college math classes make a person much more likely to succeed at such a job.

Taking an order over the headphones from one customer while simultaneously handling cash from a second customer and communicating with your coworkers about a third order, repeatedly and accurately over the course of several hours, is not an easy task.  When the manager isn't careful to make sure one of the people scheduled on a busy shift can handle this task, it's quite noticeable.  I certainly think the ability to succeed at this task is correlated with the ability to succeed in college math classes.

As for why these people are admitted to college, what's the alternative? Can one attend secondary school? Also, if college-level math classes are teaching secondary-school math, why don't secondary school students quit and go to college?

@Allure Compulsory attendance requirements through age 18 (or 17 or 16 depending on state) or graduation from secondary school, whichever comes first.

@Allure: Secondary schools generally do not permit students over the age of 21.  It's generally a bad idea to take remedial math classes in college rather than learning the same material in secondary school for several reasons.  (1) You have to pay for college.  (2) The other students in the college remedial class are worse at math than the other students in secondary school (evidence: they didn't learn it the first time) and so the teaching is at a lower level.  (3) The college credit isn't actually worth anything, if any college credit is in fact given.

@AlexanderWoo That is true for regular full-time courses, but secondary schools often offer evening courses for employed people. At least here. But you also cannot apply to a university without the secondary school final state exam here. Likely a different system.

@VladimirF - In the US, there is no secondary school final exam.  The requirements for graduating from secondary school can be very low, particularly in schools that don't have enough resource to really educate their students.

@VladimirF - In addition, the cultural attitude in the US is that everyone should be able to graduate from secondary school with a reasonable amount of effort.  As evidence,  our laws for people with disabilities require public schools to provide each person a course of study they are capable of completing that will lead to a secondary school diploma for them.  This means people with moderate or severe intellectual disabilities can get a diploma by learning what they can, which in some cases is not much.

I was initially confused by this answer but then realised the question has since been edited to totally change what is being asked about. So I thought it would be worth commenting in case anyone else is similarly confused!

The alternative to college has always been a tradeschool.

Or some sort of corporate in-house training.

In the US, there is no secondary school final exam. What about the SATs?

@Allure - Most US universities (and all US community colleges) will admit anyone with a high school diploma.  Selective US universities will decide individually based on a number of factors who is admitted; one of those factors is usually (but not always) the SATs.  Generally, only students who apply to a selective university will take the SAT.

"What do we do? Put them on disability for the rest of their lives? It's not like there are lots of jobs out there that they can do." How exactly is sending them to college supposed to fix this problem?

@Allure: The SAT is entirely optional (and a service by a private testing company). Not in any way a requirement to graduate high school, or to enter U.S. community colleges (where most students go) or many other universities.

The OP quotes Daniel R. Collins saying:

most students entering U.S. community colleges do not have 8th grade algebra skills, nor even 6th grade arithmetic skills (e.g., fractions, proportions, negatives, estimations, times tables).

The OP says:

The obvious path of action seems to be to deny the student admission - if not to the college then at least to the major - due to the prerequisites not being met.

So it sounds like the OP isn't from the US and doesn't know what a community college is or how it works.
Community colleges don't just provide instruction in traditional college subjects, they also provide vocational education. They don't want to exclude someone who wants to study welding or cosmetology just because that person's algebra skills are nonexistent. They also serve the function of helping people to remedy their inadequate high school educations, so that they are not just excluded forever from any further educational progress. I don't know about other states, but in my state, California, CC admissions are open to anyone "able to profit from instruction," i.e., anyone with a pulse and respiration. Selective admissions are part of the missions of the Cal State and UC systems, not the California community colleges.
Excluding someone from majoring in math at a community college would be sort of silly. The type of student who wants to major in math is one who intends to transfer to a four-year school and get a four-year degree in math. That student does not need to declare a major while at the CC, nor do they need a two-year degree in order to transfer. Some CC students do care about their AA degree, especially those who are the first in their families ever to attend college.
However, declaring a major at a CC and getting an AA degree in an academic field are both basically a joke. At the CC where I taught before retiring, students would make a final visit to a counselor before transferring, and the counselor would have been told to make sure to get the student to apply for as many AA degrees as possible. This is because the number of degrees awarded is one of the criteria for state funding. The requirements for an AA in math are a proper subset of the requirements for a physics degree, which in turn are a proper subset of those for an engineering degree. Therefore every engineering student would walk out the door with at least three AA degrees. It wasn't uncommon to see students getting four or five of them.
One could exclude students from calculus if they didn't have appropriate arithmetic and algebra skills. My school used to do this by administering a placement test when the student was admitted. This worked very badly. You could get a student who was 35 years old, returning to school after having had a job and kids. She doesn't remember her algebra on the day she walks up to the window at Admissions and Records, but that doesn't mean she needs to languish in remedial courses for years. Remedial math education simply doesn't work. The success rates are nearly zero. That's why my state abandoned it.
What would make more sense would be for community colleges to get tougher with students who don't make appropriate academic progress or who take the same class over and over without ever passing. California did this to a slight extent ca. 2010 by instituting a limit of 3 repetitions of a class; this was a response to the overloading of the CC system during the economic crisis following 2008. There are genuine abuses, such as students who will habitually drop a class at the 13th week, even if their grade is a B, because they want to retake it for an A. In general, though, the system is run by people with bleeding hearts, and the school also benefits in terms of state funding by having as many butts in seats as possible.

