Furedi suggests learning outcomes are a recent “fad” which results in increased cynicism. The article from which he quotes on our website was written in 2001. I have been engaged in the “learning objectives debate” since 1986. How recent is recent? There is an angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin argument about when “objectives” transmogrified into “intended outcomes”, and what the difference might be. Not my idea of a good time. Learning objectives or “intended learning outcomes” are a part of a much wider, pragmatic, quality and standards movement that has had mostly beneficial consequences for society, as well as admitting jokes about European standard bananas – or poorly expressed, cynically written, learning outcomes. Learning objectives go back at least to Dewey. In the 1970s learning outcomes, with a number of other initiatives, had – in part – the aim of challenging a system of educational privilege that reproduced – and granted limited access to – a social elite. As Karl Popper said so well, all observation is theory laden. Learning outcomes ask us to make our intentions and their underlying foundations explicit. That is – again in part – what higher education is about. And, an outcomes-led approach is not the only way to teach,of  course.