egafd.com

Nice post, WB - good to see you're moving on to something better.

I still keep in touch with many of my tutors, and one of their complaints (as always, they have many) is the overwhelming number of obviously unsuitable students applying for places. This is very much in line with the 50% target you mention. All they want is (any) degree status, if you like, and have been buffeted this way by a variety of pressures - social/career etc. You can't blame them, in a way, but they are applying for the wrong reasons. The course is the important thing, with the degree the product of it. It's no wonder many Unis are considering more mature and foreign applications because they often better represent who Universities are for first and foremost - people genuinely interested in the subject they wish to study*. Another good reason for them setting their own entrance tests, methinks.

*and this where the 'all art students are lazy' argument can be thrown out of the window they allegedly stare out of all day. You won't find students more dedicated to their subject than in this much-derided quarter. But then I would say that, wouldn't I.

'This is an aviation term. It means pushing the aircraft to its limits, especially in the context of flight testing. Envelope has several secondary definitions referring to a collection of curves (mathematical and engineering jargon). So in the world of aeronautical engineering the envelope is the collection of curves that describe the maximum performance of an aircraft. To push the envelope is to take the aircraft to the edge of what it was designed to do and try and take it beyond.'

So it's flying bullshit then.

('Thinking outside of the box' being another blood-boiler.)

Yes, IB, the world of managerial gobbledygook is a frightening one and is one of the reasons I had to escape. One of the 'suits' at our regular meetings would openly and almost lovingly talk of 'focusing on the day job', whatever that was, 'parking that item', when he didn't have a good answer and 'big ticket issues' meaning something important. All complete and utter bunkum, of course.

Good stuff WillieBo. Interesting to actually hear from the horse?s mouth that A levels ARE easier now, and consequently, not so impressive or valuable as in days of yore.

Regarding The Right Honourable Tone; I thought he was the good guy in this debacle? Him and Charlie Clark put themselves through the political grinder earlier this year to let Unis of the leash, address the funding and dropout issues by letting them charge whatever they wanted and admit whomsoever took their fancy. They were thwarted by Labour back benchers and their adopted 'social consciences' who believe that it's not fair that only wealthy folk should be able to attend Oxbridge. Mart and Spook might be surprised to hear that I agree with that sentiment, up to a point.

If a pupil of modest means, from a working class, possibly chavey, background can demonstrate the requisite academic potential and commitment, then they should be fully funded by the state, without any stigma, to the Uni that will be best placed to develop their potential - whether that be Cambridge, Oxford or similar. Academic ability is the most precious thing and immensely valuable to the human race, to it progress, and indeed, to it's survival. It should be nurtured where ever it may germinate.

Where I part company with the socialists is that I believe that this largess should only apply to those with genuine ability. It would simply be squandered on the rest, who might not be up to it, would get bored, and then would fritter their time and student loans away on wine women and song, before dropping out. They would be wasting their time, the Unis time and our money.


Officer Dibble

Bunkum indeed and usually used by people who look exclusively in the Guardian's Society pages for employment as 'outreach coordinators', 'personal development managers' and hundreds, nay thousands, of other non-jobs that eat up public money.

Here, here! You stick it to 'em mi old son.


Officer Dibbs

Trust Officer Dibbs to bring up an interetsing subject.


Officer Dibble

Thanks, LW.

I take it from this you're an ex-art student, fed up no doubt with the normal derisions such courses often invoke. I posted something to Idol Droog about his decision to go to college/university or not for the coming term.

My belief is that people should read or study something they either love or do something vocational or that which will earn them money. One can't hide the fact that one of the greatest problems with higher education in Britain is the level of expectation. There is still the belief that a degree will naturally lead to a career in charge of ICI instead of 'you want fries with that ?'.

We seem to despise those who want to learn and study for its own sake ; I recall that fat, bat-eared bullyboy Charles Clarke deriding Medieval Studies. Obviously not something which resonates too much with New Labour. Far too redolent of an older Britain and one which this party seems terminally ashamed or embarrassed about ; they would no doubt prefer 'Soap Opera Studies' or 'Wife-Beating as a Metaphor for Impotence'.

But as I also said to ID, never underestimate the power of WHERE you study or learn. That can be a very meaningful statement just on its own.

Mature and foreign students are attractive to universities mainly because they generally mean more money are less trouble and usually more hard-working and dedicated. Certainly that's my experience and is mirrored by most of my colleagues.

I see your point here OD.

But new Labour's sudden love affair with tuition fees has very little to do with a social conscience or a desire to re-engineer university attandance or entrance by class. It was as a direct result of finding that Gay Gordon's tax incomes weren't matched by his redistributive spending commitments. Ergo, a huge black hole in a key part of the public finance.

They gambled that the issue would not be contentious. Once again their judgement was wrong. In many ways I believe in a free system of higher education but one into which entry is more difficult than now. Regardles of social class or origin. Without sounding too much like Robb Wilton, it was ever thus 'in my day'.

There is no point in having thousands upon thousands of students with devalued degrees who graduate into non-graduate jobs and who end up returning to their parental home and grotty bedroom. It's a waste of time and money on all fronts but satisfies poor underfunded colleges and universities and a government desperately trying to find ways of not paying the higher education bills. And don't forget Rev. Tony's unbelievably sad and hopeless love affair with things 'American-Style'.

It's about money ; the governmental lack of and not about education.

Well Dibble, for once I have to agree with you. I would be worried if an A level in Media Studies was the qualification to fly a plane or perform brain surgery.
However, until that becomes the case, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Mart