I see the 'free education' protest march ended in predictable fashion today. The great British tradition of 'free speech' is regularly being hi-jacked by subversives to go on a smashing spree whenever possible. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30113313 I noticed this morning in Parliament Square one of the lanes of traffic had been lost to amazing-looking barriers that had been erected around the centre of the square and along the Houses of Parliament. Amazing because they were 'secured' using 1 tonne bags of sand to prevent them being moved. As usual, the police caused traffic chaos throughout the day with petty restrictions and closures, so much so I packed up two hours early as the centre of London resembled a car park, and not a very safe one. The crux of the protest is student fees, currently £9k a year. I can see why there is so much angst over fees, especially as in Scotland it is free. Labour's bright idea to turn all the 'Polytechnics' into Universities so it could claim to have increased the number of full-time university students has led to a massive increase in university student numbers, it was just unsustainable as a free 'product'. Listening to some of the protesters views today you have to wonder what planet they live on with their incredible sense of self-entitlement. Wanting to spend three or four years doing 'media studies' and other totally useless courses and having us good ole taxpayers picking up the tab for them. Some suggested soaking the rich, using the defence budget and other very student-like ideas, if only it were that easy. Anyway, the point of this thread is what are your views on this subject? Knowing that several of you have posted at how proud you were when your sons/daughters had graduated, do you think it should be free or is the enhanced job prospects and higher wages they'll earn make the fee structure a 'fair exchange'? My own view is that essential skills courses such as medicine, science and the like should be free to encourage students to such professions. The less essential and trivial type courses should continue to be charged so that the student then can make a measured decision on what the cost to them will be. I don't think that is unfair, do you?...
OK Sooper, I'll bite. No excuse for the vandalism and violence, but I'm happy for the young to get angry and demonstrate, whatever the cause, much better than sitting on their arses full of apathy and cynicism. And we really have ****ed up higher education, with the best of intentions, and its my generation's fault. I was the beneficiary of an elitist system- last of the state grammar schools in my area - free university education, a generous grant for living expenses....and only about 70,000 18 year olds went, much less than 10%. I was the first person in either side of my family to stay at school after th age of 15, let alone go to university, and it was drilled into me by family and teachers what a privilege and opportunity this was. Plus I could draw the dole in the summer vacation, but it was better to work (as a hospital porter) because as a student I didn't pay tax. Totally unfair, unsustainable and biased against working class kids, few of whom went to the schools which understood how to get kids into university. But the remedy has been disastrous, even if 350,000 18 year old now have access to higher education, it has been dumbed down, its driven by numbers not quality, and is creating a new generation of debt (albeit on pretty generous terms). My 18 year old son has the grades to go to uni, but probably one of the 'new' ones - great for vocational stuff, but not for the academic subject he wants to study. We've mutually decided it's a waste of time and not worth him racking up the debt and us shelling out thousands for something which will be second rate. Even when we were trolling round visiting places last year, the emphasis from the lecturers was all on employment prospects if you attended their institutions, nothing on loving the subject. It breaks my heart, as I really want him to have the fun that I did, and the 3 years of extra semi childhood, but he'll get much more from it a bit later, especially when he can recognize what a privilege this is compared to work. And the result is a feeling of entitlement for good grades because 'we're paying for it'......and the institutions are caving into the demands, thus diluting the vaues of all degrees just like we've done with GCSE's and A levels by measuring 'improvement' every year. So while there are thousands (seemingly) of places offering degrees there are only a couple of dozen actually worth going to, and they are even more difficult to get into than they were in the 70s, partly because they would prefer foreign students who pay even more. We're stuffed, we can't go back to an unfair and elitist past but we're stuck with an expensive and poor quality present. I have no idea how to fix it, though your plan regarding no or reduced fees for certain courses (if high quality and hugely cometitive to get on to) doesn't sound bad.
