Farage

[MalcolmW]

I agree that expanding the University network has undermined the value of degrees, however pretty sure that most industries recognise the difference between a degree in classics from a red brick university and a degree in needlework and art from the university of clechuddersfax. (Some might argue a degree in needlework is more use than classics but the point is the intellectual quality of the person likely to be doing the relevant course)

 

The whole exercise, as is keeping kids in school till 18 is an exercise to improve the unemployment figures rather than an attempt to broaden people's minds.

 

I have no idea what % of loans are repaid! but if they were nt at college what would they have been doing in last 3 years ? There has hardly been a glut of jobs.(edit http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26688018 45% are projected not to repay the higher fees compared to 28%previouslly)

 

This does not mean we should criticise people who are working to improve themselves, the old days where as long you had O level maths and English and you would be alight are long gone. If you need a degree to get a job and a kid is prepared to take on the debt and work for the qualification patronising them in the way your post does is totally unfair. There again they could just accept their circumstances and do fuck all.

 

Out if interest you have long been Tory Boy on here, who are you thinking of voting for in the next election ?

 

There are a lot of issues around Universities.

First generation students tend not to receive helpful advice in selecting unis and tend to apply to a lower level than they could aspire to.

Students from a middle-class background are much more likely to apply at an appropriate level, and far far more likely to apply to one of the 24 Russell Group unis.

There are plenty other unis of reasonable overall quality, and many with good areas of speciality, but overall a Russell Group uni is better in 99 cases out of 100.

What has happened in recent years is that far more working class kids go to "uni" but actually less go to the majors.

Middle class kids go in very high numbers, but a far higher proportion go to Russell Groups unis than do so from a working class background.

No longer is education the key to advancing the social scale. Instead the education of a student's parents matters far more than ever before, which is just plain wrong.

[bolty58]

The world needs more skilled tradesmen - not reams and reams of over qualified street sweepers and burger flippers.

 

There should be far more accent on Technical Colleges and Technology Institutes and far less folk learning calculus, Latin and other relatively useless skills.

[bgoefc]

University is a 3 year piss up with utterly marginal economic benefit. It used to be useful as a screening device (i.e. you wouldn't be allowed to go unless you were bright, so it signaled to employers that you were worth having) but now every bugger goes, it is just a subsidised holiday before adulthood starts. The idea that an intelligent person with 3 or 4 As at A level is rendered significantly more productive by University as opposed to 3 years well payed on the job experience is utterly laughable.

 

The tone of your posts on here  suggest you are very right wing. Nowt wrong with that, but you seem to believe everything about life revolves around the economy and business. Pretty sad.

 

I have to say that your statement on students smacks of of someone who is institutionalised and needs to go out asn experienced life from a different perspective to the obvious closeted one he or she has thus far experienced.

[Smiffs]

Unfortunately, modern day life does now revolve around the economy and business.

 

You might not want to accept it and in your own environment it might not be a driving factor, but the world around you ensures it does.

 

Shame really because I reckon I would be happy living on a sunny island, where the only thing I had to worry about was which animal I had to shoot for dinner.

[Guest]

The world needs more skilled tradesmen - not reams and reams of over qualified street sweepers and burger flippers.

 

There should be far more accent on Technical Colleges and Technology Institutes and far less folk learning calculus, Latin and other relatively useless skills.

 

Yes. But it would be rather low an aspiration to train just a generation of plumbers and carpenters. Plus the world also needs people who can innovate and design and problem solve. And it needs scientists, mathematicians, writers and IT experts.

 

The balance might be wrong but certainly writing off University education as a whole is not right either.

[bolty58]

 

The balance might be wrong but certainly writing off University education as a whole is not right either.

 

 

...and who the fuck did that? Does 'far less' mean 'none' these days?

 

Selective hearing and reading methinks. Sounds like we may actually be agreeing.

[Smiffs]

Rather low aspiration? Fuck me that's a condescending view when a decent brickie can pull a grand a week!

 

What about the plumber who starts on the tools in the roughest of conditions and then develops his career to become a top M&E designer on the world largest airport?

 

Or the carpenter who with experience and intelligence, designs and installs formwork for multimillion pound rail tunnel?