I think the OP is not suggesting excluding someone from a Welding course if they can't do algebra, as Algebra is not a prerequisite.  However this same person could be excluded from a Physics course until they have reached the required Algebra level.  Presumably the college would also offer remedial Algebra course for this purpose...

Thanks for quoting me. :-) As a fellow community college teacher, I agree with 80% of what you've said. A thing I'd differ with would be: "Excluding someone from majoring in math at a community college would be sort of silly." Now, we absolutely get students who are witless enough as to lack 4th-grade arithmetic skills and still register as a math major. In fact, admin has forced us to mangle our offerings to guarantee a pathway for such students to a math degree in 2 years. It's greatly damaged scheduling and resources for our department; not excluding such students has caused a lot of harm.

Also, I've never seen the multiple-AA's racket, so that may be unique to your institution. At my school students do need to declare a single major, and matriculation to the connected senior colleges is only guaranteed with the degree.

The question is about teaching math in U.S. universities. However the situation with English/communications and other subjects that people from other countries expect to be covered in secondary school is similar.
Students entering the first year of university in the U.S. can vary a lot in terms of math preparation, because many secondary schools really don't do a good job teaching the children that they eventually graduate.
Most U.S. universities administer some kind of math placement test to the incoming class. Depending on their results, a student may be placed in:

a "remedial" math class (not always called that, and sometimes non-credit) that covers very basics, like the number line, and adding fractions.

a "pre-calculus" class - definitions of functions...

"Calculus" - differentiation and integration...

A few students take "Advanced placement" (AP) calculus in high school and are allowed to take more advanced courses like differential equations right away.

Surprisingly many students need "remedial" math even at the most "prestigious" and exclusive universities.
Some universities have other verions of placemnent. Universities' requirements also differ in how many math is required for different majors. E.g., after a placement exam, non-math majors might take a "math for liberal arts" terminal class. However you can see how many students (not necessarily math majors) end up taking math courses that they don't want to take, but only need in order to graduate. They are not motivates. Often they barely got placed into this class, struggle, and would have been better off in remedial math.
Even among math majors, a university might have different concentration areas - "pure math" (who like proofs), "applied math" (don't care for proofs), and "math education" (want to become secondary school math teachers). It's common for some to start at a very basic level, even remedial.

Note that the current trend in U.S. academia is to eliminate the existence of placement tests and remedial courses. At my institution (community college within CUNY) , I just finished the last such class I'll ever teach, as they won't be offered any more.

Thanks for the update! I should note that the system worked better at other universities than at CUNY becasuse at CUNY remedial math classes had two types of people: 1 those who never learned how to add fractions in secondary school, and 2 people who did years ago, but forgot, or did not do well on the placement test for whateeve reason. The course covered way too much material too fats for the first type, so almost all of them failed repeatedly. The second type did well, but were angry that they had to take remedial class they did not really need.

I can respect your observations on that. IME the number of people who knew it years ago is vanishingly small (no more than 10%). I'd say a larger cohort in my remedial classes (at least half) have severe intellectual disabilities in math, who can't retain even the simplest arithmetic facts no matter how long it was practiced.

CUNY community colleges, thanks to almost-open admissions, get lots of incoming students who can't add fractions. However other more "prestigious / exclusive" universities also get, e.g. 18 year old athletes on sports scholarships and also returning students much older than 18 who haven't been to classroom in many years - working / armed forces / incarcerated. In my opnion, many other schools serve such students better in various ways, and in particular, their versions of remedial math usually takes 2 semesters to cover the material what CUNY crammed into 1.

Really? Because where I am in CUNY, we always had a 3-semester sequence of remedial math. (Prealgebra, elementary algebra, intermediate algebra.) I thought that was customary, e.g. looking at text offerings like OpenStax. Are you saying other colleges offer 6 semesters of remediation, or something else?

