University Lecturers' Strike

[Dave2002]

I'll have to have a chat with the younger employees at our office and see what they think about their deductions, rents,

Since we are talking about marginal rates ,the rich moan like hell about their marginal rates. It really isn't a question of " only ".
I really don't see why young modestly remunerated workers should pay such punitive rates.

But nobody up the food chain gives a **** as long as they keep working.
And paying their tax.

Many young people - and quite a number of older ones too, have a very rough deal. Many are exploited ruthlessly, and heaven help the ones who aren't in work or are unable to work, or have physical, psychological or mental disadvantages. I don't have any good answers to help "solve" these problems - sorry. Pleading special cases doesn't really work though.

I watched Back in Time for Tea - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rdv80 last night, and I was surprised at what I didn't know. [Very interesting - good programme] Obviously we mostly know that WWI was bad, and that WWII was also very bad, but the inter war years were not good either. Most people now, even young ones, surely have a better time with better opportunities than people did have then. That is not to downplay the problems some of us face today, but worrying about where the next slice of bread is going to come from is surely in a different category of problem from concerns about whether one can afford a new mobile phone, or TV, or even just the next cup of coffee etc. Perhaps the biggest problem now is that many young people can't afford to buy a house, and some even find it difficult to rent. Against that, many have high expectations.

[greenilex]

Dave, you may be right about most young people - 51%? - but I have no idea.

I do know that a bright care leaver or inner city child may make the decision not to bother with tertiary education based on the loans problem. Was this true between the world wars to the same extent?

[Dave2002]

Dave, you may be right about most young people - 51%? - but I have no idea.

I do know that a bright care leaver or inner city child may make the decision not to bother with tertiary education based on the loans problem. Was this true between the world wars to the same extent?

There isn't a comparison which really makes sense. Relatively very few people went to university before (say) 1950. Some people who were involved in WWII were spotted for their talents, and were sent to university or some other form of tertiary education afterwards, and presumably a very few people before that were able to go to university. In my own family nobody that I know of went to university before me, while in mrs d's family there was one person who went to university around the time of WWI - but I gather he was exceptional.

[french frank]

I'd like to bust the myth-busting items on your link in post #33. As tip 21 says, Warning. Retrospective changes may be made. (I would add, especially if Philip Green becomes Chair of the SLC.)

Or "The value of your investments can go down and you may not get back what you paid for them." That's a professional statutory warning … It's up to others to assess the real likelihood. My view is that the Tory government has now made three(?) attempts to tweak the system from the one that was set up under the coalition: they reneged and froze the payment threshold, they raised the interest rate, and they raised the tuition fee cap, again. Nothing of these has made significant difference to their finances. Once you are in a situation where it makes no financial difference how much you increase the "debts" to (you just increase the students' shortfall which the government then has to pay anyway), the scheme is more likely to be scrapped than made harsher. That's the way the talk is going.

And I can't quite understand the sentence 'Grants have been replaced by loans'. Is that a myth or a statement of fact? If it's supposed to be a myth, it isn't.

Does he say it's a myth? I'd need to check what his argument was.
[Ed. No he doesn't say it was a myth: he explains what the situation is for whom]

I would add that one of my daughters who is on the bottom rung of FE college lecturers' pay finds the salary deductions for her student loan oppressive. And she was at university when fees were still 'free', her loan being for accommodation and living costs, grants having been phased out.

I can't comment on an individual case without knowing the full figures, but you seem to be saying that repayments on her maintenance loan are oppressive? It has been recognised that it is this component of the loan that needs to be more urgently addressed.

What sort of country do we live in?

We live in a country where many more young people have the chance of higher education than in our day, and more and more of them take up the option in spite of the recent negative publicity.

But there are two options in a time of stringent economies: either you reduce the government bill by educating a much smaller number of students; or you reduce the funding to the universities pretty drastically. Either way, it's the students who suffer, and you risk returning to a time when only the middle classes send their kids to university.

[Frau Alpensinfonie]

We live in a country where many more young people have the chance of higher education than in our day, and more and more of them take up the option in spite of the recent negative publicity.

But there are two options in a time of stringent economies: either you reduce the government bill by educating a much smaller number of students; or you reduce the funding to the universities pretty drastically. Either way, it's the students who suffer, and you risk returning to a time when only the middle classes send their kids to university.

I'm not sure about this. Yes; more young people are going to university, but this has devalued degrees to such an extent that their financial benefits are now minimal - "nearly everyone has a degree, so what difference does it make, apart from us all being saddled with huge debts".

