Over the next few weeks, almost 400 000 students will graduate from our Universities. Many of these will not find jobs at all, or end up working in jobs that they could have started at the age of 16.
My prediction is that this Summer at long last, schools will finally begin to question the accepted doctrine of encouraging every pupil who can spell their own name to rush blindly into taking on £20 000 worth of debts in order to gain a worthless degree from an institution that should never have been allowed to call itself a University in the first place.
13 comments:
Too true. And the useless "Diplomas" that pupils,,ahem...STUDENTS gain at these "academies"...or "centres of excellence" are not worth the paper they're printed ob. Health & Social care = Sex & Shopping
animal care = how to clean a hamster cage without losing the inhabitant
Business studies= tell the difference between a mobile phone nd a land line
Media studies= in-depth preparation to be a guest at jeremy Kyle show.
Allowing pupils to avoid all subjects that might require a bit of brain activity and research 9other than google) won't educate them into being people who will be able to make a living in yers to come.
Agree 100% Mr. Chalk.
It started with the tories by calling polytechnics etc., universities thereby able to boast that they had doubled the number instead of concentrating on funding and improving primary education and the whole cynical process was continued by the present load of incompetents with the result our country is no longer something to be proud of but a pathetic sick joke.
Wonder if you have any comments on this story ? Difficult to judge properly on a single news item.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8112815.stm
"My prediction is that this Summer at long last, schools will finally begin to question the accepted doctrine of encouraging every pupil who can spell their own name to rush blindly into taking on £20 000 worth of debts in order to gain a worthless degree from an institution that should never have been allowed to call itself a University in the first place."
I agree with you apart from one thing. I don't think schools will stop doing this if they get cludos from the Government they don't care.
The engineering graduate asks "how does it work?"
The science graduate asks "why does it work?"
The enconomics graduate asks "how much will it cost?"
The media studies graduate asks "do you want fries with that?"
Don't you think that education at any cost is better than none at all?
Hey.£20 000 is optimistic. Our son will owe at least £32 000 and we will have contributed at least £20 000 in paying his rent by the time he's finished. He's supposed to pay rent out of the measly £4500 loan (not that we want him to accumulate even more debt). We're just ordinary, hard-working people in jobs with below average salaries but want him to achieve the best he can. We just hope a degree from Oxford will count for something! Might not be sufficient to pay back the accumulated debt, I suspect.
Oxford is a proper University whose degrees command some respect. You do have to have half a brain cell to get in there.
Grim Rupert: "Don't you think that education at any cost is better than none at all?"
Er, no. A million pounds per pupil would bankrupt the country, zero pounds per pupil would be pointless.
Anonymous 19:17: Hats off to you for what you're doing.
I worked hard at school to get into Oxford, and I think it's paid off. In the 2 decades or so since I graduated, I've found it does help when looking for jobs.
(Of course, in those days there were much better grants. If I'd been dependent on my parents, I'd never have been able to do it. So as well as you being proud of your son, he can be proud of you.)
We have a graduate scheme on the Underground that leaves me frustrated.
I deal with the fresh faced new comers on a regular basis as a live learner (a Station Supervisor who passes on our working nature to trainees to help them see what the job entails) and by the end of the day I feel very exasperated because I know that these kids with absolutely no railway experience (I was once told by a graduate he has a degree in marine biology) and very little common sense are going to one day be my boss.
I'm glad that someone has finally had the courage to expouse the shame of the 'most go to university'
mindset promoted by Government and the Education establishment.
University is not suitable for everyone; it's supposed to be about acedemic excellence i.e Doctors, Engineers, Chemists, et al.
What we should be doing is saying to kids look at your opptions, what are your strengths. If you want to be a vet you go to university, if you're good with your hands go on an apprenticeship and learn to be a plumber.
Sending boat loads of kids to do degrees in 'American Studies' and 'Music Journalism' does nothing but waste saddle them with thousand of pounds worth of debt.
There are no vocations or jobs at the end of these courses, and many find it hard to find employment at all.
If they're lucky they'll eventually find a reasonable clerical job in a bank or the public sector; something they could have done at 16 or 18.
Many end up in low paid jobs, because by 21 they have no job skills, or experiece and youngsters their own age or younger, who went stright into work, or took something useful at college beat them in the jobs market.
The whole system is based on liberal/socialist hangs-ups. "We must have more working class kids with degrees!"
All that matters is that no one is prevented from following their chosen career path on the grounds of class. As far at I know that only happens in the minds of class warriors with their warped view of the world.
The whole system is a sham and I'm afraid when my daughter reaches 18 if she wants to go to University she must take something vocational or at lest something that will teach her something useful 'Media Studies' will be a no no. I know that sounds harsh, but I know I'm doing her a favour!
'Useless' subjects do involve a fair amount of work, and if nothing else provide the 'transferable skills' that we're always told the job market is looking for.
*shrug* This year it's hard, I know. Of my friends graduating last year and this year, many are working in the safe cafe, bar and shop jobs they had as students. But that is the problem of the job market, not that these are people who should never have gone to university.
Personally, I went to University for the love of learning, and for the experience, rather than whatever job opportunties it would give me.
If I were interested in the career enhancing properties of university, I'd not have turned down Cambridge (with 6 A-grade A-levels, I could have gone anywhere).
University is worth it to learn something in depth. Not as much depth as I would have liked, but perhaps that was my own fault for doing joint honours in two completely unrelated fields.
Anybody going for other reasons clearly hasn't thought it through properly. It was obvious to my peers and me that we could start a job at entry level at 18 and get to the same place we'd enter after three years of university in that time, but we wanted the experience of university, and the thrill of learning.
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