Absolutely it's money. Re: "deny the student admission"; note that most students in the U.S. are attending open-admissions community colleges. There is simply no such thing as denial of student admission in those cases. And they can sign up for any major they like.
Full disclosure: I teach math at a U.S. community college that's won national awards for high quality. (I also wrote the selected answer in the motivating question linked by the OP.) My college is regularly announcing more initiatives to expand enrollment: (1) recruiting people who have failed out of other universities, (2) turning F's and incompletes into withdrawals so students never drop in GPA and can always register for more classes, (3) programs to invite intellectually disabled and autistic students into college courses, etc.
I just wrapped a basic algebra course where the students (N = 32) couldn't read, write, subtract, add negatives, identify written operations, tell if 0 = 100 was true or false, match a given answer to multiple-choice items, retain information from day to day, etc. Median score for all students for the semester: 3%. All of those students will presumably be registering for more courses next semester.
Everyone in the pipeline is telling students they need to go to college, and can do anything they want there. Our department's been forced to greatly mangle our sequence, being obligated to arrange it such that any student, even one entering without 4th-grade arithmetic skills, has a pathway to achieve a mathematics degree inside 2 years. Whether the student had legitimate skills or grades in high school is a complete nonissue to administrators, advisors, and thus students.

OP does not state which university it is, or which country. I can report from Germany, from Baden-Württemberg where I live.
If a person finishes Gymnasium (the academic stream of secondary school) with an Abitur at any level, that person can apply to any university to study any course. This is obviously absurd, but that's the law.
But some of the popular universities (e.g. Tübingen) are so overfilled that they have a limit of people for courses (e.g. German) and actually make applicants sit exams. This is a good thing. However, the "better" universities such as Freiburg have no restrictions whatsoever, so people sign on for Maths or Physics and flop at the first round of exams.
Of course they are pleased to get the money. They need it. But Tübingen seems to manage, because German etc is so popular. Maths, Physics, Chemistry are not so popular, and they can't afford to be choosy where their money comes from.
We all know stories of people who pulled themselves up by their bootlaces and managed to finish Engineering after a bad start. But we know many more who failed miserably. Universities should have minimum requirements for difficult subjects. There is no problem with the most popular "hard" subject of all, Medicine, which is always over-subscribed and thus can insist on high entrance standards.
However, I do not see that this is going to get better. B-W has a Green government now, and they are trying to stamp out selective secondary schools. Students of history can see that this always means falling standards, so in a decade or so B-W will no longer have one of the best education systems in the country.
Edit:
Obviously absurd: Try studying Electrical Engineering if you don't know Kirchhoff's Law, or Maths if you don't know Algebra. This may not be a problem when studying Psychology or Politics or English, I don't know what they do all day.

Medicine high academic standards have to me traditionally been more because a mediocre doctor takes his mistakes to the grave. It literally is a case of life an death.

@DanielHatton: I upvoted your comment since I'm a fan of snarky jokes. :-) But to avoid that anybody takes this at face value, one should probably add that, in fact, even the most incompetent engineer typically has no chance to kill many people unless a lot of further engineers (and/or management guys) make various mistakes, too.

I downvoted for two reasons: (i) I can't see why the situation described in the second paragraph would be "obviously" absurd (I do recognize that this system has some disadvantages, but it has some advantages, too). (ii) Your last sentence presents a speculation as a fact (cloaked by a vague reference to history).

Thanks for this. Now imagine if all the people who didn't have any Abitur could also go to college and take any program, and you have the U.S. system.

@JochenGlueck Look at Konstanz: My daughter considered doing Chemistry there. They have more students in the first semester than in all other semesters put together. Because most of them fail. This costs a lot of money and stamps those students as losers.

@RedSonja: Yes, I agree that their are some disadvantages of this system (although I think it's an overstatement to say that students who fail in the first semester were "stamp[ed] as losers"). My point is that there are some advantages, too (for instance, studying a topic for one semester gives a much more realistic view on whether one should continue in the program than of short admission test ever could). I do not necessarily disagree with your conclusion that something should be changed about admissions in Germany. I just disagree with the very one-sided assessment as "obviously absurd".

Considering OP does not mention which country, I can explain the situation in India.
A large part of Indian education system (unfortunately) relies on learning by rote. While the top schools and universities in the country do their best to ensure that their students do not pass their exams by rote learning, this is not the case in most schools. This is not a requirement of the Education board as well.
For example, students in India give exams known commonly as "Board exams" to pass their Grade 10 and Grade 12. The exam is designed by the Education board (a famous one throughout India is the Central Board of Secondary Education) and applies to all students in the nation/state who register for the exam under that Education board. Even these "Board exams" rely mostly(1) on questions directly from the textbook, the reference book or previous year's exam questions. Students have access to all these through various sources, especially print media. A significant(2) number of students attempt to rote learn the answers and repeat them during the exam, thus, fulfilling the pre-requisite for the university course without gaining the skill to solve such problems in math. While the grade/marks vary from one Education board to another, scoring well above the passing mark/grade can easily be achieved through this rote learning.
(In my answer, I rely on relative quantifiers such as (1) and (2) because I am neither an educator nor an expert on the statistics. I am merely a recent, but former student of this system.
Also, this may not be the case for every Education board in India, but a majority of them.)

