Students

[tobyaw]

Student tuition fees was the big issue in English politics today. Clegg defended his position at PMQs, while the NUS marched outside. There was potential to damage the coalition, particularly with the politically opportunist change of heart on fees by Labour.

But then it all went wrong for the students: the protests descended into violence and confrontation, and the news channels were filled with students expressing astonishing levels of entitlement. Students justifying their bully-boy tactics made for pretty unpleasant listening. I felt great sympathy for the people working in the Millbank Tower and at 30 Millbank, and in the surrounding area.

The students' message appeared to be that they want taxpayers to give them money, and if they don't, violence will follow. Isn't that a protection racket?

What a nasty bunch.

Comments

[tobyaw]

Broadly I agree with you, but I think a data-based approach to tax-payer funded investments would be welcome.

To be able to justify funding education as an investment in the future of the nation, there must be measurable results. I think it would be a much easier argument to make if the subjects being funded were robustly defended. Hard sciences and the traditionally-academic arts subjects would have no problem in justifying their funding — indeed, there are good arguments to be made for increasing the funding of some subjects.

But other subjects are much weaker. Cross-discliplinary courses that provide no more than an overview of each subject should have no place in a university. Lop out any degree course with “studies” in its title, lose any law courses that aren’t proper legal qualifications, get rid of any business courses that don’t result in an MBA. Why should vocational courses be masquerading as three-years of full-time academic study? There is a lot of chaff in universities. I just hope the cuts meet their deserving targets.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Why should vocational courses be masquerading as three-years of full-time academic study?
OK, so this has drifted into the "academic vs vocational" argument, which is itself a valid and interesting one. Personally I'm inclined to agree with you to at least some extent. We desperately need to get rid of the snobbish attitude that many people have to vocational subjects, although I do think there's something to be said for a bit of cross-pollination: give the vocational people some academic grounding, and give the academic types some experience of more practical matters.

I suspect what happened is that the universities, desperate for money, spotted a niche in the market, and used their academic credentials to entice people onto courses which should probably have remained as practical training programmes. But I can't blame them - they were encouraged to do so by the government of the day, and they needed to find some money from somewhere.