The Anonymous Widower

The Student Fee Debate

If I look at my course at Liverpool University in the 1960s, there were some of us, who did very well, others who did reasonably and possibly quite a few who never did any serious engineering at all. Now they are trying to force more and more people to go to University and this happens when they have a funding crisis, caused by the appalling financial management of the infamous Nulabor government.

In some ways we may well be having the wrong debate.

We have a problem to pay for it all, but are Universities the right place to educate people for careers.

My father was a printer, who owned his own business and if there was one thing in his business he was proud off, it was the success of the apprentices he’d trained.  He once told me, that of the dozen or so he’d had, only perhaps one had not been a success.  In some ways they were bigger successes than they thought, as he always chose the rougher kids, who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty in one of the dirtiest businesses of the 1960s.  I remember him complaining that schools used to send him kids, whose English was good, but if they wouldn’t get their hands dirty they were out.  He always said that teaching the English was the easy bit, provided they could read, but learning to get a feel for the lead tyoe used in letterpress was not so easy.

So the first thing we should do is create proper apprenticeships in all sorts of businesses and make the whole system worthwhile for both those businesses and the young people. I’ve owned the stud for twenty years and in that time, we’ve never had any help with training some of the local kids.  So what do the big studs do? Import people on short term contracts from places like Pakistan.  I may be wrong, but there is something serious missing here!

To give the government credit, they are saying that they are going to create more apprenticeships. We need lots more and obviously they need to be very flexible and backed up by training leading towards qualifications.

It used to be that most nurses and others in the caring professions, were in a large part taught on the job in what was almost an appreticeship with lots of teaching.  Now many of these professions need a university degree before you actually see anybody who needs some help or comfort. I’m sure that many are now barred from these professions, as they are not very academic and wouldn’t be able to get on a course.  As an example, one of my friends, who has few qualifications, now works as an orderly at Addenbrooke’s and thoroughly enjoys it.  She is being given on the job training, to suplement everything she learned as a mother of two. Surely, there could be a route to get this type of person into the caring professions, rather than importing them from the Phillipines and India.

All this proves to me, that on-the-job training is probably the best way to train people to do the important second level jobs, that don’t need a specialist degree.  We’ve all met people, who run large companies, organisations or departments, who’ve fought their way to the top without any academc training.

We also have two other routes to getting a university degree; part-time study or the Open University.  A schoool-friend used to be the Admissions Tutor at a well-known university and he was very adept at creating courses to fit round applicants jobs and family.  He also had very strident views on universities, which are at completely at variance with all government thinking, but are based on many years experience in the field.  The Open University always seems to be forgotten in education debates, but surely it is one of the finest successes of our education system in the last few decades.

So if the route for many to a good job and perhaps a degree is based on training and low personal cost, then perhaps we can reduce those numbers who take a traditional degree.

One also has to question whether this is necessary.  In the forty years since I left university, I only worked for one year, where I needed any of the specialist knowledge that I learned at Liverpool.  But the university degree got me the good job in the first place!

So is that the main reason for universities?  They set you up on the ladder of life!

So to me the problem is we’re trying to send too many people to university, when there are better alternatives.

If we cut the numbers, we could probably fund everything in a better and more equitable way!

That is not to say the government’s proposal of no upfront fees, loans and paying it all back when you earn over £20,000 a year is wrong, but students need a choice that gives them value for money and one that they can afford, by getting an academic degree that pays well in the future.

November 30, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | World | Education, Liverpool