Given that the quoted question talks about a "major european university", there is the very real possibility that the answer to the OP’s question simply is: “because they have no other choice. In various European countries (e.g. the Netherlands and ( parts of Germany). Successfully completing the appropriate high school exam  gives access to any of the country’s universities. This means the universities do not have the option of not admitting these students. Moreover, one of the metrics that universities get judge upon is the percentage of students that make it to the finish line and get a degree. This means that there is a strong incentive for universities to teach the students any requisite skills they are missing.

The Dutch situation is different since study in X may require that you passed the exams subjects Y, Z in "high school".

It's certainly not an ideal situation that these students at university don't know the basic stuff that is taught in high school. However, one does not need to start at the basics and build up from there.
It's a bad practice in math education to stick to the dogma that one must first master the basics perfectly before being exposed to more advanced concepts. This is not how I learned many math and physics topics. Quite a few of the people I know who did well at university, learned a lot of math and physics themselves from advanced math and physics books long before they had mastered the preliminary stuff needed for a rigorous understanding.
Many math topics were in fact developed by mathematicians and physicists when they themselves didn't understand it properly. So, mathematics is a flexible topic, it allows people to step in and work with advanced concepts when they have not mastered the basics. It's then possible for them to master the basics later, simply by working their way through the course.
This is how I mastered complex analysis. I had mastered ordinary calculus at the age of 12 in a non rigorous way. At the age of 14, I browsed a book on complex analysis, it looked like a boring book containing lots of theorems that I was not interested in. So, I had no intention of reading the book. But I did see one interesting theorem in the middle of the book, it was the residue theorem. I could understand what it was saying, as I was able to figure out what was meant by the residue of a function.
I could then calculate contour integrals with the reside theorem, but I lacked a proper understanding of why the theorem is true. I only had a heuristic understanding, basically that the integral of 1/z is Log(z) and this should pick up a term 2 pi i if you go around the singularity. But this deficient background in the topic was good enough for met to start computing integrals using the residue theorem. Failure due to improper understanding, like in case of functions with branch point singularities motivated me to study the subject more properly later.
Six years later I was a third year theoretical physics student. We had to choose a few optional math courses given to math students and pass the exams. One of the subjects I chose was complex analysis. So, this was a proper, rigorously taught math course by a math professor for math students. I was familiar with most of what was taught, so I did not study much for the course. But I was a deficient student compared to the other math students who followed the course, because I had not studied measure theory and topology rigorously (I had vague familiarity with these topics, but physic students were given special math courses for physics students that did not include topology and measure theory).
The exam questions were mostly contour integration and summation questions. I made one minor mistake and scored 95%. One other student passed the course, he scored 70% out of 10. The rest, about ten other students all failed the course (they scored less than 60%).
I had a similar experience with other topics, I tended to do extremely well when I had studied in this sort of a non rigorous way years earlier. I ended up getting a more mediocre score when I had studied according to the curriculum, starting at the time the course was taught at university.
The way I studied math myself when I was in high school would not be considered to be a serious form of studying by educational experts. It's perhaps best described as playing. So, I think insisting on studying in the official way is not justified as it doesn't yield good results. We should be more open to alternative approached to learning math.

+1 I'm not sure how this relates to the question, but I can relate to this anwser and it's an uncommon perspective.

Everyone has an area of struggle. Sometimes prerequisites are needed, sometimes it's just filler. I've seen students struggle with prerequisites, yet excel in the subject they came there for.
Also, on the opposite note. Why do some schools make people stay the whole semester even if they know all the coursework?

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Applied vs Theoretical Journals (or venues)
This question is primarily for the Math/TCS/Systems community. I expect that similar situations (theory vs practice/applied journals) arises in other context as well so feel free to comment what is going on in your field. Also, it is not exclusive to journals.
I have what is in my opinion a good theoretical/algorithmic result that has many applications to system stuff like cloud computing/fault tolerant stuff etc. The paper is theoretical nevertheless, without experiments etc.
I have two options:

submit it to a good TCS journal (DAM/Algorithmica etc) without caring too much for applications and focus purely on the math stuff.
Submit it to a more "system" journal (for example IEEE/ACM TON/ToPDS or Journal of Par. Dist. Comput. etc). Such journals could accept, on principle, more algorithmic results provided they have clear real world applications relevant to the scope of the journal.

