No it wasn't ALL extra money, but the funding difference in the grand scheme of things isn't the full £9k....... have wages gone up that much?

As for the Socrates reference Tony, correct but at the same time you can train virtually anybody to do something with enough time and resources, but that simply isn't the case in our current education system......

Even now, I'm relatively educated but I know my failings are current limits...... it doesn't stop me from trying to better myself, but I also know the value of being a realist

Dan

 

Not wishing to be contentious or to rubbish the hard work put in by the majority of students but friends who who run degree modules tell me that they are under enormous pressure to get every student through. The reason being that universities are funded per student and if any fail and leave the course their funding to the university also evaporates.

The examples I give are for degree nursing courses so god help us when we become end users of their skills!

 

Well, Socrates and I come from the same planet, then.


Take it for granted that not all that glitters is gold. Not every well-qualified lecturer or a professor is fantastic in teaching. I have had lectures in my postgraduates, and professors went on as if they were rearing sheep. Some were good, but the good ones were much less in number. I remember the head of Sociology lecturing on reaserch methods with a plant pot on his head, and he got a male student to become his French wife. Only God knows what he was going on about, because none of us understood him. I liked him because I like eccentrics, but frankly speaking, he were a ****e professor. The other one was a PhD and a Doctor of Medicine. I really liked him for he is very knowledgeable and can go on his subject for hours! One of them was simply unable to clarify the complexity of Kleinian concepts, because she didn't know what they were at the first place! You get all sorts. You have to self-teach most of it in postgrad and upwards.

 

University lecturer here. It's far too depressing to talk about what the Blair Government did to Universities and the education system generally.

I will tell you this much though from an insider point of view: in the short term even popular and valued subjects are currently soiling themselves with regards to what the new fees will do to the all important bums on seats statistics. Staff are being cut, not consolidated - this has a knock on effect on the ability to deliver a service to students (including contact hours) and as for where the money is going (or will be going); you tell me. Lecturers won't be getting it - the position remains as much as a vocation as anything; you do it because of the love of being involved with education and helping people move towards a hopefully brighter future. That, unfortunately, is diminishing for many involved in the profession.

The situation now is that you have many students who don't want to go to university, are often ill equipped for study, but will now be saddled with a large debt to do it and face an over-saturated job market, that more often than not doesn't need them, upon completion of their degree. Demoralising for all concerned, especially those who have to teach such cohorts.

In respect of the quality of lecturers, you must understand that many facets of the education system are rather, let's say "old fashioned". There was a time when a PhD was essentially a license to teach, but that was never the purpose of the qualification, which is research orientated. Increasingly nowadays though this is recognized and if you want to become a lecturer you have to take an M level course in teaching in higher education. Like any profession, there are good and bad; and there always will be.

As for the future, we'll see. However, I reckon unless we can re-instate free education for those who EARN the right to be a university and demonstrate an aptitude and enthusiasm for study, rather than stupid aspirations to have x percentage of people forced though the higher education system irrespective of whether they want to be there, have the ability to study at degree level and whether the job market actually needs/wants them, we're in a downward spiral!

Turbohot - Your sociology lecturer may have been me! Did you ever give lecturing a go?

 

In the 'good old days' higher education was barely about economic needs as nobody studies philosophy or history so they can build a bridge or grind a lathe. It was principally a way to produce and perpetuate an elite who were exclusively to be educated. This goes back to Plato and his philosopher-king doctrine, the Rulers were to receive education in philosophy, geometry, dialectics etc and the human-cattle were not to. Hence why in higher education you still remnants of various paraphernalia such as robes, hats, gowns etc. Plato's 'educated' were a kind of mystical priest class, initiated into knowledge, just a step higher than your magicians and shaman in primitive society.

I think this attitude persists even today to some degree. It was eroded somewhat by the development of science and especially by the modern commodiification of education but still exists.

 

It's still very much in evidence. A PhD is a "Doctor of Philosophy" irrespective of the subject matter, because the accumulation of any knowledge was deemed to be a philosophical pursuit, not a vocational one per se.

I'd argue that it's entirely appropriate (desirable even) for education to have a "revered" status and the robes etc... are one way of retaining that.

There has been a general erosion of the perceived value of education in our society; to be ignorant is now regarded as almost commendable in some sectors of society.

The problem comes when that "revered" status is appointed by economic factors rather than those pertaining to academic attainment. That's always been a problem to some extent, but as soon as you start introducing fees and quotas etc. you almost condemn higher education to going down that road, which further erodes the perceived value of education. Too many people getting onto degrees (some of which have been contrived to make money rather than confer useful skills/knowledge) without demonstrating the requisite attainment because basically they can pay and many university's can't afford to say no.

Good luck with your post grad course btw!

 

LOL You are only under 35, and he was well over 50, Paul. He was a right headcase with plant pot etc., fair do's. I liked him for that tbh. Its just that his lecture was such a mish-mash! You couldn't understand which tree he came off, and which one he climbed up. He even added that French role play in the middle, which made begger all sense. Bless him. He was a "visiting" one, so we didn't have to put up with him forever. I provide adult education on visiting basis to various organisations so that they don't have to put up with me on regular basis. I never got into full time teaching/lecturing with just one institution due to other interests and commitments. I do enjoy it, though.

 

I'd rather the content of education be revered rather than education as an object. All that paraphernalia which is often not visible but present as an attitude is laughable. I can only support it with a king sized slice of irony.

I'd go with that on a gut level, but is this not what any elite has said in history when society has been opened up and that elite threatened? It always bemoans the loss of prestige and power etc and sees the mass in a negative way. It's certainly one major criticism of democracy.

Thanks. Someone's gotta put bread in your mouth.

 

The thing about some of the pomp and ceremony like the robes etc is that they are a good way of reminding students that getting a degree is partly about representing an institution, not just a personal journey. I always say to our students: The value of your degree as a commodity is determined by the reputation of the instution of which you are now a part of. If the uni suffers, you suffer! Remember this: what you do reflects not only on you, but also on those who have come before you and those who will come after you. Having things like ceremonies and robes are all about re-inforcing this essentially - no bad thing!

Like the legal system education still has it's fair share of the old boys club, which probably encapsulates the things to which you refer. It's a dying breed. Some traditions are a good thing, however.

It's not really an eliteist thing - well it shouldn't be anyway. Education should be something that all are entitled to based on ability not means to pay or class (whatever that is). Like anything else in life though, realistically this will only ever be attained to a certain degree. Referring to the highly educated as elite only really works if there is some justifcation for the qualifications other than: "im elite because I'm highly educated" - that becomes a circular argument otherwise. Part of the problem we face now is that we have a growing proportion of people with degrees of dubious value or brandishing degrees of a poor classification. I'm not sure education is a valid means of distinguishing the elite from the masses (assuming that such a distintion even needs to be made, which I doubt); there are probably more useful metrics. Conceptualising education as a means to gain elite status certainly doesn't work if a) ever bugger holds a degree b) most of them hold degrees that will not advance them with respect to other measures of societal status.

I've always argued that if you emerge from an education feeling elite, then you weren't paying sufficient attention!

Bread in my mouth? Surely you mean port and cheese!!

 

My mate contacted a local collage because he wanted to go and do a course and get qualified. He is pretty handy with fixing/building computers/laptops. He told them this. Now, he left school back in 1999 with no GCSE! They told him that a 'Foundation Degree (FdSc) IT Support' would be ideal for him!

Now, can that be right? He was over the moon mind. I told him to go and look at the uni fees! Can't wait for him to report back