When we look at the English University system we cannot say that an increase in fees with a mildly better repayment package as ‘progressive’ nor can we really call it a reform. Reform in this sector requires a far more sophisticated approach than the current (barely) 2-Dimensional debate revolving around the cost of fees which is doing nothing for the student, the taxpayer or universities. Taking a glance at international university systems we can develop a cost-effective and high standard university education, for the student, the tax-payer and the universities.
Much of the NUS argument these days revolves around the cost of fees affecting lower income families being able to afford university education and being put off due to the rise in fees. In many ways this is correct, but more appropriately, it affects 1st Generation students (those who are the first generation in their family to go to university) the most as they are the ones with the least knowledge of the academic world and how it works. There is a big argument that one of the key reasons that students from certain backgrounds are already being put off from university as they are in fact being put off from staying at school; this is something that damaged the effectiveness of the Australian abolishment of fees during the 1970s. So, for students there is a two-fold level for helping those on lower incomes from getting into university; encouraging those to stay on at school is vitally important.
This is where the EMA kicks in, now I know that many will shout and moan that “90% of students at 6th form/college would be there anyway without it”; this statistic does miss a large point of the purpose of the EMA; it was there to not just encourage students to go to 6th form/college but to give the student a greater choice when it came to which college they went to (it perhaps could have been put across better to students). In particular, students from rural areas will find it difficult to get a choice over which college to go to because they cannot afford the commuting cost; with EMA they got that opportunity without a significantly larger portion of money being spent by the tax payer to fund more colleges.
With all this being said, it is important to realise that dropout rates increased at a converse rate to the numbers of students from lower-income backgrounds that were no longer going to university; yet university numbers increased! So what happened? I should imagine that the numbers of lower-income students who felt they could not afford university increased over this period and, indeed; during the boom years many felt it would far more profitable to not bother with university at all.The economic problems surrounding degrees and their currency largely lie in the fact that we’ve had the increase in the number of students coincide with the baby boomers reaching their 40s/50s and their complete chokehold of all the jobs that require qualifications. This has been damaged further by the number of low-level managers who have worked their way through the system without qualifications and are unconvinced that those holding degrees are worthwhile employees. The research and technology sector has not had the same crisis due to the simple fact that it is essential to have a full degree to get anywhere in the industry as opposed to simply being a ‘more ideal’ candidate.
So, how can we ensure that university education applies more to the talented than simply those of a particular background, whilst at the same time ensuring both high student numbers and a strong degree currency? Is this an impossibility? It can be considered as these are all relative that it probably is, but if it is possible there are methods to improve all three simultaneously. It is very important to look at all aspects of education in order to understand the ways that we can improve education as a whole. Areas like starting age, the format of ‘vocational’ degrees, the place that education holds in the state and the resolution of the two-tier nature of higher education are all areas to look into.
It is traditional for students to enter higher education at the age of 18 in this country, which is a pretty arbitrary time if you think about it. It is by no means unique to this country but there are countries that do not use 18 at the starting point. Let us take a look at Australian Higher Education; this starts a year earlier at the age of 17, and it is hardly considered terrible place to go to university. But what are the advantages and disadvantages? The disadvantages, of course, that it means that education is reduced by a year and that the value of college and/or school faces a likely reduction; there are also morality issues about alcohol et al which many to the centre-right will be concerned about. The thing is, however, that by pulling higher education forward by a year it means that graduates will be more competitive on the jobs market internationally; able to complete a masters degree by the time they are 21 and improves the feasibility to do a year in industry as part of their degree.
Year in industry work has been very valuable for many students in the past and should be encouraged, but we shouldn’t be going in the direction expressed in today’s Guardian by some universities, it puts too much emphasis on the corporate sector. I wholeheartedly disagree with Paul Jackson’s (Uni. Leicester) opinion that ‘There is no difference between academic skills and employment skills’ there is, and should be, a significant difference between academia and corporate skills. There will always be cross-over (as suggested in my last blog) that makes academic study valuable in the workplace but they are not the same thing. As soon as we see education as a commodity then degrees become nothing more than ways of purchasing extra-spending power not a contribution to academic study. This being said, more degrees should encourage the year in industry; working with relevant industries to the degree can be highly valuable for a student’s development, but should not be allowed to merge with a degree grade in itself.
 |
| http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z202/tewkes_ape/ranking.jpg |
There has been a great deal of talk that the new tuition fees system will produce a two-tier university system. I disagree because the two-tier system already exists, the new system will consolidate and worsen the two-tier system. Marketising higher education has always produced a system where bottom end universities struggle to improve whereas universities like Harvard steam ahead with a burgeoning budget, it has been shown that this has no effect on student power at all and, instead, only empowers the rich universities (this is a large debate which I will be covering in more detail in my next blog). Much like colleges Universities at the bottom end of the spectrum must be encouraged to improve their academic quality in a way that is not affected simply by prestige, whilst we don’t want to damage our top universities we cannot allow them to simply get a stranglehold on our academic system.
More of our universities need to improve in the world standings, and therefore we must be ambitious with our education system; investing in it, as opposed to cutting it. Private investment in our universities will never compete with that in the US and therefore higher education must be a high priority for government spending. With improved government spending in the Higher Education sector we can start to explore something far more exciting, the idea of a state that is driven by education and producing a highly educated workforce can hope to improve its standing in all sectors; industry, government and the arts are just examples. If the country can become an education power house it can become an export whereby the country can become the world’s university.
The First Education State.
Thought this was interesting? Check out my last Blog on the Graduate Tax here.
** (Sources for University Private Funding)
No comments:
Post a Comment