Labour Party - You Can't Even Make It Up

it was an aspiration, uncosted, but sounded good....

 

Actually you can make it up which is what's happening.
The clearing of existing debt was not in the manifesto and Corbyn only ever said he was "looking at ways to reduce......" but don't let that stop you.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...es-election-2017-uk-latest-news-a7765931.html

JC: “First of all, we want to get rid of student fees altogether. We’ll do it as soon as we get in, and we’ll then introduce legislation to ensure that any student going from the 2017-18 academic year will not pay fees. They will pay them, but we’ll rebate them when we’ve got the legislation through – that’s fundamentally the principle behind it. Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden. I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage – I don’t think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly; we had two weeks to prepare all of this – but I’m very well aware of that problem. And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it.”

 

Much as it pains me I have to agree that it was never a commitment, he did however unrealistically raise hopes.

 

My daughter graduated last week after a 4 year course so this subject has my attention.

To my mind Corbyn said quite clearly that Labour would look at what was possible and as far as I know that hasn't changed so I don't see how any unrealistic hopes can have been raised.
The OP suggests that "most people with half a brain could see straight through this bollocks". Maybe that's the point, the young adults who "jumped on the bullshit band wagon" are recent graduates, under graduates and future graduates which suggests that they have rather more than half a brain.
They did however see right through May's rhetoric.

 

has it not been the aim of successive governments to push youngsters into HE? When I left school at 16, I think there were maybe 4 lads from my school who went on to uni, as it was not accessible.

The push by successive governements to get more people into HE has to be seen as a noble cause (surely as a soceity we aim for our kids to be better educated and better off than ourselves, and hopefully keep ahead of other up and coming nations), but should not be at the expense of vocational education - society needs both. I believe the apprenticeship system has been totally devalued to what historically would have been YTS or in some instances cheap labour. The youngsters are more and more being pushed into cheap labour in the race to the bottom by "disruptive" technologies (or bullshit parlance for cheating the system and exploiting the needy).

Cynically, it may be seen that the use of "apprenticeships" (I have a personal bugbear with this current system as I served an indentured apprenticeship back in the eighties), FE, HE and other tools of mass data/person manipulation are just political connivances for keeping the "out of work and claiming benefits" numbers as visibly low as possible.

Should we blame youngsters for seeing uni as a potential way out of working in the gig economy, or being pushed from "apprenticeship" to zero hours contracts, when they have been sold the dream by successive political parties? The vast majority of youngsters I know are wanting to work , and work as hard and high as they can (and as a coach of junior rugby teams for the past 9 years, I have "worked with" a lot of young men and women), yes there are a few exceptions, but they are, in my experience, in the minority. Maybe I am lucky in that I am exposed to youngsters who have a work ethic and team building mentality, that get up on a cold and wet Sunday morning to enjoy getting stuck in with their mates.

Pete

 

Watching the same thing unfold at my brother's, his eldest went to uni, his youngest didn't. The eldest is scraping by, whilst the youngest has just moved jobs and is earning a fair bit more than the eldest, and has no debt hanging around his neck. Watching some family members take sides is painful and sometimes brings out the bad side of people. We are fortunate to live in a soceity that gives us rights to free medical care, social safety net (and yes, that does get abused by too many), an similar, but nobody has a right to dictate that "x deserves more than y" except when that latter is a politician (had to get that in there - feel better now )

Pete

 

Looking forward to learning more, first hand, on this subject soon.

No1 son didn't go to uni, No2 son dropped out after a year. Both are doing well in their jobs with No1 earning ridiculous money and No2 earning well but working sixty hours per week. Just heard that No2's work wants to put him through uni - they really like him - and that will change the dynamic as No1 son will potentially have to cope with not being top banana for much longer. On the other hand, No1 is really good at his job and will doubtless go far in it ... sibling rivalry is a terrible thing.

I am intensely grateful that both my sons like to work and to earn a living. It didn't look it was going to go that way while they were teenagers.

 

I'd like to agree with this many many many times but I only get 1 vote.

 

The other part to the degree is that it used to mean something and in some ways it exclusivity meant an employer genuinely would pay a degree premium for that new employee

Now we all know a lot of degree's are just kids messing around and uni's making shit degree's up just to get the income, see's the market flooded with people with degree's and most employers view most degree's as mickey mouse.

A comparison would be , when I was a kid, Lonsdale clothing had a premium and wasn't widespread, now sports direct sells it and the only people that wear it, appear on Jeremy Kyle most days but yet the name is still Lonsdale.

I saw an interview yesterday that said, in 40 years time, there will be 30% more automation and so 30% less human jobs. A degree is no longer a guaranty of anything other than debt so you have to be very smart in your choice and career path. The days of I have a degree so I am entitled to a job and a well paid one are over.

 

How did you go about meeting the vast majority of students?

 

He attended some Corbyn rallies.

 

But not Corbyn's.

 

I think those days ended some time ago and it will only get worse. In the past it was the lower paid who were made redundant whereas now, with AI, all sorts of previously highly regarded jobs will be under threat.

 

As someone who works in HE I have a hugely biased opinion on this. The idea behind the massification of HE was to enable any individual, regardless of background to be able to access futher education. Unfortunately what resulted was any individual more or less regardless of ability is able to access HE. All that had to happen was to create programmes for those who failed to meet the entrance criteria for the proper degrees. But it doesnt start there. The failure to fail starts way earlier down the system with results driven education. I see a good number of students who have learned nothing more than how to 'pass the exam' without ever really thinking about what they are doing. Teachers at all levels are afraid of failing the students as they, and their places of work, 'look bad' if they do. By creating targets all that happens is people try their hardest to make the results look good.

I lecture on a programme that used to be a work based diploma a bit like an apprenticeship. I can guarentee you that in the main the students understood more then than they do now. A huge part of this is how they end up on the programme. Our entrance tarif is ABB A Level or equivelant. The number of students on our programme with actual A levels at those grades is pretty low... how does that happen? Access courses.... BTEC.... Neither of these is anyhere near the same level of attainment as A levels. The tariff is set high to artificially inflate our position in the league tables (we actually lose out some good A level students because of this who may only achieve lower grades but are probably still a better candidate!) because guess what.... we dont get as many good honours as other programmes because our students arent as well qualified on entry.... But then what the institution does is manipulate the regulations to artificially inflate the number of good honours. Many Universities including this one move the grade boundaries, a 1st used to be an average over 70%... its now 68 and so on down the classification bands. They also discount the lowest 20 credits in years 2 and 3 from the calculation and bingo.... we look good on paper while all the time failing the students, ourselves and society as a whole in the process.

Im not sure where I sit on the fees debate. On the fence probably. I'm a fan of Corbyn in recent times but I dont think there's an easy answer to making sure the right people access HE. I think more needs to be done in earlier years and to raise the profile of the many other career paths available and lose the idea that HE is for everyone but make it accessible to those that would really benefit from it.

 

The above comments by "its just a ride" make an awful lot of sense.