... and the loss of apprenticeships of course.
It's really bizarre how this notion of the importance of university education gripped both main parties, with the result that there's a shortage of electricians and plumbers now.
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Living longer! Getting Fatter! Any kid who can write his/her name qualifies for Uni..
... and the loss of apprenticeships of course.
It's really bizarre how this notion of the importance of university education gripped both main parties, with the result that there's a shortage of electricians and plumbers now.
bhaexpress
New member
Yes but your job is a requirement, so many students end up with degrees which are of little or no use to an employer. Frankly if people had to pay for your training how many would bother ?
Unfortunately, declining standards are very much due to competiton - which Tories and Spew Labour always tell us automatically raises standards; it doesn't necessarily, and in education, it has fostered a general dumbing down. I'll explain and Tories on NSC, please pay close attention:
Working in a university, I have seen how increasing numbers of students, even with brilliant A Levels, are semi-literate; can't spell, don't know how and when to use apostrophes, full stops, commas or capital letters (like many posters on NSC, really!). Some of their essays and exam papers are unintelligible, often written in infantile text-speak, because they only read text messages, instead of books or newspapers, so don't know (or care) how to write intelligently. I'm writing what I fink, innit.
A Level grades are increasing because Exam Boards are competing to have their syllabus and Exams commissioned by 6th Forms. But 6th Forms are competing to maximise the number of good A Level Grades to improve their league table position, and therefore attract more students and funding. 6th Forms thus look at which Exam Boards have the best A Level results, which in turn means that the Exam Boards need to award more As and Bs, becuase if they don't, their rivals will win more contracts from 6 th Forms. Hence, what might have been a 'C' 20 years ago has now become a B-, for example.
Meanwhile, I bet the people who complain about 'Mickey Mouse' degrees are the very people (again, Tories and Spew Labour) who have told universities, for the last 30 years, to become more business-like, and responsive to customer (i.e., student) demand. So, if students are prepared to pay £3,200 per year to study 'Golf Course Management', or whatever, then why blame universities for puttting on such degrees. Thay are doing what any business tries to do - maximise its income and customer base.
Raising the cap on top up fees will increase the number of 'Micky Mouse' degrees; if a university finds that 10 students are year are rich/stupid enough to pay £10,000 a year to do a degree in Soap Opera Studies, then the University, from a business point of view, would be dumb not to offer such a degree.
This 'dumbing down' of A Level results and degrees is a direct consequence of 30 years of imposing 'the market' and competition into the education system, and treating schools, 6 th Forms and universities as businesses concerned to make money.
Academics (like me) do care about academic standards, but the accountants, bureaucrats and administrators who run universities these days - and who consistently ignore anything front-line staff say or warn them about - don't give a toss about standards; hitting targets and 'maximising revenue streams' is all that matters; bums on seats.
It's a crazy system based on a free market ideology (Tory/Spew Labour dogma that 'markets know best', and that 'the market' is the solution to any problem) which might be fine for selling soap powder or cars, but which is corrrupting when imposed on/in education (and the NHS).
Working in a university, I have seen how increasing numbers of students, even with brilliant A Levels, are semi-literate; can't spell, don't know how and when to use apostrophes, full stops, commas or capital letters (like many posters on NSC, really!). Some of their essays and exam papers are unintelligible, often written in infantile text-speak, because they only read text messages, instead of books or newspapers, so don't know (or care) how to write intelligently. I'm writing what I fink, innit.
A Level grades are increasing because Exam Boards are competing to have their syllabus and Exams commissioned by 6th Forms. But 6th Forms are competing to maximise the number of good A Level Grades to improve their league table position, and therefore attract more students and funding. 6th Forms thus look at which Exam Boards have the best A Level results, which in turn means that the Exam Boards need to award more As and Bs, becuase if they don't, their rivals will win more contracts from 6 th Forms. Hence, what might have been a 'C' 20 years ago has now become a B-, for example.
