Today I'm angry about.....

[Gooner Girl]

today i am angry about i-tunes. It somehow lost all my music switching to IE 9 or whatever it is. Just taken Mr Gooner Girl and myself ages to figure out what was going on.

it'll be a relief getting all that ABBA off your hard disk...

How DARE YOU diss Abba!?!

[Worthy4England]

I don't doubt that your parents worked damned hard and made sacrifices to try to buy their beloved son an advantage over others.

I certainly don't blame them or criticise them either.

But do you expect me to praise it as a social model?

I suppose the only answer is: do you expect me to see it as a 'social model'?

I'm sure you find my thinking depressingly limited in commenting on what the world is, rather than that what is could be, but in this imperfect world in which less money is spent on educating on children than there should be, I find it impossible to conclude that the right thing to would be to punish the offspring of parents who have invested in their education by instituting quotas that work against them.

Incidentally, what quotas do you propose? I don't have the numbers to hand, but the state/private school divide is not as stark when one simply looks at all thoughs who met the grade requirements or even simply at all those who actually applied to Oxbridge. Another complication is that Oxbridge offer courses in subjects that most state schools don't teach (e.g. classics).

What you describe are universities for the privileged, staffed by the privileged and, as you describe, with a teaching practice designed for the articulate (but not necessarily more intelligent than others) children of the privileged. No other universities can come close to being able to afford this pedagogy. You are happy with this, indeed seem to celebrate it...

I'm not surprised. Most beneficiaries of it will...

Others may feel it's a way of ensuring the continuation of privileged education denied to others of equal intelligence and, apart from where they were born, potential...

Still, I'm pleased to find an articulate voice from the right returning... You been busy since graduation?

Universities for the privileged? Yes, it's an enormous privilege to go to Oxford or Cambridge, but in what sense were the many many friends I had at Cambridge who went to 'ordinary' comprehensives priviliged before they were admitted there?

It would be great if our other universities could afford to teach in the same way, but if they can't, is the correct response to that to change the practices of two places that you yourself argue are so good that it's a social disaster if not everyone has equal opportunity to attend them?

And yes, I have been busy since moving to London and have fallen out of the habit of going on the internet in my spare time! Incidentally, I don't know if it received any attention on here, but your excellent contributions to the matchday programme were the highlights of an otherwise largely miserable Wembley semi-final day.

Since I've not been downright argumentative for a while, I'd like to put forward the thought that quotas at any University wouldn't actually solve very much of anything.

If there's to be a true meritocracy, it needs to start much earlier than when people go to Uni...

Private schools don't help the balance. People who might otherwise have been average can occasionally do better than average, because of the privilege of better teachers in smaller class environments. Grammar Schools probably don't help the balance much either. That said, I'm not sure there's a good answer. A parent determined for their children to do well could easily arrange private tuition (on the black market if it was made illegal to ensure no-one got a head start ) or even supplement their children's learning with their own time.

I recall my parents once discussing the possibility that they would pay for my schooling - which they decided they didn't need to when I passed for grammar. My comment then was no different then, than now. Wouldn't have thanked them for it.

Without being blind to the old school tie club, it might help the mediocre achieve more than they otherwise would, but it'll never make them more than mediocre...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Since I've not been downright argumentative for a while, I'd like to put forward the thought that quotas at any University wouldn't actually solve very much of anything.

If there's to be a true meritocracy, it needs to start much earlier than when people go to Uni...

Absolutely. And for what it's worth, despite the well-intended words of Lyndon B. Johnson, quoted above, whose achievements on Civil Rights stand comparison with any president, I disagree with any affirmative action in the form of positively discriminating quotas, as all that does is get in the way of true equality - putting a veneer over the way people really think is never the best way to go about things (and can sometimes deepen division), in my view.

But anyway, yes, giving universities quotas to abide by (in the fantasy world where Oxford and Cambridge can be told what to do in this way) is not the way to solve anything. It's too late by then - you can't tell elite (it's not a dirty word) universities (or, to be more accurate about how the process works, the heads of subject choosing their small group for their subject at each individual college) that they have to choose their students to fit social engineering targets. At the moment, someone from a comprehensive in an Oxbridge lecture theatre knows that they have earned their place among the best and can look anyone in the eye and say they deserve to be there - how damaging would it be for those students if it could constantly be speculated that they were just there to make up the numbers?

you yourself argue are so good that it's a social disaster if not everyone has equal opportunity to attend them?

No I didn't make that argument. It's a long way down my disaster index.

In the end the gulf between us is - as always - unbridgeable.

You didn't argue that directly, I suppose, but it seemed to me to be suggested by the things you and Napalm were saying (and the things he said that you wanted to endorse with a kiss).