My question to the TCS community:  How bad/good looks on the CV a theoretical result on a -nevertheless good- system journal but not so visible to the TCS/Math community?
My question to the System community: How do you react when you see such a pure algorithmic result in such a journal? Even if it is motivated by real life system applications.
My question to the Industry people: Does it make more sense for my CV to demonstrate that I can publish to more system journals (like the above). How do you act when you receive application from TCS people?
The last question is in purpose general. Depends the position. But do some publications in more practical journal give extra credit to the applicant?
Update: For what is worth, in case anyone is interested I can share my mild experience. I submitted to a (prestigious, if it matters) system journal my work (which is rather heavy from technical/math point of view). The paper got accepted, but it strikes me that none of the reviewers spent time on the technical part (at least not very carefully). They rather cared on the applications part (and they were happy with it). I am a little disappointed since I expected people to check the math part, and this makes me a bit reluctant to try similar journals in the future.
Still, my question stands: How does it look on the CV from a TCS/Math point of view? Does it make any difference (positive or negative)? Does it look "suspicious" that I have chosen a system journal when I could perfectly choose an algorithmic/applied math one? The reason I did that, is because I wanted to show a little bit of "diversity" in my CV (plus the fact that I like systems in general). Does it make any sense?

Any particular reason for phrasing your question in terms of journals? Conferences are generally better vehicles of visibility and impact in computer science.

@JeffE The only reason is that I would like to submit it directly to a Journal at the current state.  But also the question makes also sense for conferences. Would someone go for a pure TCS conference like STACS/SODA/FST&TCS (I mention only upcoming conferences) or INFOCOM etc?

My two cents are that I would view theoretical results published in a systems journal or conference with some caution, because, as you mention, it's likely that the mathematics have not been carefully refereed. If you already have a track record of publishing strong theoretical work, I would worry a bit less.

@SashoNikolov In retrospect, I completely agree with you. The reason that I chosen a (prestigious) system journal rather than a (decent-strong) theory journal was that I wanted to show some diversity also in case I apply for some industry job at the future and that work fitted in such context. All my pubs so far are in pure TCS venues. But I doubt I will do it again.

This is not a direct answer, as I do not have that much experience with work crossing the theory/systems divide. I do have experience with the theory/bioinformatics divide, which is quite similar.
First, the publication venue should be chosen according to the intended target audience. If you believe your work is directly relevant to a community, you should publish it for that community. If it is only potentially relevant, you should probably publish it elsewhere.
I frequently read algorithmic papers published in theoretical algorithms, algorithm engineering, and bioinformatics. The fields have very different standards for what constitutes a good algorithmic paper. Proofs and analysis are the primary content in a theoretical paper. Experimental evaluation, if present, is considered secondary. The situation is reversed in algorithm engineering. As a result, a good algorithm in one field is often not that good in the other.
Things get a bit weird in bioinformatics. The algorithm itself is secondary content, as people are more interested in the problem you study and whether you have biologically interesting results. An algorithm is good, if it solves a relevant problem in practice. There are some bioinformatics papers with plenty of mathematical content, but they are exceptions. Proofs are seen more as technical details better suited to the supplementary material than as scientific contributions. Hence the reviewers rarely pay very much attention to them.

Thanks for the answer. Yes, the question was more broader. In the systems community is more less as you describe in bioinformatics: the focus is on applications rather than on the theory itself, although many theory papers appear in such journals as well. I wonder for example in your field, how a pure theory paper (motivated by bioinformatics applications) is perceived and vice versa.

@PsySp The bioinformatics community values the conceptual content of a theory paper over its technical content. If the problem is relevant and the solution looks promising, the paper can serve as a basis for further work. I have no experience in how the theory community values work published in bioinformatics.

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Reviewer makes an obvious and serious mistake and paper is rejected
Long story short: Submitted a paper to a very respectable (but not TOP) journal in the TCS community. Received 2 reviews. The one was alright, not extremely enthusiastic but a decent review.
The problem is with the 2nd one: The reviewer failed in the most obvious way to even understand the statement of the problem, and said that "I cannot convince myself that the paper is correct". The misunderstanding is on the definition of the problem.
for the TCS people: its a standard resource allocation problem where we want to optimize some objective function. The reviewer's objection is that if we assign the same item multiple times to different users we could achieve a very different objective value thus the analysis on its bounds we give could not possibly be correct!
This does not any make sense since on the definition it is said explicitly that each item must be assigned once. In any case, it's the most standard definition of a very well known resource allocation problem!
Anyway, after the rejection of the paper based on the above reason, I contacted the Editor in Chief of the journal, asking for a 3rd reviewer to resolve the issue (I was not offensive to the 2nd R). The EiC responded immediately saying that a 3rd R could indeed resolve the issue but there is nothing the EiC could do because the handling editor communicated to the EiC that the Com. Editor trusts the expertise of the reviewers, and thus the rejection decision is irrevocable.
I want to ask:

How normal is this situation? We are talking about an old and very well respected TCS journal, not some hocus pocus unknown journal.
Is there any safety net for such kind of obvious mis-managed cases?
Any particular advice for the incident? I am not very interested in the obvious "deal with it, it happens" answer. But observe that I am in a point of my career that an extra journal publication could mean a lot, since I am trying to find a permanent position and I cannot wait another year for this paper to go through such a process.