 

I've been working in my industry for over 25 years and the best people have always come from site level. The fuckwits are generally the ones who have come into the industry at 26 with a degree. I did my degree on day release and nightschool over 4 years in my mid 20's...have I ever needed it? Have I bollocks. I was sat there thinking 'I learned this when I was 18 years old covered in shit and concrete with a piling rig up my arse' but thought I HAD to have a degree to be successful.

 

There is a place for everyone, the educated and the grafters. To look at one of them as having low aspirations because they are better with their hands than their brains is insulting to them when the one with the brains might struggle screwing a lightbulb on.

[Sweep]

 the one with the brains might struggle screwing a lightbulb on.

 

Do you have to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise? - I always get confused 

[tomski]

Rather low aspiration? Fuck me that's a condescending view when a decent brickie can pull a grand a week!

 

What about the plumber who starts on the tools in the roughest of conditions and then develops his career to become a top M&E designer on the world largest airport?

 

Or the carpenter who with experience and intelligence, designs and installs formwork for multimillion pound rail tunnel?

 

I've been working in my industry for over 25 years and the best people have always come from site level. The fuckwits are generally the ones who have come into the industry at 26 with a degree. I did my degree on day release and nightschool over 4 years in my mid 20's...have I ever needed it? Have I bollocks. I was sat there thinking 'I learned this when I was 18 years old covered in shit and concrete with a piling rig up my arse' but thought I HAD to have a degree to be successful.

 

There is a place for everyone, the educated and the grafters. To look at one of them as having low aspirations because they are better with their hands than their brains is insulting to them when the one with the brains might struggle screwing a lightbulb on.

Spot on for all those with degrees and a real skill, plenty of dummies also have degrees. Same on the flip side of those who haven't.

[Gonk]

Rather low aspiration? Fuck me that's a condescending view when a decent brickie can pull a grand a week!

 

What about the plumber who starts on the tools in the roughest of conditions and then develops his career to become a top M&E designer on the world largest airport?

 

Or the carpenter who with experience and intelligence, designs and installs formwork for multimillion pound rail tunnel?

 

I've been working in my industry for over 25 years and the best people have always come from site level. The fuckwits are generally the ones who have come into the industry at 26 with a degree. I did my degree on day release and nightschool over 4 years in my mid 20's...have I ever needed it? Have I bollocks. I was sat there thinking 'I learned this when I was 18 years old covered in shit and concrete with a piling rig up my arse' but thought I HAD to have a degree to be successful.

 

There is a place for everyone, the educated and the grafters. To look at one of them as having low aspirations because they are better with their hands than their brains is insulting to them when the one with the brains might struggle screwing a lightbulb on.

 

Thinly veiled they'd give a degree to anyone since the eighties

[tyldesley_white]

Rather low aspiration? Fuck me that's a condescending view when a decent brickie can pull a grand a week!

 

What about the plumber who starts on the tools in the roughest of conditions and then develops his career to become a top M&E designer on the world largest airport?

 

Or the carpenter who with experience and intelligence, designs and installs formwork for multimillion pound rail tunnel?

 

I've been working in my industry for over 25 years and the best people have always come from site level. The fuckwits are generally the ones who have come into the industry at 26 with a degree. I did my degree on day release and nightschool over 4 years in my mid 20's...have I ever needed it? Have I bollocks. I was sat there thinking 'I learned this when I was 18 years old covered in shit and concrete with a piling rig up my arse' but thought I HAD to have a degree to be successful.

 

There is a place for everyone, the educated and the grafters. To look at one of them as having low aspirations because they are better with their hands than their brains is insulting to them when the one with the brains might struggle screwing a lightbulb on.

Have a plus 1 from me

[Guest]

...and who the fuck did that? Does 'far less' mean 'none' these days?

 

Selective hearing and reading methinks. Sounds like we may actually be agreeing.

 

I didn't mean you wrote it off, sorry I can see why you thought I did. I was referring to what others were saying about University Education.

 

As for agreeing, we are broadly. Though I suspect where the line is drawn we may disagree on somewhat. I think Uni should be for more than the top few percents. I think 50% going is fine. My main worry is what happens with the other 50% and that is where I agree we need to be making sure vocational training is given far more emphasis and those people aren't seen as thickos (though some of them might be to be fair!).

[Guest]

Rather low aspiration? Fuck me that's a condescending view when a decent brickie can pull a grand a week!

