[Sloper]

I personally do not measure success in monetary terms, the thread title came from a comment made during PMQs, I thought you might have picked up on the obvious reference.

Andy, you seem to think that I want the proles kept in their place with few if any opportunities, a crude and crass depiction which says more about your prejudices than mine (and don't pretend you haven't got any).

I would prefer a revision to the grammar schoool system and fewer uni's providing a better, entirely free education to their students.  It was interesting to hear the new Labour 'tard on 'any questions' suggesting that the fees will put people from poorer backgrounds off attending university and yet when Labour introduced fees they rubbished this idea.

If you want to see true nepotism and entrenched priviledge look no further than new labour, genuine torys tend to want social mobility and the equality of opportunity.

Yes high quality education is expensive, but it's way cheaper than ignorance.

[tomtom]

For those who think that water cannon are a better way of crowd control... (dont open whilst eating your lunch..)

NSFW  :

Article (and same picture) here: http://thethirdestate.net/2010/12/the-truth-about-water-cannons/

[slackline]

Depends, I think these water cannons would be ok 

NSFW  :

Disagree with their use in general though.

[a dense loner]

There's been some drift.  The original point was that Tomtom asserted that all degrees are worthwhile/valuable because it teaches you a set of skills to later use in life.  I agree.

what a crock of shit. people that go to uni can already read and write, most people anyway. A levels, whatever they are now, have already took care of this, gcse's have prepared them for that, anything before that is just bullshit used for pushy parents to say my son is in the top form of secondary school. what are these mythical skills to use in later life that you'll get from any degree?
you can substitute the words read and write, see above, for decision making, networking, getting fucked up every night for 3years apart from the last few wks when i'll actually do some work or maybe i'll pay sloper to write my dissertation etc
in short i don't agree that all degrees are worthwhile

[slackline]

people that go to uni can already read and write, most people anyway. A levels, whatever they are now, have already took care of this, gcse's have prepared them for that,

In theory, but I know lecturers (at Universities) who have essays submitted and written in 'txt speak', not exactly a good standard for reading and writing.

I tutor on a Masters course (in statistics) where people appear not to have basic numeracy of addition, subtraction, multiplication, rounding numbers, negative numbers (seriously a colleague had to explain in detail to a student that 2 - 4 = -2)!

I think you're right though, people looking to go to University should already have these basics in place and to a decent standard.

in short i don't agree that all degrees are worthwhile

What qualifies a degree to be worthwhile for you then?

[a dense loner]

plenty of bitches, coke, et al

[a dense loner]

but seriously...
nothing qualifies me from answering that since i'll just say everyone i've ever met who does psychology is quite seriously fucked up and i wouldn't let them decide what bus to get let alone anything important. obviously i'm pretty much against the arts etc since i come from an engineering slant. thats not to say i don't think they're important just oversubscribed like every other degree. in long they're not that much to do with real education and they're mostly just a money making bums on seats enterprise which unfortunately can't be got away from as soon as the first person charges and the next person pays. i heard a good one the other day about hull getting a uni, can u imagine? its just the same old story, same as every other story, 40% deserve to be there, 10% want to be good at what they do, 10% are intelligent so doesn't matter what they do they'll do well. 60% want to be there cos they think they're missing out, 60% don't deserve to be there, 15% want same sex experience n can say its ok it was uni etc. the %'s aren't correlated in any way

[andy popp]

I personally do not measure success in monetary terms, the thread title came from a comment made during PMQs, I thought you might have picked up on the obvious reference.

Andy, you seem to think that I want the proles kept in their place with few if any opportunities, a crude and crass depiction which says more about your prejudices than mine (and don't pretend you haven't got any).

Of course I got the fucking reference; but you're the one who came here to pose the question 'is a graduate earning 21K successful' and answered it with a definitive no. Pardon my confusion.

Says more about my prejudices than yours? Bollocks cod psychology. The language of proles, chavs and 'tards' is yours, not mine. If you don't want your views subject to a crude and crass depiction then you shouldn't have spend years expressing them in crude, crass terms.

Why did you go on to talk about Labour 'tards' and 'genuine' Torys? Did I either defend one or attack the other? I merely picked up on your reference to a 'return' to genuine HE - yes British HE used to be world-class (much of it still is) but it also used to be inaccessible to large swathes of the population purely on the accident of birth rather than any notion of merit. Any retrenchment in the size of the sector would have to confront and deal with that fact.

In any case, I'm not taking lessons in the virtues and values of 'genuine' HE from someone who gleefully admits to traducing them by writing essays for others for cash.