Meanwhile, I bet the people who complain about 'Mickey Mouse' degrees are the very people (again, Tories and Spew Labour) who have told universities, for the last 30 years, to become more business-like, and responsive to customer (i.e., student) demand. So, if students are prepared to pay £3,200 per year to study 'Golf Course Management', or whatever, then why blame universities for puttting on such degrees. Thay are doing what any business tries to do - maximise its income and customer base.
Raising the cap on top up fees will increase the number of 'Micky Mouse' degrees; if a university finds that 10 students are year are rich/stupid enough to pay £10,000 a year to do a degree in Soap Opera Studies, then the University, from a business point of view, would be dumb not to offer such a degree.
This 'dumbing down' of A Level results and degrees is a direct consequence of 30 years of imposing 'the market' and competition into the education system, and treating schools, 6 th Forms and universities as businesses concerned to make money.
Academics (like me) do care about academic standards, but the accountants, bureaucrats and administrators who run universities these days - and who consistently ignore anything front-line staff say or warn them about - don't give a toss about standards; hitting targets and 'maximising revenue streams' is all that matters; bums on seats.
It's a crazy system based on a free market ideology (Tory/Spew Labour dogma that 'markets know best', and that 'the market' is the solution to any problem) which might be fine for selling soap powder or cars, but which is corrrupting when imposed on/in education (and the NHS).
That precedes text-speak and New Labour. I remember nearly 20 years ago helping one of my house-mates (an English teacher) mark her pupils' book. I found myself automatically correcting spelling and grammatical errors only to be stopped by my friend. She said it was the LEA policy not to correct mistakes as it "discouraged children". That was in a Tory-run authority (Westminster) after 12 years of a Tory government, so it's more deep-rooted than you're implying.
You made an interesting post though. The thought does occur to me that if market forces are so dominant in higher education why don't universities just introduce paid-for degrees? You don't have to do any work, hand over, say, £30,000 and you have a degree - I'm sure that there'd be demand for it. That must be the reductio ad absurdam of the current market-driven situation.
The Great Cornholio
New member
GCSE exams are, IMHO, the worst decision ever taken with regards to education. What is the point of an exam where 98% of people get a passing grade? To me, it is the same as this non-competitive sport rubbish where you can't exclude anyone. When I left school, an O Level pass meant something as there wasn't a 98% pass rate. Employers knew that someone with an O level pass was strong in the relevant subject - now all they know is that the student turned up at school every so often.
Today's kids are probably at exactly the same level of potential intellect as my generation and the generation before as evolution doesn't work that quickly. But exam results going up year on year suggests that exams are being made easier. And studies show that kids predicted to get A or A* in GCSEs would not have got a passing grade at O Level.
GCSEs v O-levels, let the battle begin - Times Online
I think this quote is most telling:
She was also surprised that at O-level no marks could be given if pupils did not get the right answer. “At GCSE you get marks for trying to do the question and showing your working out even if you don’t get the right answer,” she said. “You can even get marks for writing ‘F*** off’. You get marks for expressing yourself, for creativity, rather than for precision. I think the O-levels are harder than GCSEs on the basis of these papers.
And that is no fluke. When I was about to take my French O Level, we were asked to take an experimental GCSE paper. I passed the GCSE with flying colours and yet failed my O Level miserably. And so I should as I had little grasp of French.
For me, it is like the old debate of Brighton thrashing Northwich - some will say how much the team have improved and will expect an instant return to the Championship. Others will claim the result as irrelevant as Northwich are far too easy. When in reality, the truth is that you can only beat what is put in front of you. Having easier exams does not make for stupid kids but it makes differentiating between them very hard for employers. And the style of teaching seems to be worsening the levels of spelling and grammar. Without wishing to sound like an old fart, an NSC 30 years ago would not have the levels of spelling and grammatical mistakes that we see today. This reflects more on teaching methods and modern society rather than the aptitude of the kids but is apparent nonetheless.
Today's kids are probably at exactly the same level of potential intellect as my generation and the generation before as evolution doesn't work that quickly. But exam results going up year on year suggests that exams are being made easier. And studies show that kids predicted to get A or A* in GCSEs would not have got a passing grade at O Level.