Sooper, you're without doubt the most conservative Labour voter that's ever stood on land. I can't imagine why you ever voted for them. You're a true blue Tory!
The education system has been royally ****ed over for as long as I can remember by politicians of all colours. We've gone from the totally unfair elitest system as described by stan to every single youngster wanting to go to university. Many of them only want to party and shouldn't be anywhere near a university. The amount of debt being racked up is truly frightening.
I could have written this exactly too, but with a few differences. "Totally unfair, unsustainable and biased against working class kids"....maybe not...my family was as working class as they got...Dad was a shift factory worker, my mum was too ill to work and they had a dependent aged-parent and me. I got into a grammar school and I got a place at University (Biochemistry) on a full grant (Dad had retired by then). I worked my socks off....I was the first from my family to go to school after the age of 15...I knew I was privileged and took advantage of the chance. I met hubbie...who was exactly the same as me.........and yes we have a much better life style than any of our families before us Working class kids could get on I am a socialist in my genes and history, but always thought how this education for the masses was designed was WRONG. Blair pushed going to University as the be-all and end-all. He had such a chance to push vocational training/engineering apprenticeships/IT training...... all as the new education....but no...You are right Stan, it was all media studies and business studies. My oldest looked at Unis like your son, and decided against it...learning wasn't her thing...but doing is And at the age of 24 got her own house (mortgage obviously...but is paying it off)...has been in continuous employment, because she is a hard worker. Youngest very different...she was the learner..worked v hard at school, planned her future (as much as a 18 y old could)...knew the best route. Now doing well at a good Uni.It is horses for courses... What Blair screwed up was the chance to promote the skills that this country need..the engineers, the scientist, the innovators. We should be more vocal on our countries requirement for the people who keep the wheels of industry running Restricting entrance to university by ability is not "anti-socialist" view...it is in fact a VERY socialist view But over-riding this university entrance by money or heritage is what happened then and must be prevented from happening in the future But wow you will say...the rich kids have their secondary education all paid for by Daddy, and that is why they get into Uni instead of working class kids. THAT IS WHERE OUR TAX PAYERS MONEY SHOULD GO Increase the strength and breath of the 11-16 year old education program....encourage vocation/and academic apprenticeships for 16-18 old. Restrict the University courses available and make them entry by ability. Boy that was a rant (Two things I hate the Blair government for....."Free Education for All" and the War) and I was so joyous when they got in Be careful what you wish for!!!
Nice one Beth. Perhaps my 'biased against the working class' comment was a little exagerrated but I think you were the exception rather than the rule. I know we were both born in Honeypot Lane, which school did you go to? I was at Harrow Weald Grammar. Parallels with our kids too...I think my son has suffered through parental expectation and we have only just realised that maybe his path lies in other directions and there's nothing wrong with that. Now he has at least 3 jobs that I know of, just looking for something 9-5 so he can afford a room in a flat with mates, he's actually beginning to look after himself. It was my 14 year old daughter's parents evening last night and I left feeling about 8 feet tall.....her teachers have the highest possible expectations of her and she's loving it, has the highest possible ambitions for herself too. Against all my youthful principles I have invested heavily in my kids' education, largely because of the quality of what the state offered round here. Difficult decisions and ones which can only be judged in retrospect...I console myself by saying at least the taxpayers cash that would have been spent on them, and my own contributions to the tax pot, have been spent on others, so I saved the system something. But the fact that I am able to buy quality which others can't is obviously wrong. Most telling comment from last night was my daughter's history teacher saying that she's giving some of these 14 year olds the A level texts on the Russian Revolution because the GCSE versions are too simplistic for them. She didn't mean our little darlings were all geniuses, but that the GCSE is pathetically easy. I like it when you rant! See you at the Leicester game.
