ABSTRACT
The idea of academics from one university visiting, as individuals, the academics of another university at their invitation and then commenting on their standards is a distinctively British arrangement almost unknown throughout the rest of the academic world. Although external examiners are notoriously poorly paid for the work they do, the external examining system is designed to uphold standards across the sector, both in the sense of monitoring the consistency with which a university implements its own standards but also more generally in the sense of maintaining (largely undefined) sector-wide standards.
