If you could wind back the clock ....

[Aubade]

..over the last 50 or so years, what would you like never to have been developed or allowed?

The demise of "whom" and all adverbs.

[Bryn]

I have knowledge of the incessant, ideological pressure for universities to train students for employment and to teach subjects which are useful to employers - the pressure lessening, of course, at those institutions where the kinds of people who think universities are dumbed down went themselves and send their own beautiful offspring. I also have knowledge of the destruction of one of the best philosophy departments in England at Middlesex University, for reasons not unconnected to those ideological pressures. The point being that the newest universities are capable of teaching students who want to be taught at a high level of academic excellence and intellectual rigour: but the ideology of the day, backed up by class interests, won't allow it.

The problem I have with arguments like PhilipT's is that in practice it means keeping university education for people like themselves and cheerfully consigning people not like themselves to useful training: so that they can fix their plumbing when it goes wrong, for example.

As an ex-students' Union sabbatical Academic Officer and Academic Board member at that institution at the time of the passing of the 1988 Education Reform Act I echo what you say there. Its a process that had been proceeding for some decades now.

[doversoul1]

Originally posted by Hey Nonymous
The point being that the newest universities are capable of teaching students who want to be taught at a high level of academic excellence and intellectual rigour: but the ideology of the day, backed up by class interests, won't allow it.

When university lecturers are required to attend a course in order to be trained to teach, the nature of intellectual regour begins to look, well, different.

The problem I have with arguments like PhilipT's is that in practice it means keeping university education for people like themselves and cheerfully consigning people not like themselves to useful training: so that they can fix their plumbing when it goes wrong, for example.

The problem I have with arguments like yours is that it implies, very explicitly, that plumbers and other similarly skilled people are somewhat lesser order of human beings. I don’t see why it is so difficult to see the fact that you cannot make everyone a useful academic or a researcher in the same way as you cannot make everyone a good plumber.

And do you have any knowledge of the UK employers’ views about all those new degrees?

what would you like never to have been developed or allowed?
The transferring of university from the department for education to the department for business and industry.

[MrGongGong]

When university lecturers are required to attend a course in order to be trained to teach, the nature of intellectual regour begins to look, well, different.

No it doesn't at all, I think you confuse things a bit here

Of course in the "good old days" any old buffer with a phd would automatically assumed to be able to communicate effectively with students
Most of us have memories of these folk who were often shuffled off to "research" when it became obvious that they were unable to communicate

Teaching IS a skill, having a LTFHE qualification will give academics a range of strategies that enhance their teaching
which is NOT to say that everything in education is perfect and lovely

[John Shelton]

The problem I have with arguments like yours is that it implies, very explicitly, that plumbers and other similarly skilled people are somewhat lesser order of human beings. I don’t see why it is so difficult to see the fact that you cannot make everyone a useful academic or a researcher in the same way as you cannot make everyone a good plumber.

No it doesn't. (How is it possible to imply something explicitly? Or very explicitly, even?). The people who are so hot on restricting access to university education tend to place themselves and theirs in the category of those for whom university education is appropriate - they tend not to think of their offspring as trainee plumbers (or that's my suspicion). Bit like waxing lyrical on the subject of the dignity of other people's labour.

what would you like never to have been developed or allowed?
The transferring of university from the department for education to the department for business and industry.

Quite. Did you read my post?

Thank you Bryn.

[Hornspieler]

You have knowledge of undergraduate teaching in universities in the UK, Hornspieler?

I was myself an undergraduate at the Royal Academy of Music (part of London University) at the age of 16, having won an open scholarship - but that does not answer your question.

However, my daughter gained her MA(Cantab) in Medicine at Queens College; having gained admission by achieving ten straight A's at "O" level :
Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English Literature, English Language, French, Geography, History, Latin, Mathematics.
and
five A's at "A" level. She is now at age 36, a senior Consultant in one of the main London Hospitals.

There are nearly 200 students in Bournemouth University ("Uni" to them) who are taking Media Studies as their Degree Course.
What chance have they of using that so-called degree to gain employment in the real world?

A waste of their time and the taxpayers' money.

HS

[John Shelton]

So the answer to my question is no, to which you appended a scholastic and professional biography of your daughter.