It may be that the gulf between is unbridgeable, but not to the extent that it renders all discussion useless. It's always interesting to thrash out a difference of opinion when you respect the other side.

I honestly find this obsession with valuing only raw, native intelligence, and detaching that from other things, such as a person's ability to articulate their intelligent insights, to be slightly puzzling. Should employers, for example, be criticised for looking beyond raw intelligence at other qualities they value?

All normative stuff aside, the one thing I can bring to this discussion is some direct, relevant experience. I have to tell you, honestly, that Cambridge does not feel like a place that "ensures the continuation of privileged education denied to others of equal intelligence and, apart from where they were born, potential..." The public perception is that the place is overrun by Hooray Henrys or that it is one big Brideshead Revisited parody, but it just isn't the case. It's very difficult for me to accept this caricatured view of the place when I know so many people from normal or underprivileged backgrounds for whom the Cambridge education and experience has enabled them to get jobs in the top law firms, banks, newspapers, corporations and the Civil Service.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

if we are to genuinely have an educational system that allows for "social mobility" then, what you describe as essential attributes to get in to the ("seriously unusual"??- should it be so?) environment of our best universities discriminate against bright, state educated students who invariably though not always come from lower aspirational families. we seem to basically agree on this.

I don't really know what you mean when you ask "should it be so?" - I'm just telling you the way it is! Are you saying that top universities should not be seriously unusual places?

where we disagree is that you don't seem to anything wrong or harmful to society in this. Of course i don't think universities purposefully discriminate (although why father's occupation and " whether anyone in your family went to University" appears as questions on UCAS applications mystifies me unless it is to discriminate in some way) but, if the criteria for selection depends partly on attributes that middle class students are immersed in from an early age through family and throughout their academic pre-18 lives if attending public school then i suggest that is in itself discriminatory.

Of course i can see the harm in not getting the most out of our human capital, which is what discrimination against people on irrelevant grounds would entail. But would it make sense to call it 'discrimination' if you hired one teacher over another because he was better at communicating with children?

Those UCAS questions are an interesting one... for what it's worth, my Director of Studies - a wonderful, liberal lady, much closer to your politics than mine - once told me that she wished there could be even more questions like that on the UCAS! The way she sees it is that sometimes a less privileged background can explain a certain lack of polish, and she's more likely to give someone with a background like that the benefit of the doubt, which is what you want.

[Hoboh]

Bloody elite educational types clogging up the should be stickied angry thread!!!

Go to your grown up schools, learn or teach and shut the feck up!

Some of these "Uni" campus's would be easy to convert to shopping centres IMHO

[Big_Sharps]

All students should be gassed.

[Raven]

Stupid Camerons big society..whats that bullshite all about, I know crime has gone up in my area as the cuts have started and next year going to have to fork out £300.00 a year more on bus fairs than they did last year for my daughter to go to college and it takes longer to get there due to some buses being cut!

[BWFC_Insane]

Stupid Camerons big society..whats that bullshite all about, I know crime has gone up in my area as the cuts have started and next year going to have to fork out £300.00 a year more on bus fairs than they did last year for my daughter to go to college and it takes longer to get there due to some buses being cut!

Ring that nice David C up and see if he'll give her a lift for free. Big society in operation.

[Raven]

Good idea, you reckon I could borrow one of his big cars to take her to prom..

Angry about that too...when did we start having Proms, should have stayed in the states!

[Prufrock]

The UCAS questions, for the record, are not, and in my view obviously not, so that admissions folk can see who they can choose for nepotistic privilege. Many (all the ones from whom my cousin received offers) if not the vast majority of universities have bursary funds dedicated to students who are the first member of their family to go to university. So it isn't it fact daddy is a doctor, but rather the positive discrimination folk were calling for.

On a personal note, I went to private school, and there are so many skills I obtained from the standard of teaching, the individuality allowed them, the ethos and style of the place that have and will help me massively in life. The question in my view shouldn't be how do we stop certain people gaining these unfair advantages, but rather how do we make them available to all.

[BWFC_Insane]

People who crticise those who are getting an education or have had an education. It angers me.

Education is a good thing. Academic pursuits are also a good thing. It doesn't mean that folk who aren't degree educated or that are "non-academic" are any worse, of course not. But the bitterness about education still confuses me.

A lot of employers now are only interested in graduates. If you haven't got a degree your options are limited. You can't blame kids who want to have those options and go to University. The myth that the majority of them are just "dossing around getting hammered" is simply that a myth. Most work hard and have to in order to prevail. Of course some do not, but then in the working world there are plenty of examples as well.