 

What about the plumber who starts on the tools in the roughest of conditions and then develops his career to become a top M&E designer on the world largest airport?

 

Or the carpenter who with experience and intelligence, designs and installs formwork for multimillion pound rail tunnel?

 

I've been working in my industry for over 25 years and the best people have always come from site level. The fuckwits are generally the ones who have come into the industry at 26 with a degree. I did my degree on day release and nightschool over 4 years in my mid 20's...have I ever needed it? Have I bollocks. I was sat there thinking 'I learned this when I was 18 years old covered in shit and concrete with a piling rig up my arse' but thought I HAD to have a degree to be successful.

 

There is a place for everyone, the educated and the grafters. To look at one of them as having low aspirations because they are better with their hands than their brains is insulting to them when the one with the brains might struggle screwing a lightbulb on.

 

Yeah I agree. My point wasn't about someone being a plumber or a joiner being individually "low aspiration" at all.

 

It just means that as a nation IMO we should be aspiring to have a varied and mixed set of skills coming out of education and people with the whole variety should be respected. It would be aspirationally low as a nation to say we're just going to train everyone for a vocation because we'd be missing out on loads of stuff. It doesn't mean those jobs are aspirationally low at all. Just that we should be producing the right balance. I think again broadly we're in agreement.

[Ani]

Do you have to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise? - I always get confused 

I went to Smiffs office once and he has a board behind his desk says 'righty tightly! lefty lucy'

[jules_darby]

I went to Smiffs office once and he has a board behind his desk says 'righty tightly! lefty lucy'

Is it not "loosey"? 

 

Or was this Smiffs taking advantage of his office staff?

[bolty58]

I didn't mean you wrote it off, sorry I can see why you thought I did. I was referring to what others were saying about University Education.

 

As for agreeing, we are broadly. Though I suspect where the line is drawn we may disagree on somewhat. I think Uni should be for more than the top few percents. I think 50% going is fine. My main worry is what happens with the other 50% and that is where I agree we need to be making sure vocational training is given far more emphasis and those people aren't seen as thickos (though some of them might be to be fair!).

 

 

Fair enough. As I said, I thought we were actually agreeing.

 

Remember where I am where skills are at an absolute premium. We have reams and reams of kids leaving school aspiring to be Marine Biologists. Australia needs two per annum and yet there are 50,000 aspiring to be one each year. Ridiculous. No one is showing kids the lifestyle a good mechanical fitter, electrician, plumber etc. can have down here. They earn well above what 90% of office workers earn and probably pay the wages of BA and Bsc level burger flippers.

 

My lad listened to me and went into mechanical engineering as a Fitter/Turner apprentice.In his early 30's, will soon own his own place, drives a big, fuck off 4WD and is now starting to think about investment properties. One of the lads he went to school with went to Uni, got his degree and is living hand to mouth. Ironically, we use him as a Casual Labourer from time to time to put a few bob in his pocket. He scrapes a living doing odds and sods like this for other people too. Hell of a nice lad of Greek heritage. His parents had stars in their eyes and had visions of him attending Uni and becoming a dentist or a doctor.

[Not in Crawley]

I went to an ex poly. Gave me a chance after I fecked me a levels up. Everyone else who is a director at my company went to either Oxbridge or Durham. Either they have failed or I've over achieved but I doubt both of those statements are true. Earn enough to be in a rather ridiculously high tax band. Paid my student loan back years ago. Gave me a chance for the career I have.

 

I don't see why you're getting on your high horse about it.

 

As for the nazi promo at the Ukip conference. It was an event pr company who charged 6k fee just to do it. Free enterprise, thought you'd be all for it Maaarsh.

[bolty58]

 

I don't see why you're getting on your high horse about it.

 

 

 

 

Who?

 

Anyway, glad to see me mate's back.

[Not in Crawley]

Oh Maaarsh. He seems to be a bit upset about people getting degrees from non red bricks.

 

I must admit though I did a lecture for a few years on marketing on a performing arts degree course in Folkestone which had it's degrees ratified by Greenwich uni I think. Those kids thought they would be actors or something other. I doubt most of them could write in basic paragraphs. There is something about giving decent career choices rather than letting kids rack up thousands of pounds in debt without a real hope. But it's all about taking that opportunity offered. I worked for free for eight months at the green room in Manchester hounding them after doing a degree placement there. Worked on the box office to earn some money then they offered me a job in the marketing debt. Left after a year for a starter job in Canterbury. You have to be willing to take poorly paid jobs, move away from friends and family and live a bit of a nomadic life for a good 15-20 years before you can start earning in this game.