GCSEs v O-levels, let the battle begin - Times Online
I think this quote is most telling:
She was also surprised that at O-level no marks could be given if pupils did not get the right answer. “At GCSE you get marks for trying to do the question and showing your working out even if you don’t get the right answer,” she said. “You can even get marks for writing ‘F*** off’. You get marks for expressing yourself, for creativity, rather than for precision. I think the O-levels are harder than GCSEs on the basis of these papers.
And that is no fluke. When I was about to take my French O Level, we were asked to take an experimental GCSE paper. I passed the GCSE with flying colours and yet failed my O Level miserably. And so I should as I had little grasp of French.
For me, it is like the old debate of Brighton thrashing Northwich - some will say how much the team have improved and will expect an instant return to the Championship. Others will claim the result as irrelevant as Northwich are far too easy. When in reality, the truth is that you can only beat what is put in front of you. Having easier exams does not make for stupid kids but it makes differentiating between them very hard for employers. And the style of teaching seems to be worsening the levels of spelling and grammar. Without wishing to sound like an old fart, an NSC 30 years ago would not have the levels of spelling and grammatical mistakes that we see today. This reflects more on teaching methods and modern society rather than the aptitude of the kids but is apparent nonetheless.
Max,
Not only is there demand for it, there is also the supply of it too. There are many unscrupulous unscrupulous colleges who effectively franchise their names out to private sector colleges who offer a vocational course plus a masters course which consists of little else than a 1,500-5,000 word essay, poorly referenced if written by the student, or purchased off the internet from websites that will sell you a thesis for a few quid.
It's going to get a lot worse too in the next few years as universities fight amongst themselves to get students. Out of the £6,000 a year a uni gets from central funding and tuition fees for each student, only £600 of it goes on front line teaching, the rest of it is swallowed up in administration, central services and management, who are the ones who will be deciding where to make the cuts, and of course turkeys don't vote for Christmas, so expect tuition sizes to increase, contact times to fall, and trebles all round for senior management as usual.
Its nice to see people sticking up for the younger NSC'ers.
I think young people (such as myself) have a lot of things easier. However, we also have a lot of things harder.
We are going to be a lot slower getting onto the housing ladder because, in spite of the recession, house prices are astronomical compared to 40 years ago.
We have been told to go to university to improve our employment prospects by consecutive governments who have done nothing to ensure that graduate jobs are around for the increased number of graduates in society (In fact, at the moment full-time work itself can be pretty hard to come by). Therefore lots of young people have mountains of debt for little return.
Only (in my opinion) the graduates from the best Universities, or the most hardworking graduates will find themselves in anything resembling graduate employment.
However as I said, there are a lot of bad things about people in my generation too - I'm not denying that, for example we are generally, a lot lazier.
Asa a side note - student loans are not written off after ten years, nor if you move abroad.
I think young people (such as myself) have a lot of things easier. However, we also have a lot of things harder.
We are going to be a lot slower getting onto the housing ladder because, in spite of the recession, house prices are astronomical compared to 40 years ago.
We have been told to go to university to improve our employment prospects by consecutive governments who have done nothing to ensure that graduate jobs are around for the increased number of graduates in society (In fact, at the moment full-time work itself can be pretty hard to come by). Therefore lots of young people have mountains of debt for little return.
Only (in my opinion) the graduates from the best Universities, or the most hardworking graduates will find themselves in anything resembling graduate employment.
However as I said, there are a lot of bad things about people in my generation too - I'm not denying that, for example we are generally, a lot lazier.
Asa a side note - student loans are not written off after ten years, nor if you move abroad.
I don't know what's more shocking: the fact that you can buy degrees or the fact that only 10% of funding is spent on tuition. Either one of them is the politics of the madhouse.
EDIT
Kieran, an additional question for you (or any academic) re the increase in student fees that is being widely discussed (ie removal of the £3000 cap)? Will this be used to improve teaching or will this also be swallowed up in administration?
