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Are we sending too many kids to University?
Labour's intentions were to send 50% of children to university. The coalition seems intent to continue this plan. Shouldn't the truth be told there are not enough skilled jobs to cater for all of them? Has the glut of university graduates now weakened their value?
Should the target now be 10% so that the degree would be held in esteem and jobs would be available for those graduates that deserve them?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11946585
Should the target now be 10% so that the degree would be held in esteem and jobs would be available for those graduates that deserve them?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11946585
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When Blair came to power he contrasted UK's percentage of graduates to those of India and China and said we needed to catch up with them to ensure our economic future. What he didn't say was that China and India were producing graduate engineers and scientists who would enhance their economies. Blair encouraged our youngsters to get degrees, often in subjects like Media Studies, Sports Psychology, Computer Science etc for which there is very little business demand. In answer to your question I would say we have too many "soft" degree courses.
We are.
There seems to be an increasing obsession with the notion that further education in the form of a university degree is the ambition of all, which was, is, and always will be, patent nonsense.
The drop-out rate in the fiirst term at university is around thirty per-cent because that lifestyle simply does not suit every young person bright enough to qualify.
The idea that everyone wants to go and study in this way is increasingly been glamourised by the media and leads to unreasonable expectations of just what a student's life consists of.
A more reasonable breadth of expectations and use of resources would give us a more rounded future generation, and be good for everyone concerned.
There seems to be an increasing obsession with the notion that further education in the form of a university degree is the ambition of all, which was, is, and always will be, patent nonsense.
The drop-out rate in the fiirst term at university is around thirty per-cent because that lifestyle simply does not suit every young person bright enough to qualify.
The idea that everyone wants to go and study in this way is increasingly been glamourised by the media and leads to unreasonable expectations of just what a student's life consists of.
A more reasonable breadth of expectations and use of resources would give us a more rounded future generation, and be good for everyone concerned.
Since intelligence is distributed normally in society i.e. a typical bell-shaped Gaussian curve, it follows that 50% of the population have intelligence levels below the 50th. percentile, and the Socialists want to send about half of these to university. This is a risable, but typical, attempt at social engineering.
The problem is compounded by the fact that some of those above this 50th. percentile will be semi-literate. From long experience of teaching at a university I know this to be true. Wishful thinking by politicians cannot alter this. Lib/Dem woolly-mindedness is not helping, and the coalition is seriously weakened thereby.
Leave the universities alone, to select undergraduates by academic merit only.
The problem is compounded by the fact that some of those above this 50th. percentile will be semi-literate. From long experience of teaching at a university I know this to be true. Wishful thinking by politicians cannot alter this. Lib/Dem woolly-mindedness is not helping, and the coalition is seriously weakened thereby.
Leave the universities alone, to select undergraduates by academic merit only.
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I wouldn't put a figure on it but 50% is too high. It's a typical Noo labour blanket policy taking no account of the facts, I'm dissapointed the Toryberals are continuing with it. It's horses for course, so should go on to HE and some should do traditional skills, like plumbing, electricals etc Universities should do degrees in proper subjects not mickey mouse trendy Bullsh1t. Personally I'd make it free for sciences, engineering, maths, etc etc and then let them charge what they like for numpties who want to study Jordan's breast implants for 4 years.
This is one of the most damaging cons of our generation.
They have conditioned most young people into the idea that you're nobody without a degree but you do have to pay for it.
Why don't they do the same for another industry what they did for education:
you're nobody unless you have a Bentley. At least 50% of kids should have one.
The bad news is they do cost over £40K - oh and the Bentley you get won't be a proper Bentley, it will be a cheaper, mass produced version that doesn't actually run as well as you might expect - oh and the streets will be clogged up with them so you won't be able to go anywhere in it even if iyou manage to get it started.
But hey - the motor manufacturin industry will get a massive boost - lots of new dealerships will open - and we'll hit our Bentley ownership targets.
When i went to uni the covenant seemed to be that society recognised that it was a good thing that all kids had free access to secondary education and the brightest had free access to tertiary. Regardless of whether it was 'useful' like medicine/engineering or subjects like english, archaeology, art - they all made our society better because the best at the subject were enhanced and enriched society - so society funded it.
The great lie is that this is still what we have - only bigger, for more people. It's not. It's a lower quality, lower value product that keeps people off the dole, they have to fund and then their expectations of a better standard of prospects and career (as we had 30 years ago) are frustrated.
.
They have conditioned most young people into the idea that you're nobody without a degree but you do have to pay for it.
Why don't they do the same for another industry what they did for education:
you're nobody unless you have a Bentley. At least 50% of kids should have one.
The bad news is they do cost over £40K - oh and the Bentley you get won't be a proper Bentley, it will be a cheaper, mass produced version that doesn't actually run as well as you might expect - oh and the streets will be clogged up with them so you won't be able to go anywhere in it even if iyou manage to get it started.
But hey - the motor manufacturin industry will get a massive boost - lots of new dealerships will open - and we'll hit our Bentley ownership targets.
When i went to uni the covenant seemed to be that society recognised that it was a good thing that all kids had free access to secondary education and the brightest had free access to tertiary. Regardless of whether it was 'useful' like medicine/engineering or subjects like english, archaeology, art - they all made our society better because the best at the subject were enhanced and enriched society - so society funded it.
The great lie is that this is still what we have - only bigger, for more people. It's not. It's a lower quality, lower value product that keeps people off the dole, they have to fund and then their expectations of a better standard of prospects and career (as we had 30 years ago) are frustrated.
.
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