The phrase "bloody students" grates. One of those "bloody students" may well one day perfect a new surgery that will save your life, or they may invent a cancer busting drug. Ultimately like everyone else they are living in the world as it is, not a fictional "in my day..." world that seems to be invented by some folk on here.

I've interviewed some right numpties, degree educated and not. And both sides of the fence have some issues. But on the whole ignorance and lack of understanding only seems to come from one side!

[superjohnmcginlay]

Bloody students.

[CrazyHorse]

People who crticise those who are getting an education or have had an education. It angers me.

How is this any different to those with an education looking down their noses at those without?

A lot of employers now are only interested in graduates. If you haven't got a degree your options are limited

This isn't a good thing. A degree should reflect the cream of the population. Not that 95% have to have one because they can't get a job without.

The myth that the majority of them are just "dossing around getting hammered" is simply that a myth.

Poppycock.

[Worthy4England]

I honestly find this obsession with valuing only raw, native intelligence, and detaching that from other things, such as a person's ability to articulate their intelligent insights, to be slightly puzzling. Should employers, for example, be criticised for looking beyond raw intelligence at other qualities they value?

I agree, can't detatch one from the other.

But. There's nothing more amusing that giving someone an intellectual spanking because they've managed, by dint of some old school tie, to get into a position in society that they don't have the mental faculties to deal with.

I'm dealing with one such person at the moment in some contract negotiations. Has all the airs and graces - thick as a fecking brick.

It's more fun than any bloodsports. Hooray!

[thebish]

All normative stuff aside, the one thing I can bring to this discussion is some direct, relevant experience. I have to tell you, honestly, that Cambridge does not feel like a place that "ensures the continuation of privileged education denied to others of equal intelligence and, apart from where they were born, potential..." The public perception is that the place is overrun by Hooray Henrys or that it is one big Brideshead Revisited parody, but it just isn't the case. It's very difficult for me to accept this caricatured view of the place when I know so many people from normal or underprivileged backgrounds for whom the Cambridge education and experience has enabled them to get jobs in the top law firms, banks, newspapers, corporations and the Civil Service.

I trained at Oxford. I'd echo what Mummy says about how the places "feel". I wasn't clever enough to be an Oxford undergraduate - and, anyway, I did Maths - and Warwick was the place top be!! But I trained for 4 years in an ordinary Oxford College (Mansfield) because that college had a Congregational Church foundation and it was one of the places the URC trains ministers...

so - I was a graduate, and as such - a member of the Middle Common Room rather than the Junior!


stuffed with hoorays and nobs, though, the junior common room wasn't - not even close...

[BWFC_Insane]

People who crticise those who are getting an education or have had an education. It angers me.

How is this any different to those with an education looking down their noses at those without?
It isn't. Neither is right. But I think there is greater reverse snobbery against those who are educated than the other way round.

A lot of employers now are only interested in graduates. If you haven't got a degree your options are limited

This isn't a good thing. A degree should reflect the cream of the population. Not that 95% have to have one because they can't get a job without.
Why should it reflect the "cream"? Because it used to? I can't think of one good argument that says that less people should be educated. I don't buy the whole "devaluing" argument. Skills required by employers have changed. There are fewer jobs that require manual or basic non technical skills sets. Therefore whether degree educated or trained in a different way most jobs will require some form of higher education or specialised training. Thats the world we live in, we can't go backwards!

The myth that the majority of them are just "dossing around getting hammered" is simply that a myth.

Poppycock.

Nice reasoned response there. Mind if they do nothing and these degress are so easy, then there really is no excuse for someone not to obtain one, working or not. Couple of hours a week for a few months and I'm sure anyone would be ready for at least a BSc in Physics or somesuch!

[thebish]

Stupid Camerons big society..whats that bullshite all about, I know crime has gone up in my area as the cuts have started and next year going to have to fork out £300.00 a year more on bus fairs than they did last year for my daughter to go to college and it takes longer to get there due to some buses being cut!

i think it is unravelling... the Big Society Tsar just resigned because he can't afford to do the job as a volunteer and has to go and get a paid job (oh - the irony!) he isn't being replaced..

meanwhile - yesterday I had the board meeting of the Havering Association of Voluntary and Community Organisations - basically the infrastructure for the whole of the voluntary sector in the Borough - and I doubt we will exist this time next year because the govt is cutting pretty much ALL funding for voluntary sector infrastructure.

without the infrastructure - the voluntary sector will never achieve what Cameron seems to think the Big Society is all about - chiefly - council services done for nowt by willing volunteers...

meanwhile - the "localism" drive - where the coalition assures us they are putting decisions in the hands of local people in local places with local accents etc...