My nephew was awarded a first class degree in interior design at what might be called a 3rd tier university. But it's still a first class degree, but even he admits it was a waste of money to do a degree in "painting and decorating".

I've lectured in what might equally be termed a 2nd tier university. The calibre of students is not high, though there are shining exceptions. Those who shine will hopefully have successful careers, but many of the rest will struggle, and could be saddled with debt throughout their working lives.

The mistake, I believe, is the perpetuation of the idea that going to a university is the only way to achieve a higher level of education. As was suggested in an earlier post, students should be able to learn without being spoon fed.

[french frank]

'Morning, Frau A

I can't instantly disagree with what you say. There are pros and cons, swings and roundabouts, winners and losers &c. As a society we need to sort what we think really matters. As far as HE is concerned, are things better now than they were 50 years ago, or worse? And more crucially, in what ways? Having ascertained that (no problem!), what do we do about it?

I'm not sure about this. Yes; more young people are going to university, but this has devalued degrees to such an extent that their financial benefits are now minimal - "nearly everyone has a degree, so what difference does it make, apart from us all being saddled with huge debts".

My nephew was awarded a first class degree in interior design at what might be called a 3rd tier university. But it's still a first class degree, but even he admits it was a waste of money to do a degree in "painting and decorating".

I've lectured in what might equally be termed a 2nd tier university. The calibre of students is not high, though there are shining exceptions. Those who shine will hopefully have successful careers, but many of the rest will struggle, and could be saddled with debt throughout their working lives.

The mistake, I believe, is the perpetuation of the idea that going to a university is the only way to achieve a higher level of education. As was suggested in an earlier post, students should be able to learn without being spoon fed.

[oddoneout]

The mistake, I believe, is the perpetuation of the idea that going to a university is the only way to achieve a higher level of education. As was suggested in an earlier post, students should be able to learn without being spoon fed.

There is also a problem I think with the current assumption that the only education is an academic one. The removal of good quality vocational training and qualifications means that for too many the only way to get some sort of accreditation is to go down the university route. Even for those who are academically able to do that it may not be the best way, or the way they want, to proceed in a practical subject, but for those who have the practical skills and are keen but do not want to or cannot access the academic route there seems to be precious little choice. The demise of proper apprenticeships and the lack of employer support for staff improvement adds to the problem. One example that came to mind recently was that of nurses, and the old set-up of SEN and SRN. I'm not sure what the most recent arrangement is(still graduates and bed pan providers, nothing in between?) but I do remember Norman Lamb calling for the reinstatement of something akin to SEN to bridge the existing gap between Health Care Assistants and graduate nurses. He argued that HCAs needed to have the chance to progress if they chose, and that not all nursing roles need a graduate.

[ardcarp]

Frau Alps and Oddoneout

I agree with the tenor of your last two posts.

I think Frenchie's comment that if the system is bust, then "the scheme is more likely to be scrapped than made harsher. That's the way the talk is going".

I wish I had your faith in the government, ff. But pax, we're still friends, I hope!

[french frank]

I wish I had your faith in the government, ff. But pax, we're still friends, I hope!

More a matter of force majeure than any faith in this government to do the right thing, arders.

The only point of, almost certain , disagreement would be that the coalition debacle on this was an attempt by opposing forces to square the circle in order to satisfy both sides. I see an intractible problem in trying to eradicate the inequalities in education and in life chances, and to improve social mobility. It's failing on several levels, though I don't think that students/graduates have been the only ones to be clobbered. Back to the drawing board

[Serial_Apologist]

'Morning, Frau A

I can't instantly disagree with what you say. There are pros and cons, swings and roundabouts, winners and losers &c. As a society we need to sort what we think really matters. As far as HE is concerned, are things better now than they were 50 years ago, or worse? And more crucially, in what ways? Having ascertained that (no problem!), what do we do about it?

