The universities minister, Jo Johnson, has raised concern that the reputation of the UK’s higher education is under threat due to the inconsistent quality of teaching.

He also expressed concern that academics are “disengaged” from students.

In a speech at Universities UK’s annual conference, he praised academics that “go the extra mile”, but also mentioned cases of students dropping out due to a complete lack of contact time.

“It is not at all clear to some students what their tuition fees of £9,000 a year actually pay for,” he added.

Johnson continued by outlining the kinds of arguments academics use to limit their commitment to students.

He said that academics don’t want “to have and set and mark much” as it distracts from research, and that they believe students don’t want to do work that would “distract [them] from partying”.

The Minister of State outlined the relationship between student and university as “‘we'll award you the degree as the hoped-for job ticket in return for compliance with minimal academic requirements and due receipt of fees’”.

Johnson added that the role research plays in determining league tables is a key factor that often leads teaching to be considered less important.

“This patchiness in the student experience within and between institutions cannot continue,” he said.

“There is extraordinary teaching that deserves greater recognition. And there is lamentable teaching that must be driven out of our system.”

A third year student at Emmanuel College told Varsity that he had not “experienced these charges of neglect by academics at Cambridge”, and thought staff were “extremely diligent”.

He added that the only experiences of “a lack of communication” were with PhD students providing supervision.

Mr Johnson is aiming to establish a new framework to increase transparency by seeking to force universities to be clearer on how they spend their money.

Proposals are also likely to link the quality of teaching at a university to the tuition fee levels that it is permitted to charge.