 

Sometimes it's not about the course or uni but making the most of the opportunities that it offers and not sit on your arse expecting to walk into a top job. But also, I was lucky. I certainly had parental support when I first left to see me through pausing a bill here and there; not everyone has that. I also worked harder once I left as I knew I'd fucked up my a levels and wanted to prove I was just as good as those who got the grades that went to the unis that offered me places and had to turn me down once my results came in. Gave me a proper kick up the arse.

 

To make sweeping generalisations that only those who get into red bricks should be allowed to go to uni is a farce.

 

I certainly got this job because I offer something else to the company and the exec team - sales mainly! I'm now glad of the experiences and can look back and say it was hard but worth it. For folk to just dismiss it shows a pretty high level of disconnect with actual reality.

[MalcolmW]

My cross-country colleague at school did languages (French and German to 'A' level). He did not want a literature-based course, as was offered by all the major unis, but chose to do a business-related language course at Salford, dual honours in German and Italian (the latter from scratch). It was a four-year course, as is standard for modern languages, with the third year on placements for 6 months each in Italy and Germany.

He worked for the US Navy in Trieste, which was very well paid, and then Bayer in Leverkusen, who gave him the offer of a post from when he graduated. He took a year out after graduating, simply gambling on horses, and being kept by his radiographer girlfriend. Then he went to work as a translator in the European Parliament. After about 40 years in Luxemburg and Brussels they have now retired to Shropshire.

Sadly, Salford no longer has language courses.

[mannyroad58]

I totally agree with Smiffs, the 1st thing companies are looking for these days is a degree in whatever, no-one wants anyone with common sense and years of experience, all that counts for fuck all these days. I've experienced this in the industry i work in. In a few generations time the country will be full of pen pushers and the skilled man/woman will be nowhere to be seen.

 

Big Investment in skilled apprenticeships is needed because without investment in the building industry the country struggles

[Smiffs]

bwfcfan5...if you can get some computer boffin to fix my laptop to allow it to use the 'quote' function then their education will have been worthwhile

 

Like I said there's a place in life for everyone, grafters and rocket surgeons. The last generation which came through Tony Blairs nanny state were misguided in their aspirations by society. Education education education. Proper overkill. Sold as a essential tool to succeed.

 

Want to earn that extra quid an hour? Get a NVQ in dumper driving (providing you pass a 349 question written assessment first!).

 

Some of the lads can't read or right but could strip the dumper down and put it back together with nothing more than a spoon and a big stick, yet because they fail the theory can't do the practical tests. It's bollocks!!

 

Now if you're an impressionable kid in high school, you believe the hype that you have to be highly educated to succeed in life, which to the grown ups we know is utter nonsense.

 

The system alienates young bright kids who might not be academically brilliant, but have so many other talents.

[Youri McAnespie]

If there's skill shortages, what's needed is an easier path into trades for older folk, including those who erroneously thought themselves to be 'above' that line of work...

 

It's pretty difficult to get into a trade if you went down the 'academic' route and then later realise you've dropped a bollock, if another who took the other pathway wants to study at University level in later life, the chances are, generally, there - to my knowledge the same opportunities don't exist for the graduate (or failed graduate) to take up.

[Not in Crawley]

I don't think so, the amount of courses means you don't have to have an academic slant to gain meaningful qualifications anymore.

 

It's about making the right choice for you, but denying qualifications is a rather extreme view.

[Smiffs]

You're right there YM, and as there is a skills shortage it a tough one to link A with B.

 

The solution lies with the person themselves - they can go to college to do learn the basics of a trade...but are they willing to start at the bottom on labourers rates when they are highly qualified in a different profession? They need to be realistic in their expectations.

 

For 'professionals' I've got a QS working with me, mid 30's and 5 years ago was driving a taxi, 10 years ago working as a sheet metal worker. Went to Uni and got a degree in QSing and started here on not much more than an apprentice wage because he was raw. What he had though was effort and aspiration in a field he knew nothing about. He's progressed well, earning decent money, and created a career path for himself, but he's the exception rather than the rule which is a shame.