Note: I see few people misunderstood my comment. My comment is not targeted to the reviewer who might have made an honest mistake. It happens and I do not blame her/him. My point is mainly on the way the journal handled the situation,  even when the very serious and very easy mistake was brought up to their attention. I was mainly interested if such a reason is valid for straight rejection (usually there is some revision needed which we have the chance to explain to the reviewer and the editor where they have been mistaken), and what to do when this happens. As mentioned again, I do not have 30 journal papers so that I could say this won't make any impact in my CV. I am applying for permanent positions and a +1 (very good) journal might make some difference. Thus my main question: is there any safety net that prevent non-professional editors make such unjustified and arbitrary decisions with such huge impact on us? And how this affect only us as authors? Is there any way to make journals (in general) act more professionally (without making a war against them): sadly, from the comments below, I guess not, besides boycotting the journal, but they couldn't care less.

Regarding your last question: why not try a reputable conference?

Sure, that's an option (although I'm bigger fan of journals, maybe my math genes are kicking to that direction)

Is there any safety net for such kind of obvious mis-managed cases? The editor-in-chief is the safety net. If he/she aren't doing their job, it sounds like you (and the journal) are out of luck.

@DanRomik It is so sad that in a scientific world one should rely on luck to have a decent paper accepted. But I agree nevertheless.

@PsySp The way I like to think of it is: "writing a good paper is getting a ticket to the lottery".

This is normal.  I just had a paper rejected for the same reason.  I got a reviewer who was math adverse and made up things to reject the paper.  I always wonder how some people manage to consistently get into top journals without suffering such incidents.  Maybe this type of incident only happens to mere mortals?

For such incidents in the context of seminal papers, see https://cs.adelaide.edu.au/~qsheng/papers/computer.pdf

@DanRomik The EiC is the safety net in theory.  In practice, given the workload and understanding the fact that authors' are usually not happy after receiving a review, they will rarely act.  Also, they may not be in your technical area and no matter how how you argue 1+1 is two when the reviewer said is 3 will fall on deaf ears.

"I am not very interested in the obvious "deal with it, it happens" answer": then it looks like the answer that will make you happy will not be in phase with reality. You appealed, it didn't work out, that's about it. We all had papers rejected for reasons we did not approve of, now your question is how to get the best from a bad situation. Moving forward instead of wasting energy and possibly reputation by overplaying repeted appeals, and clarify the paper to make the error of the second referee  even less likely to occur to reader are the two advice you need, and they've been given.

@BenoîtKloeckner You are right. My point is to see if this kind of situation is not very unlikely and possible ways to deal with it. Answers like "oh well, it happens", realistic as they might be, they are not really constructive. For me the story with this journal is considered closed. As you say, it did not work out, but my point was not to make it work out no matter what, just to see different points/opinions or maybe some advise on something that I might have missed out.

I see few people misunderstood my comment. No, people understood your question perfectly well. In my opinion, it is you who are refusing to understand the answers that have been offered to you, which are telling you the honest truth that you have no recourse other than to move on and submit your paper to a different journal. Sorry if it's not what you were hoping to hear. Good luck!

@DanRomik It might very well be true, but I was referring to comments that imply that if the reviewer got it wrong, then there must be something wrong with the paper (which is not the case, and it is verified and this is not even the point! reviewers make mistakes). Anyway,  since I do not have editorial experience, I was interested to see what other people have to say about similar situations and how it works inside the editorial of a journal. If there is nothing we can do, then so be it, fingers crossed for the next submission. Thanks for your comments nevertheless

@DanRomik Actually, the main source of my frustration comes from the fact that I try to make thorough reviews to every request I get (and I get multiple). When I receive as an author an unprofessional answer, common as it may apparently be, it makes me loose all my motivation to try and make good and helpful reviews. It works cyclically. I am really afraid that at some point I will be like "Oh I don't care, it doesn't seem ok to me, I will reject it without further thinking, if no one cares to spend 5 seconds on my paper, why would I". I am really terrified on such prospect.

@PsySp Your paper may be correct but still confusingly written. If the reviewer misunderstood it, chances are decent that if it were published, other readers would too.

@MissMonicaE Maybe. But i find it perfectly clear. My co-authors too. Two other experts in the field also. As well as three other colleagues who read it (at least on the definition part, not the technical content). Still, there is a non-zero possibility that all of us are completely wrong (or have a blind spot) and the reviewer is right.