[galpinos]

...... - yes British HE used to be world-class (much of it still is) but it also used to be inaccessible to large swathes of the population purely on the accident of birth rather than any notion of merit. Any retrenchment in the size of the sector would have to confront and deal with that fact.

Do you not believe that it's possible that we could move to a "retrenchment in the size of the sector" on merit?

[andy popp]

Yes, I do - that's exactly what I meant, that if the sector is to shrink as Sloper wants then we would have to address the old problems of exclusion - but its an extremely complex problem. Even now, with the massive expansion of the sector, the issue of access is very far from resolved and is to a large extent not within the gift of the sector itself, because the roots of exclusion run so much deeper. What I would reject is the idea that we can simply retreat to a vision of what HE used to be like. Nostalgia for a past that was both brilliant (in its achievements) and deeply flawed (in its inequalities) is no way forward.

[a dense loner]

what if there was some way of measuring the potential performance of an individual for uni places, could this help with seperating the wheat from the chaff in any way?

[Jim]

its only 2010 Kes, the year 2525 is a long way away

[slackline]

  Perhaps some sort of standardised examination (or set of exams) independent of the institution you are going to study (and an individuals financial/social background) might allow the wheat to be separated from the chaff?

Not sure what that might be though 

[a dense loner]

zager and evans is definately wheat

[Jim]

not wrong

[tomtom]

Quick answer - I'm mid teaching (again..)

Dense. There is a huge difference between how kids are educated at school and how students are taught. School leavers come to us expecting to know the answer. They are taught (largely) for the last 2-4 years of their eduaction (assuming they do A levels) how to pass exams. Not how to think for themselves. They are (often expertly) coached in how to learn and re-gurgitate the correct answer - not how to think, criticise and or analyse information.

This comes as a big shock for many of them - 'but whats the answer'?? reply: 'there isnt one'.. oh... The fact that for many things there is not a right or wrong answer for something is a big surprise. We (in my part of HE) refer to this as spoon feeding - and we probably spend most of the first year of our degree getting this out of their heads and getting them to think for themselves and develop their own oppinions and ways of critically engaging with issues. There is a huge difference between what is expected and 'taught' at degree level. In fact I dont teach. I lecture - I provide a guidline or framework about which students can then go and research - or find out for themselves about a subject (except for the lazy bastards who just spue out my lecture notes and will get a 2:2 or lower..).

Slackers - interesting model in Belguim I beleive, where free access to all in HE - but you have to pass quite stringent exams each year. Hence there may be c.1000 in first year law lectures (yes that many) but that gets whittle down to c.50 in the final (4th or 5th) year... Let everyone in (at a certain standard) and then only let a certain number progress.
Sadly, we are 'paid'; (at the moment and apparently in the future) for every student with a pulse still on our books - so it is in our interest (and theres really) to try and get them to pass..

Not sure I've got all the points, in the middle of a Pgrad workshop but something to think about....
TT

[chris05]

Slackers - interesting model in Belguim I beleive, where free access to all in HE - but you have to pass quite stringent exams each year. Hence there may be c.1000 in first year law lectures (yes that many) but that gets whittle down to c.50 in the final (4th or 5th) year... Let everyone in (at a certain standard) and then only let a certain number progress.

Interestingly the system was similar in Scotland for the degree I did (psychology - no comments please dense), started off with around 600+ and ended up with less than 100, had to get B's or 2:1 level every year to progress. Seemed quite sensible, i assume it bought in money and also resulted in a high level of 2:1's and 1st's, with the benefit of small class sizes by the important bit.

[Jaspersharpe]

Hmm. Surely you shouldn't really need to be taught how to think, criticise or analyse information and if you do then you shouldn't really be doing a degree course. I remember being given information on a subject and being expected to formulate my own opinions on it based on my own further research when doing GCSE history. Mind you, I had a really good teacher who was removed for refusing to stick to the National Curriculum because he thought it was mindless shite.

 

In my experience the people from my generation (or certainly those a bit older) who went to university were at least pretty intelligent in general. Yeah a lot of them didn't use their degrees for anything to do with work (many just wanted to go climbing like me) but they were clever enough for university to have been a worthwhile experience (as described above).

More recently, I've met plenty of graduates who's basic level of intelligence is downright shocking and who don't seem to have gained anything from university apart from a big overdraft and a load of loans. Yeah, the bright people are still going and are still doing well but it seems a simple fact that a lot of kids have been encouraged to go to university who would have been better off doing something else. The target of getting 50% into HE was crazy imo and has definitely lead to the bar being lowered with regard to entrance standards (for some courses). There's obviously a knock on effect where employers (who previously accepted the "doing any degree gives/enhances skills" theory as gospel) have noticed the standard of graduates declining in some areas and have adjusted their views accordingly.