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Good point. If one wants to look at the proliferation of expensive public sector 'non-jobs' in the last 25-30 years, look at the non-academic side of universities: Quality Assurance Officers, Curriculum Development Co-ordinators, Change Facilitators, Teaching and Learning Officers, Alumni Officers, Equality and Diversity Co-ordinators, Community Liaison Officers, Programme Validation Co-ordinators, etc, all of whom invariably appoint Deputies, Assistants, Deputy Assistants, etc (while always insisting that there is no spare cash for new academic posts or even a new photocopier), and bury front-line staff under mountains of paperwork and box-ticking, which is supposed to 'prove' that the front-line staff are doing thier jobs properly and being 'accountable', when in fact, they're filling in forms instead of doing their proper jobs.
There's been an explosion of these often Orwellian-sounding posts and job titles created for 'suits' who have never taught in their lives, but think that teaching and marking can be reduced to a 'strategy' or 'framework agreement', enforced through endless bureaucratic inspections, audits, reviews, appraisals, mentors, and stupid, time-wasting, away-days.
If it wasn't such a waste of tax-payers/students' money, and didn't waste so much front-line staff time and energy, this lunacy would be hilarious. It's certainly a farce.
But academics dare not go public about this insane regime, because that could cost them their jobs - 'bringing the organisation into disprepute' is a disciplinary offence, which can cover any form of whistle-blowing about declining standards, poor management or financial waste in universities.
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Mostly the latter - the more that students are paying in fees, the more politicians and university bureaucrats will claim that is essential to ensure that 'robust procedures are in place to guarantee the maintenance of academic standards' and ensure that students are receiving a good 'educational experience'. So higher fees will simply mean more being spent on 'quality assurance' administrators and the like; very little will go on more front-line staff or facilities for students.
For what it's worth, I'm totally opposed to top-up fees, and favour a graduate tax instead.
I would agree with your entire post, except that one part. Quality Assurance is vital in HE, however I would be tempted to take QA out of Universities, because I know for a fact that QA decisions can (and sometimes are) over-ruled by management decisions, made in marble-lined board rooms. I hate the idea of quangos, but QA is perhaps the one thing that should be externally controlled - all the QAA does is ensure that QA is done, it doesn't really guaruntee that QA across all Universities is equal.
Having said that, I am firmly against external curriculums for Universities, which would inevitably follow external QA officers.
Maybe having a QAA-employed person within each University to oversee QA would help.
But that's a total nonsense. If you're paying more for something, the general rule of thumb is that it's better (wine, cars, hi-fi, PCs etc). What's the point of paying twice or three times as much to go to university if there's no improvement in quality?
And how do universities differentiate themselves. "Come to Bogshire University - we have the best aluimni officers in the country, our accounting system is so flash that we can process your bills in half the time it takes our competitors and our toilets are cleaned every three hours instead of the national average of five....etc". It's not exactly a compelling argument.
None of us is opposed to 'quality', strings!
The problem is that 'quality' is measured in bureaucratic terms. I could be a shit lecturer, but as long as I can show that my Module fits certain adminsitrative criteria, has specified 'aims and objectives' and 'learning outcomes', that I mark essays or exams according to a specified 'marking criteria', and that the students are acquiring 'transferable skills' in the Module or degree, then that is the definition of 'quality assurance'.
It's the tail-wagging-the-dog syndrome; rather than making teaching interesting, stimulating and intellectually challenging, teaching(as in schools) has to be done in such a way as to ensure that it can be measured by the quality assurance people and external auditors, who want to be able to reduce it to a tick-box formula.
The question becomes, not does this Module or degree provide students with a good or stimulating education taught by enthusiastic, highly-motivated staff, but is this Module or degree taught in a way that means its 'quality' can be measured according to bureaucratic tick-box criteria.
We have 'quality assurance audits' where no-one goes into the Lecture Theatre or Seminar room to see how well students are being taught - they just sift through the paper-work, see if you've got the right documents (Dyslexia Protocol, Plagiairism Guidelines, etc) and if that's OK, that is judged as proof that you are providig quality teaching and are 'fit for purpose'.
I agree it's nonsense, Gwylan, but we're not operating in a rational world !
