The Politics Thread

[BWFC_Insane]

Quick question to the BWFCI orecale, What in your eutopia is going to happen to the 50% who cannot get degrees? just asking your favourite question like! 'cause you keep asking me. I suppose we lower standards then we all can feel better eh?

Its about numbers Hobinho.

Its about how many people can we sustain in certain types of employment.

There are less jobs now that don't require qualifications. So the MORE people we can put through a degree and get educated to be fit for purpose in the modern workplace, the better.

At least in my view anyways!

[Worthy4England]

OK - from the inside - as a lecturer in a non-science subject...

I think that the 2(i) band has become a very troubled assessment. And the problem exists at both extremities of the grade. There is a serious reluctance from many academics when faced by a marginal 2(i)/first class piece of work to place the work in the first class category. And, since academics often have generous and sunny dispositions there's a tendency, i think, when faced with a marginal 2(ii)/2(i) piece of work to give the student the benefit of the doubt and put it into the higher category.

The result is the 2(i) degree includes students who are below average graduate achievement (since the majority of graduates get 2i those at the lower end of the band are below average) and students who are seriously good and may have missed a first by less than half a percentage point.

Many (inc external eaxaminers) recognise this as a problem, but still collude with a system that actually does very few a favour - the university, above average students (for whom their 2-i should be a recognised solid achievement), employers and graduate entry admission tutors, for post-grad study. The only ones that benefit are the marginal 2-ii students who creep into the band.

Some of us are trying to confront the issue...

An interesting insider perspective WtW. I think what the assessment of any academic achievement is not addressing currently, is whether the awarded mark is showing a comparison of achievement against the syllabus/a standard of learning, or achievement against fellow pupils. From a business perspective, you'd expect, if it was the latter, that similar percentages of people would come out with 2:1's today as they did "x" many years ago. The evidence tells us otherwise and that the number of people leaving University with a 2:1 or better has hiked up the best part of 10% in the last 10 years.

My understanding of "marking" when I did O levels was that roughly the same proportion who got grade A's, B's, C's last year would get them this year. If that meant moving the mark required for a particular grade up or down then so be it. Whilst this created the effect that generally people weren't getting any brighter (we only got the same amount of A's this year as last), it did create the differentiation between the performance of individual students, relative to each other.

What we appear to have now is the effect that all people are getting more intelligent (whilst to many observers) the standard has fallen. This suggests that people are being graded against some mythical "standard of learning" and not against each other. People have a real problem balancing these two opposite forces, especially when someone has a grade A* English and can't construct a sentence - it's fairly self evidential.

The problem that grads face because of this, is much more reliance on psychometric and aptitude testing to weed out the "good" from the "bad" - and I use those phrases fairly advisedly. So after 3 or 4 years hard work, you get a 1 hour psychometric test and some aptitude tests on Maths and English. I'm still at a loss as to how "dropping standards", changing the basis for measurement or any of the other developments over the past 20 years is either making us more intelligent as a nation or helping individuals into the workplace.

[Worthy4England]

Universities now though aren't just about a "degree" end of. There is all the compulsory more "general skills" courses that they teach alongside.

Like on my course we did project planning courses, IT courses, effective teamworking etc etc.

I remember hearing on't radio that employees were asked if they could bridge the gap, ie. if less went to University could they train and develop the range of skills universities did, and the answer was a pretty much resounding no. Then of course these employers went back to moaning about the quality of the kids they got from Higher education!

I'm completely lost on the point you're making as to how this relates to the value of a degree classification. We can teach those general skills to all and sundry without having to give them a 2:1. What exactly (or even approximately )is your point? That we're much better educated as a nation because we include these skills in a general curriculum and drop the pass mark to show that people can't really do any of them?

There's an interesting perspective from an ex-Professor here.

http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/decline.htm

[William the White]

What good's a history degree, anyway?

History's not the future, is it?

#History is the coming thing, mate. definitely...

[William the White]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Well Worthy - assessment isn't graded by comparison with other students in any direct way, but against published assessment criteria, giving descriptors for achievement within each band. I think this is right, for all kinds of reasons - most of them too obvious to go into. The problem is employing them rigorously enough. These days hardly anyone gets a third and very very few fail. (Though this is mostly because failing students tend to drop out early on).

I think there are plenty of decent arguments on both comparing against published assessment critera or comparing relative to the "average" student. The number of Firsts over the last 10 years has increased fairly dramatically as has the percentage of 2:1s, in answer to recent parliamentary questions. The perceived problem with the current method is that it doesn't feel like generally people are academically better and yet the academic results would appear to show that this is the case.