Kingsbury County Grammar school...It did turn comprehensive half way through though... There is nothing wrong with aiding your child's education by money, that you have earnt.. .If you were a carpenter...you would try and buy your son the best tools you could if he wanted to follow in your footsteps. What is wrong, is buying your way in when the ability is not there..... But what is also wrong is pushing your child when the desire is not there...but that is wrong for the child. I learnt that with my eldest...the desire to learn was not there...the desire to work was... But it is a hard lesson for a parent to learn But agree about GCSE, and that is because no child is allowed to fail at anything....because now society says you are a failure if you got a D at GCSE geography!!!! Look I am not asking children to fail, but we need more realistic expectations, and we need sympathetic teachers to nuture the star quality that all of us have
Ha! My Dad went to Kingsbury County......must have left in 1946 or 47 though. My Mum went to Orange Hill Grammar in Burnt Oak. It never occured to either to stay on past the earliest time they could leave, and they had no parental encouragement to - in fact the reverse. Different times. Harrow Weald turned into a sixth form college when I was there, in fact my year was the last intake, so we were always the youngest. No uniform after about the fourth year though.
£9k a year, they should count themselves lucky. I am currently look at colleges for my son at $50,000 a year plus!
I don't see why this is wrong, Stanley. What IS wrong is successive governments' systematic destruction of the grammar school system and their failure to replace these institutions with something better. Grammar schools offered as good an opportunity as anything for those from less privileged backgrounds to get a decent education. One may argue about the rights and wrongs of assessing children as young as eleven via the 11-Plus, but what have we been served up with instead? Now we have a situation where the better secondary schools sit in areas where property prices are high, meaning only the better off parents can generally afford to get their children a place. In other words we have moved from selection by ability to selection by wealth. How can this be right? P.S.We now have a Conservative Home Secretary who's so ashamed of her superior education that she lies about it.
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I suppose I meant 'wrong' from a perspective of equality of opportunity - if a better quality of education is available to some based on the ability to buy it, the playing field is irrevocably skewed, and talent misses the chance to show itself. And ultimately we all lose out. As Brendan Foster once said after some victory or another, there were dozens if not hundreds of men who could run better than him in Gateshead, they just never had the opportunity to find out. Plus I have an increasing obsession with quality and am distressed to see my tax pounds being spent on s**t education, s**t health services etc (blanket criticism, there are of course examples of excellence as well - usually down to individuals). And you are right re the property selection method. The most hideously elitist schools seem to be the remaining state sector selective schools - a few round my way the King Edwards schools in Birmingham, or down south where I used to live the Tiffin in Kingston. The competition to get in these places is nuts, and only kids who have been pressured through private tutoring etc seem to make it. The opposite of selecting the talent, its selecting those who know how to take the test, and who's parents have provided them with the means to learn it. I'd like to see enough selective/state grammars around to take the hothouse out of the system, and to select for them based on raw intelligence and attitude, rather than what may have been learnt or not at primary schools of varying quality, and may also take some 'environmental' factors (i.e. parents who don't give a s**t) out of play.[i have NOT thought this through!] I'd would have been happy for my kids to have found their own level in the system I went through - if they got to Grammar schools - the problem wasn't them but the generally poor standard of 'Secondary Moderns' - again a sweeping and unfair generalisation - so, as usual we chucked out something that was working and failed to fix the broken bit. Never level up, always level down. Omnishambles.
View attachment 34211 Sorry guys, couldn't resist - Alex Salmond unveiling his legacy to Tuition fees on his last day as First Minister...
I see a Labour shadow minister or summat had to resign for posting a picture of a Gaff with England flags hanging out the windows and a white van parked out front. Bit OTT isn't it? Who won the by-election last night?
Reckless Swords! No that is not an insult ...that be his name The sitting tory MP who gave up his seat when he defected, re-won it for UKIP Can some one just ask the B@@@@@s about the policy to the NHS...please
They don't have any policies Beth (apart from get out of EU) as you well know, they make it up as they go along according to what they think the lowest common denominator wants. Populism at its worst.