But the bureaucrats and politicians will argue that students who are paying two or three times as much will not know whether they are receiving a better quality education or value-for-money unless the it can be 'proved'. This will be achieved by subjecting staff to ever more 'rigorous' or 'robust' procedures to monitor teaching quality (while actually diverting even more staff time away from teaching, of course). This is what has happened with top-up fees already, so if/when fees increase, the need to show that students are getting somehing worthwhile for their money will itself increase, and so even more administratively complex and time-consuming procedures and audits will be developed so that universities can boast of the quality of their teaching
I know someone who has recently been voted Manchester's best overall lecturer, and was kicked off his course by administrators because he made other lecturers look shit, and therefore the average marks given by students for the course overall fell.
There are a lot of people who go into the profession because they have an idealistic notion that they want to make a positive difference and increase opportunities for today's undergraduates. However the administrators sap the life out of anyone who has good ideas, because they want consistency, as it is easier to manage.
There are a lot of people who go into the profession because they have an idealistic notion that they want to make a positive difference and increase opportunities for today's undergraduates. However the administrators sap the life out of anyone who has good ideas, because they want consistency, as it is easier to manage.
In many of my core subjects at school learning resources amounted to a single text book to study. The end result was you could struggle if a subject was presented in a way you didn't fully comprehend or could not get interested in. The learning world today is by comparison infinitely more resource rich and it is no surprise that results have continually risen.
As an aside I am still a complete DIY thickie, but last night solved a problem I was stuck on, by trawling the web. I do have one of those hefty DIY manuals that all blokes are supposed to have, but mine is rarely opened and I doubt I would have found the answer in there, even if I had looked. My point here is that I succeeded in a subject in which I have no real interest or talent and therein lies my explanation for this modern day trend.
The Great Cornholio
New member
That is another major problem IMO - I have seen my niece doing her homework by printing out pages from the Internet. No research, no context, not even paraphrasing - just Googling. I'm guessing not much plagiarism checking goes on.
Obviously teaching methods will change with the modern marvel that is the Internet. But awarding qualifications just for trying is lunacy. If I had my way there would be two streams of school - old fashioned academia for those with the aptitude/willingness and more occupational based teaching for those who are not so academic. Woodwork, CDT and metalwork classes were wasted on me. Sociology and Chemistry classes were wasted on my mates who ended up as top class chippies or builders. Horses for courses rather than GCSEs for anyone who bothers turning up would be the way I would go.
I have seen jobs requesting a degree from a "good" university suggesting that employers are equally as sceptical about modern education. Quite what a "good" university is I have no idea.
sjamesb3466
Well-known member
Damn right. I left University 12 months ago with a good degree and £20,000 worth of debt. The problem is that the job's that we were promised upon leaving Uni have not materialised and Im stuck working in a pub along with 5 other Uni graduates. The fact is that I'm likely to be paying off my loan until I'm well into my thirties............. at least.
Unfortunately, this is a case of nail on head.
I spent two years as a sabatical officer at a Students' Union and couldn't believe it that students used as a defence against plagiarism that they were "allowed to do it at School". This, I must state, is a recent problem. Copy-and-pasting from the internet is something that didn't occur to me or the vast majority of my Uni-mates, who started only two years earlier. I think that when I started Uni in 2003, we were probably one of the last groups of students that didn't routinely use the internet as a part of research for School and Further Education projects - we had done it from time-to-time, but it was an exception to the status quo.
With the rise of the google generation, unfortunatly plagiarism is becoming a huge problem.
One final thought, when I was a sabbatical officer the University introduced turnatin plagiarism software - this was a move supported by the Students' Union (less students cheating = better quality degrees for the rest of the students). One thing we didn't anticipate was the absolute explosion of plagiarism cases. Even UCAS now have to use a 'similarity detector' to ensure that students application personal statements are their own work.
Another question for El Pres/Peteinblack or any other lecturers. Does this increase in plagiarism (or attempted plagiarism) mean that we're likely to see a return to exam-based degrees rather than course/dissertation-based ones?