This is just stuff I've seen for myself.

I'm not sure where I stand on the whole fees thing. From what I've read the new system isn't any worse from the point of view of social inclusion and will actually shaft those in the middle most (as per). But people from lower income families may be put off by the idea of high fees even if they wouldn't actually have to pay if they looked into it properly. Also I can see where tomtom's coming from with regard to the way it's being rushed in. As it wont actually save any money, this seems bonkers.

The other thing about money though is that some people I've met managed to only incur pretty minimal debts while at university whereas others took every loan / credit card / overdraft going, lived it up and ended up owing loads. If I was 18 and going to do a degree now I'd probably choose the most expensive course, do the latter and then file for bankruptcy.
 

Oh and on the other point, the people I know who earn the most money don't need any qualifications (even though some of them have PHDs).

[Mike Highbury]

Interestingly the system was similar in Scotland for the degree I did (psychology - no comments please dense), started off with around 600+ and ended up with less than 100, had to get B's or 2:1 level every year to progress. Seemed quite sensible, i assume it bought in money and also resulted in a high level of 2:1's and 1st's, with the benefit of small class sizes by the important bit.

I think there was something similar in Britain in some of the newer universities after the war. Reading comes to mind but I don't quite know why. I recall being told at school that this gave demobbed servicemen the chance to have some higher education but the cull after the first year was so great that it was unpopular and soon abandoned. It looks rather like you took part in round two.

[tomtom]

Hmm. Surely you shouldn't really need to be taught how to think, criticise or analyse information and if you do then you shouldn't really be doing a degree course. I remember being given information on a subject and being expected to formulate my own opinions on it based on my own further research when doing GCSE history. Mind you, I had a really good teacher who was removed for refusing to stick to the National Curriculum because he thought it was mindless shite.

Alot has changed (as I am led to believe) in the 20 (?)+ years since then... league tables driven by exam results seem to have driven many schools into exam passing machines. We really see the difference here. Yes - you do have to teach - more encourage - people to think for themselves...

My point is not a hard-nor fast rule.. but its shocking how you have to prod/goad/force/torture/encourage 1st years to develop oppinions and the view to critically analyse...

[Jaspersharpe]

Yeah I did GCSEs at 15 so *gulp* 21 years ago. 

That's a fucking sorry state of affairs then mate.

[chillax]

I don't have the economic smarts or experience of pay-scales etc. to add too much to the discussion, but all I can say is that as a recent graduate with an MSc and a reasonable amount of experience in the field I want to work in, 21k would be an absolute gift of a starting salary. In fact I'd be happy to start at 15 to 17. Though living in Ireland, the chances of this are slim. Even some MP's are retiring because they'd get more on their pensions than from their governmental salaries 

On the issue of students, I agree with a lot of what tomtom and Jas have been saying. The level of gormlessness, lack of opinion, idiocy and general disinterest in anything other than going out and getting shitfaced every night shocked me. Even at masters level. I'll admit to having been a bit guilty of it in the past (only did 3 years of a 4 year geology course due to not getting the required GPA), but went on to do reasonably well in a masters afterwards. There are still some people genuinely interested in going to uni and learning, as opposed to it being just "the thing you do after secondary school", but they're not that common. Usually mature students or folk who'd been out of full time education for a bit in my experience.

[andy popp]

I'd like to counter some of the cynicism about the current generation of students. In my experience, the vast majority of students, though perhaps leaving school less well-equipped in terms of independent critical thinking and learning than in the past, are serious about their studies; they are often engaged and enthusiastic. They want to learn, apply themselves, and respond when challenged. Many individuals still bring with them those qualities that can make this job both a pleasure and a privilege.

[tomtom]

I'd like to counter some of the cynicism about the current generation of students. In my experience, the vast majority of students, though perhaps leaving school less well-equipped in terms of independent critical thinking and learning than in the past, are serious about their studies; they are often engaged and enthusiastic. They want to learn, apply themselves, and respond when challenged. Many individuals still bring with them those qualities that can make this job both a pleasure and a privilege.

  yeah, sorry folks - probably went at it a bit hard to argue against Dense's points... which riled me a little...

Most love the challenge - but it can take a while to get them to start worshipping the question mark 

[Jaspersharpe]

I'm not cynical, I'm just like Roy Walker.

Also I think it's wrong that a lot of kids feel massive pressure to go to university (and in doing so get into a ton of debt) or otherwise they will be simultaneously missing out on the best thing ever and preventing themselves from ever getting a decent job (neither of which is necessarily the case depending on their eventual choice of career / how much partying they manage to do whilst holding down a job etc).

There are other options which may well be better for a lot of folk.