The bottom line is that many employers just don't believe it. Which isn't helping anyone.

[Worthy4England]

Errrr...

[InsaneApache]

Blimey Worthy did you have an attack of the DTs when you pressed enter?

[superjohnmcginlay]

Do you reckon its not helping anyone?

[Prufrock]

I'm with you that at Degree level certainly, the emphasis should be on applying knowledge (not sure that I've argued differently anywhere?) - that's pretty much the point of the dissertation element of Degrees anyhow, but many of the questions through the course work were about applying knowledge. But I don't think that should necessarily be just at Degree level, all levels of learning should ultimately be about what to do with the knowledge you have. So think we're all ok up to this point.

Regarding making the requirements and difficulty of Degrees much harder and what would happen to the vast numbers that didn't then go and do them. You're only postponing the inevitable selection process by deferring it. You give them a "bit more" education, but the recruitment processes will determine which ones get decent jobs, any jobs or no jobs. The marketplace will determine whether their degree is worth owt or nowt. For me, I'd rather that they took that challenge after A levels or O levels if their academic ability suggests that this is a more appropriate course of action. Learning in the workplace can be just as valuable, if not more so, than learning in an academic environment. Just dropping standards helps no-one - least of all the people who now think they have a valuable qualification and a mountain of debt, when the rest of the market-place doesn't see it that way (and sorry Pru - that's the way it is). Lets be clear all the teaching in the world will not make everyone academically the same. Some people are just better at academic skills than others.

Your final para confuses me (I blame the education system). The number of employers with good training schemes is a constant, regardless of the size of the grad pool. Similar with the number of less conscientious employers. I've yet to see anyone go from University to "look they can do everything we need them too without any training" on day 1 anywhere. So it's somewhat of a moot point. All we're doing with the current system is making the interview and selection process more onerous on employers as they now have to weed out individual's capabilities to a much higher degree than was previously the case, because they no longer believe that all 2:1's (for example) are remotely equal.

No need Worthy, because I think I agree. I'm not sure a degree in "....studies" from the Uni that used to be a polytechnic is the same as education for education's sake, of following academic interest. BWFCi slightly misunderstood me in that what I said applies not just to the arts. I realise people can have very real interests in mathematics and science in general on an academic level, that probably didn't come across given my own interests. If people at the age of 18 still have a very real interest in learning academically, I think they should be encouraged to do so, and to go on to further education to study that subject. What I don't understand is the newer brand of semi vocational degrees. I understand the need for some vocational degrees. Law and Medicine for instance, but, and I know people doing these sort of degrees, I'm not sure what you learn in say 'Media Studies', that you wouldn't learn within the three years on the job, whilst being paid a salary and contributing. I understand why kids go and do these degrees, it sounds like a good idea, and in many, though of course by no means all cases it sounds like a good excuse for a doss ( a thing I think you could say about all degrees though). However who actually benefits? In a very large number of cases, their employment prospects are not improved in the slightest, in many more only very slightly, and these kids come out with a massive debt. If their employment prospects aren't boosted, then they have a pointless debt (added to which in real terms is three years lost salary) and if they aren't getting graduate jobs, it is unlikely the government will get back it's full loan. Lose-Lose.

Within this context it is worth mentioning it is only going to get worse. THe government is trying and failing to sell student loans, as they have become much like toxic mortgages, and the increase to £7k, whilst helping short term, can only make things worse?

[TANGODANCER]

Aren't the University research departments supposed to liase with somebody to determine exactly what courses are required to meet the needs of industry? How many games processors and graphic designers do we actually need? The question's a serious one, since we seem to employ the young to come into the workplace and tell us exactly how many we need to make redundant. I speak from experience (not paticularly my own, but that of people around me.)

[thebish]

Aren't the University research departments supposed to liase with somebody to determine exactly what courses are required to meet the needs of industry? How many games processors and graphic designers do we actually need? The question's a serious one, since we seem to employ the young to come into the workplace and tell us exactly how many we need to make redundant. I speak from experience (not paticularly my own, but that of people around me.)

given that the computer games industry is worth £2billion retail sales in the UK and exports more than £100million a year - and that the UK is the third in size behind the US and Japan - currently employs about 30,000 people in the UK and is worth more in the UK than film and music combined - then I'd say, "quite a few"