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=16400

[Worthy4England]

A lot of employers now are only interested in graduates. If you haven't got a degree your options are limited

This isn't a good thing. A degree should reflect the cream of the population. Not that 95% have to have one because they can't get a job without.

Why should it reflect the "cream"? Because it used to? I can't think of one good argument that says that less people should be educated. I don't buy the whole "devaluing" argument. Skills required by employers have changed. There are fewer jobs that require manual or basic non technical skills sets. Therefore whether degree educated or trained in a different way most jobs will require some form of higher education or specialised training. Thats the world we live in, we can't go backwards!

It should reflect the "cream" as a differentiator. Not because it used to. Having a decent level of general education to get jobs is what GCSE's are about. 'A' levels being a higher more focused set of examinations that allow people to focus on a less broad curriculum and excel in those areas they pick, to provide some differentiation and specialisation above GCSE's and Degrees being even more focused and much more of a differentiator. All we've done, is devalued the Degree to a point where's it's become yesterday's 'O' levels. i.e. the minimum most people need to get an interview to flip burgers at McD's

I got mine about 13 years ago. The standard of it was quite appalling compared to the O levels I sat donkey's ago. Served a purpose though - opened a few doors to job interviews.

Completely arse about face approach to education.

[Prufrock]

A lot of employers now are only interested in graduates. If you haven't got a degree your options are limited

This isn't a good thing. A degree should reflect the cream of the population. Not that 95% have to have one because they can't get a job without.

Why should it reflect the "cream"? Because it used to? I can't think of one good argument that says that less people should be educated. I don't buy the whole "devaluing" argument. Skills required by employers have changed. There are fewer jobs that require manual or basic non technical skills sets. Therefore whether degree educated or trained in a different way most jobs will require some form of higher education or specialised training. Thats the world we live in, we can't go backwards!

It should reflect the "cream" as a differentiator. Not because it used to. Having a decent level of general education to get jobs is what GCSE's are about. 'A' levels being a higher more focused set of examinations that allow people to focus on a less broad curriculum and excel in those areas they pick, to provide some differentiation and specialisation above GCSE's and Degrees being even more focused and much more of a differentiator. All we've done, is devalued the Degree to a point where's it's become yesterday's 'O' levels. i.e. the minimum most people need to get an interview to flip burgers at McD's

I got mine about 13 years ago. The standard of it was quite appalling compared to the O levels I sat donkey's ago. Served a purpose though - opened a few doors to job interviews.

Completely arse about face approach to education.

Five GCSEs in Maths, English, two sciences and a language isn't even nearly enough to go and get a job in the services sector. There needs to be more, specialised training. Even an A-Level in accounting (which our kid is currently doing) is not even nearly enough to have the most basic grasp of proper accounting. Therefore we are left with two options IMO, either raise the school leaving age to 18, and have general GCSEs at 15, then three years either vocational/apprenticeship studying, or studying for more intense 'proper' A-levels, or, and the system we appear to be edging towards, where undergrad degrees become the basic (like is/has happening/happened) and folk do more university to differentiate themselves as the 'cream'. It might sound daft to have folk staying at uni for even longer, but the Germans for instance think nothing of staying at uni into their thirties, I met plenty French people in Paris still at uni at 26, 27. However, unlike us, the Germans, and to a lesser extent the French, actually still have an industrial/manufacturing sector.

For me the latter model is the better one to apply, purely because I'm not sure it is fair to ask kids to make set in stone life decisions at 15, I for instance, had no idea what I wanted to do.

[Hoboh]

People who crticise those who are getting an education or have had an education. It angers me.

Education is a good thing. Academic pursuits are also a good thing. It doesn't mean that folk who aren't degree educated or that are "non-academic" are any worse, of course not. But the bitterness about education still confuses me.

A lot of employers now are only interested in graduates. If you haven't got a degree your options are limited. You can't blame kids who want to have those options and go to University. The myth that the majority of them are just "dossing around getting hammered" is simply that a myth. Most work hard and have to in order to prevail. Of course some do not, but then in the working world there are plenty of examples as well.

The phrase "bloody students" grates. One of those "bloody students" may well one day perfect a new surgery that will save your life, or they may invent a cancer busting drug. Ultimately like everyone else they are living in the world as it is, not a fictional "in my day..." world that seems to be invented by some folk on here.

I've interviewed some right numpties, degree educated and not. And both sides of the fence have some issues. But on the whole ignorance and lack of understanding only seems to come from one side!

I have no problems with those who go and actually learn, its the knobs tearing up streets to protect something they clearly have not got an inkling about I object to!!
Oh right they don't get hammered why is the subsidised student bar so feckin popular then?