@PsySp It's easier to understand something you wrote yourself, though. Can you have someone less expert (though still reasonably knowledgable in your field) read it? IME experts can have a a harder time spotting unclear writing because they're better equipped to see around/past it.

It is pretty normal for a reviewer not to get the gist of your article and then the article gets rejected. I find that the best way to deal with that is to remember that the reviewers are reading the article more carefully than the future readers. So if they don't get what I want to write, the future readers are surely not going to get what I want to write.
Sometimes reviewers are just wrong: they are humans too and typically do this with a limited time budget (a larger time budget than future readers will want to spent on your article, but still pretty small). That is bad luck. Just improve what needs improving and submit your article to the next journal.

Thanks. But that is not quite the answer that I need (so also last part of my question) for several reasons. It is not about the gist of the article but about the basic definition (even in abstract is mentioned!)The definition is clear about the specifications, it couldn't made simpler. The fact that R doesn't understand a very simple definition, means that R is far from expert. I wonder why respectable journals consult such obviously under-qualified  reviewers, and how can we avoid such cases which have potentially high impact on our current situation (job market)

BTW that's the Editor's job: to filter out obviously bad reviews and not base her/his opinion on flawed ones. After all, the editor is not anonymous and s/he makes big damage to her/his reputation as things turn out.

I understand your frustration, I have felt the same way you have many times. But giving in to that will only make your life in academia miserable. Moreover, often the reviewers don't look so dumb anymore after a good night sleep. Remember that we are deeply invested in our own articles, and it is easy to loose sight of how the article looks to readers. So I suggest you focus some time on another project, and look at the reviews again after you have calmed down.

@PsySp Until you haven't made reviewing mistake yourself, you will be upset about this. But, at some point in the future in a scientific career, you are likely to do someone injustice in your review, either reject a deserving paper or accept an undeserving one - because you are overloaded, overestimated your expertise, were just tired or whatever; and will understand that mistakes, unavoidably, do happen. In my opinion, it is the mistake of the editor here, rather than the reviewer. FYI, we once submitted to a top(!) journal and got very flawed reviews with factual mistakes and no recourse.

@CaptainEmacs My frustration (believe me, it's very mild) is mainly towards the editor (I thought it was apparent from my question). I did not actually blame the reviewer, no matter how obviously under-qualified is, but the editor for (1) selecting this R, (2) trusting him and (3) not even reading my response (if s/he did, it would be apparent in a minute that there is something very funny is going on)

@MaartenBuis I understand but a reviewer that replies "why you don't assign your items/jobs multiple times to achieve a different objective function value" is clearly "dumb" when the definition explicitly says that each job/item is allocated exactly once!

If you follow Maarten Buis' advice, then regarding your comment "The definition is clear about the specifications, it couldn't made simpler", I suggest including a short follow-up statement along the lines of "Note that because we're assuming ..." that explicitly addresses the 2nd reviewer's concerns.

@DaveLRenfro The definition, as it is, does not allow any room for misunderstanding.
I explained it to both the handling editor and to the Editor in Chief the situation, and I asked a 3rd reviewer to resolve the issue. The handling editor refused to do so because "s/he trusted the expertise of the 2nd R". Obviously, s/he didn't even read my reply (or, even worse, s/he was the 2nd R!)

Don't assume bad intend. Maybe the 2nd reviewer is really trustworthy and maybe (s)he made an error, or maybe you were not as clear as you think. If you want to improve your article, you will have to seriously consider the second option.

@PsySp I would provide an informal definition next to the formal one.  Maybe provide a toy example to illustrate what the definition means.  The reviewer is simply telling you that part is easily overlooked, and once that happens, the paper falls apart, as illustrated by his/her unfair review.

@Prof.SantaClaus Well, the problem is both formally and informally introduced (in the abstract). On the other hand, no toy example is given. I am not sure, do we give also toy examples for MaxCut, and 3Sat as well? It's a standard resource allocation problem. Besides of that, even if the reviewer failed to understand the abstract, I think this is hardly a reason to reject the paper and stick to the flawed opinion (this is for the editors). Anyway, the comment is mostly for the editors, and how they didn't care and not about the reviewer.

@PsySp I understand.  One shouldn't need to mention MaxCut/3Sat.  But a toy example may allow a future reviewer to linger longer at the definition  and prevent this from happening again.

@Prof.SantaClaus You are right. But at some point this should have to stop (I mean, what kind of things we need to define)? One time in another paper, I formally defined the class FP^#P and the reviewer reacted "oh that's obvious to the reader, remove the definition", so it's hard to guess what is needed in every case.