[amateur51]

I was myself an undergraduate at the Royal Academy of Music (part of London University) at the age of 16, having won an open scholarship - but that does not answer your question.

However, my daughter gained her MA(Cantab) in Medicine at Queens College; having gained admission by achieving ten straight A's at "O" level :
Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English Literature, English Language, French, Geography, History, Latin, Mathematics.
and
five A's at "A" level. She is now at age 36, a senior Consultant in one of the main London Hospitals.

There are nearly 200 students in Bournemouth University ("Uni" to them) who are taking Media Studies as their Degree Course.
What chance have they of using that so-called degree to gain employment in the real world?

A waste of their time and the taxpayers' money.

HS

Congratulations to your daugher HS but there was a time not so long ago when we were training too many young people to become GPs. Would you have said "a waste of their time and the taxpayers' money" then?

[Hornspieler]

Congratulations to your daugher HS but there was a time not so long ago when we were training too many young people to become GPs. Would you have said "a waste of their time and the taxpayers' money" then?

Well, she had the ability to gain entrance to a proper university (not former "Universty College" or "Technical College of further Education" which now glory in that name).

Universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh and others of long standing did not (and do not) accept "wannabees" in any subject.
They only consider applicants will real promise; with "A" or "A+"passes at A level, in subjects where the award of a degree means something other than enhancing a League Table.

[John Shelton]

That's University College Dublin, University College London, University College Oxford down the drain then.

did not (and do not) accept "wannabees" in any subject.

You get a degree when you're admitted? Gosh, that's a good deal.

[Serial_Apologist]

So the answer to my question is no, to which you appended a scholastic and professional biography of your daughter.

How I miss us not having John Skelton here on this forum any more!

My pet bete noire this morning is the unending pageant of uninformative adverts on the telly, after watching one for a certain make of car that has maybe 20 seconds of half-second intercuts presumably supposed to indicate daily stress subliminally, followed by a picture of a new model of car, and the young, David Beckham lookalike besuited "owner" then sitting smug faced leaning back, hand on the steering wheel, to a voiceover telling us all now nice it is to have the control of our own space, or stupid platitudinous words to that effect, that this product represents.

It's been going on a lot longer than 50 years, I know, I know... It's no wonder we are surrounded everyday by the mass mentality such ads reflect, so I'l just add to my list of gones and sadly forgottens having an understanding-grounded sense of the underlying forces doing their best to make us tick to their economic marching orders and how to counter them, if not in the streets, workplaces and councils of action, in our heads, at the very least.

[anotherbob]

As the parent of two sons, one a Plumber and the other a Drummer, and as someone whose own education took a "different" route I have to say I find the obsession with academic excellence by some here very sad. I spent some years teaching in state primary schools and each year's intake provided a cross section of little people each one of which deserved the opportunity to become a self-respecting adult deserving of the respect of others.
However because our education system is obsessed with academic excellence the majority of those children were condemned to be regarded as second or even third class from the age of five onwards. Academically inclined children came out best at almost every activity in school, which suggests to me that the range of activities offered were (and are) fatally skewed towards academic pursuits.
The academically inclined children also suffer from this state of affairs. They grow up feeling superior, experiencing praise daily and by the time they reach the age of eleven many are conviced they are god's gift to humanity destined to lord it over the lesser types who comprise the other 85% of their age group. This is obviously an erroneous assumption which will rebound on them badly in their adult life.

On the question in the OP.
I would have not allowed sports people to be interviewed under any circumstances.

[John Shelton]

How I miss us not having John Skelton here on this forum any more!

... is said to have been educated at Oxford. He certainly studied at Cambridge, and he is probably the "one Scheklton" mentioned by William Cole as taking his M.A. degree in 1484.

No danger of Media Studies then .

They grow up feeling superior, experiencing praise daily and by the time they reach the age of eleven many are conviced they are god's gift to humanity destined to lord it over the lesser types who comprise the other 85% of their age group. This is obviously an erroneous assumption which will rebound on them badly in their adult life.

[JanH]

The best Christmas present I could have would be a restored Radio 3, as in the 'olden days' !

JanH.

[Bryn]

The best Christmas present I could have would be a restored Radio 3, as in the 'olden days' !

JanH.

Only on for a few hours in the evening, eh?