EA makes a very strong point that FE and HE should not have to be dependent on universities - what are they now "for". Post WW2 the division, post secondary school, was between those who had taken the 11-plus or Common Entrance route to University, which meant creating a rounded, worldly wise mature thinking individual whose attributes could enrich whatever career he or she chose to enter, and manual skills into apprenticeships that might lead to promotion from shop floor to supervisor/manager and maybe running your own manufacturing business. Then during the "white heat of the technological revolution" 1960s era the assumption more liberal, individual-centred development espoused was of individuals regardless of class background acquiring the mental and creative wherewithal to fill the extra free time made available by shorter working hours and higher incomes gained through greater productivity, eventually procuring via the tech college network a narrowing of the cultural spectrum vis-a-vis levels of university-promulgated academic and scientific learning. The latter also chimed with the left thinking subsequently blamed for all society's moral ills, in that progress was still consensually seen as socially beneficial at all levels, and indeed capable of being sustained, regardless of the contradictions inherent in the economic model being unsustainable longterm. Ideologically the model of studying for an income-providing lifetime career to retirement had sustained the ideological legitimacy largely holding society together, and enough surplus to take care of those who didn't manage to "fit in" for whatever reason. So now, we find ourselves in situations in which the working class people once trained for careers in the manufacturing sectors producing the wealth on which the supportive service sectors depended in mutual symbiosis are being replaced by automation; the idea of lifetime careers, inculcative of worker/employer loyalty and community building, has been replaced by short term or zero hours contracts, the continuous need for reskilling and perpetual mobility when what jobs there are are in unaffordable areas because the social housing stock was sold off in a sad bid for unsustainable individualist consumerism, and the imposition of lifetime indebtedness on a generation that sees no future other than perpetual existential instability ahead. And people are surprised that the old politics of consensus around a putative centre are collapsing, all around?

[oddoneout]

. As far as HE is concerned, are things better now than they were 50 years ago, or worse? And more crucially, in what ways? Having ascertained that (no problem!), what do we do about it?

I am of the opinion that things are not better now, for the simple reason that the powers that be know full well that they are not providing appropriate good quality educational opportunities to all pupils/students. What saddens and angers me is that instead of addressing that issue, successive administrations have continued to make the situation worse by putting their own agendas ahead of the needs of those to whom they have responsibility. The temptation to meddle for meddling's sake is not resisted, and is compounded by the refusal to listen to, let alone act on, the concerns and views of those affected or who actually know what they are talking about.
Apologies for the rant. I was a High School governor for 13 years, at a good(not in the debased Ofsted sense) school which did its utmost to provide a decent and appropriate education to all its pupils, but it became more and more difficult to do so - and not always primarily due to funding difficulties, at least to begin with - because of constant moving of goalposts, the extra work from 'new initiatives', ignorance of consequences of said initiatives etc. Policy drawn up by those in urban ivory towers was not a good fit(to put it politely) with a rural area and limited transport.

[french frank]

EA makes a very strong point that FE and HE should not have to be dependent on universities - what are they now "for".

I agree with all of that. We didn't emerge from the last war with a very good education model. An elite few went to university via public school or grammar school and the rest were poorly educated for nothing very much in secondary moderns. A system not for the many but for the few.

We couldn't seem to get away from the mindset that 'academic' is a cut above the rest. Didn't we move away from the teacher training colleges, the hospital training for nurses, apprenticeships, technical colleges. They were seen as 'second best' to university courses and getting a degree. A sort of post-school 'comprehensive'. Is there a place for that, or is education 'levelled down'?

In retrospect, were comprehensives the levelling, egalitarian institutions that they were supposed to be? How do you assess performance without endless tests at "Key Stages"? There has been an educational revolution but it seems to me have resukted in more chaos and chronic underfunding (like all public services).

[french frank]

I am of the opinion that things are not better now

There were things that were wrong then and things are wrong now, but in a different way

[ardcarp]

In retrospect, were comprehensives the levelling, egalitarian institutions that they were supposed to be?

Despite living 200 metres away from a surviving Grammar School to which my own kids went, I'm generally in favour of Comprehensive Schooling. (We didn't have the choice....no true Comps in our catchment.) The other day I was chatting with a friend, a long-standing teacher, now long retired, who was a 'pioneer' in..... and ardent advocate for.... the comprehensive system. He would strongly disagree that it was a 'levelling' exercise. He made the rather obvious point that equality of opportunity is not the same as egalitarianism, a mistake which many comprehensive schools made, and probably continue to make. In early attempts to avoid elitism, the bright kids were not encouraged to 'get above themselves' as he put it. Later, and especially as league tables reared their heads, this group was suddenly seen as a rather useful resource! Then the middle ground began to suffer because, quite rightly, kids of lower-than-average ability still needed more attention and resources. In short, faced with the realities of life (parental background, social differences and just plain heredity) it is difficult to provide a truly 'comprehensive' education without inspired leadership...and resources that are not pared to the bone.

All this is stating the obvious really Sorry.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

EA makes a very strong point that FE and HE should not have to be dependent on universities -

Er... did I say that?