@PsySp Yes, I agree.  As part of writing, we need to make some assumptions about the reader's background knowledge.  However, I have never had a paper rejected because i presented too much info; more often, reviewers appreciate it because the basics provide some comfort to the reader as opposed wading through unfamiliar definitions and concepts.

@PsySp Referring to the fact that it is clearly explained in the abstract misses the point. A paper needs to be completely understandable without the abstract, which is only meant to be the thing you read to see if you want to read the rest of the paper. Nothing should be included only in the abstract.

@TobiasKildetoft I am not sure I agree with your comment. In my field, the majority (if not the absolute majority) of the papers give a high level definition of the problem in the abstract, and then it is formally defined in the main body of the paper. This is especially true for problems which are simple to define. And that's how you judge if you want to read the paper (because the problem might have a name that is not familiar to you). And I never wrote it's defined only in the abstract.

This happens all the time. I have sometimes raised it with the editor. Doing so has always been a waste of time. The best thing you can do is move on.
I have had a reviewer say it would be good if they had done X, but since they haven't, reject it. Except that we had done X. I got absolutely nowhere. This was at a very prestigious journal.

Is there any safety net for such kind of obvious mis-managed cases?

Well, if there is a Board of Editors you could write to them individually explaining exactly how (in your opinion) the Editor-in-chief has not dealt adequately with your concerns. (I have had it done to me, and had to justify my actions to the members of the Board, coughing up all the correspondence and paperwork. Happily the Board agreed everything had been properly dealt with; but if things had gone wrong I would have expected to be told off to get things sorted, pronto.)

I am not sure if it's mostly the EiC fault here (although I do not know about editorials). S/he was willing to help (admitted that a 3rd reviewer would resolve the issue) but s/he probably did not want to go against the handling editor's strict recommendation. Certainly, in the whole process, the one that I blame the least is the reviewer. Also, I am not sure there was any obvious mistakes in the process, besides blindly trusting an obviously flawed review, even after I brought to their attention the simple mistake.

If a paper is rejected on the grounds of a fundamentally flawed report, and the editors are unwilling to review their rejection on the basis of the flawed report, then the journal's editors need to review their protocols.

I think this advice is misguided. Following it would probably not get a better outcome than the OP wasting valuable time, and could possibly make him look bad to the board, which is not a good idea in general and especially for a non-tenured colleague.

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What was the original purpose of a Ph.D.?
When Ph.D. was first inducted into the universities, what was its actual purpose?

increasing employability
becoming eligible for working as a researcher
becoming eligible for obtaining a tenured professorship
vanity and prestige
...

??
Is the purpose the same or different nowadays?

Does this answer your question? What are merits of having a PhD degree?

Probably it depends on where in the world you are talking. Certainly in the places that originated the concept of the Doctorate, at the time when it originated, the sorts of people who go Doctorates were not the sorts of people who would ever have been employees; Research was a past time carried out by the rich, or patronized by rich, the state or the church in the same way art is; and there was no such thing as tenure.

Going back to the beginning it appears to have been viewed as a calling, something one did because one felt called to higher scholarship by temperament. Probably other factors too.

Historically and culturally, the main role of a university is the advancement and transmission of knowledge. Universities award degrees to students as a recognition that they have achieved a particular level of knowledge in a particular domain. So from a very big picture point of view, employability inside or outside academia is just a consequence: people are qualified for jobs because they have the required knowledge, as confirmed by their degrees. Of course universities and students exist in the real world so the mundane necessities of life make employability a significant part of the question, but in principle at least it's not the main purpose of academia.
Vanity and prestige might also be a part of it, but that's true of any kind of achievement. In theory a PhD is just a diploma which confirms that the incumbent has the required knowledge and skills to do research in their domain. Historically this qualification led mostly to academic research, but it's clear that nowadays there's also a demand for PhD-level skills outside academia.

In general, a PhD degree is the means by which you prove that you are capable of conducting research in an independent manner, without being told what to do by a professor. In other words, by obtaining a PhD degree, you prove that you are capable of contributing a completely new piece of knowledge to the currently existing body of scientific knowledge. You also prove that you are capable of defending your scientific hypothesis against external attacks by the reviewers.
Therefore, for a long time a PhD degree was primarily intended to help you become a researcher, or a faculty member in some higher educational institution. Students who entered a PhD course were expected to join the ranks of academia, or prestigious research labs.
As you can imagine, things have changed a lot. Universities smelled the sweet scent of money, and dramatically increased the number of PhD candidates beyond anything that was remotely reasonable; as a result, now, you have PhD degree holders working at Starbucks or at restaurants, trying to pay off their massive debt.
Therefore, there is now a push to redirect most PhD candidates into non-academic careers, instead of joining the dwindling, bitterly competitive ranks of academia.