Brexit, for once some facts.

[oldgroaner]

I read yesterday about the dramatic increase in the number of unconditional university place offers. That’s right, they will take you on a degree course regardless of the grades you achieve.

I think university education, or rather what it has become, is one of the biggest scandals of recent times. These places, which masquerade as education establishments, are rinsing young people for £27K a time whilst shovelling “pop star” quantities of cash into the pockets of senior university staff. Is there any wonder they have now extended their offer to take £27K off people regardless of ability? It’s perverse.

Teenagers may as well get in the fields and start picking fruit because after graduation day and that proud, tearful photo with Mum & Dad, many are going to be left holding a degree certificate which is worth less than lavatory paper, and a huge debt for the privilege. Many are being well and truly ripped off and they should never have been allowed to go anywhere near a university except to clean or maintain it.

Don't worry, after Brexit this will be part of Government policy
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/aug/01/universityfunding.highereducation
"
Cash-strapped British universities are awarding degrees to students who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees, The Observer can reveal.

The 'degrees-for-sale' scandal stretches from the most prestigious institutions to the former polytechnics and includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, foreign and home students. In the most extreme case, The Observer has evidence of a professor ordering staff to mark up students at risk of failing in order to keep the money coming in.

Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, London and Swansea, told The Observer the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs.

In the most blatant example of the financial pressure to pass failing students, Professor Richard Wynne, head of Bournemouth University's design, engineering and computing department, emailed staff telling them to 'minimise' the number of failures because of a drop in applications.

He wrote: 'I would urge all academic staff involved in marking examinations etc to look very carefully at those students gaining marks in the 30s. If the mark is 38/9 [just below the pass mark] then please, where possible, look for the extra 1/2 marks if appropriate and not leave it to the exam board to make this decision.'
ash-strapped British universities are awarding degrees to students who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees, The Observer can reveal.

The 'degrees-for-sale' scandal stretches from the most prestigious institutions to the former polytechnics and includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, foreign and home students. In the most extreme case, The Observer has evidence of a professor ordering staff to mark up students at risk of failing in order to keep the money coming in.

Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, London and Swansea, told The Observer the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs.
In the most blatant example of the financial pressure to pass failing students, Professor Richard Wynne, head of Bournemouth University's design, engineering and computing department, emailed staff telling them to 'minimise' the number of failures because of a drop in applications.

He wrote: 'I would urge all academic staff involved in marking examinations etc to look very carefully at those students gaining marks in the 30s. If the mark is 38/9 [just below the pass mark] then please, where possible, look for the extra 1/2 marks if appropriate and not leave it to the exam board to make this decision.'

There is of course the point that most Graduates ending up working in Mc Donalds anyway.

By the way it's a new concept to me that one should have a measure of ability to be ripped off, for I come from an area in Hull that the Germans had reduced to rubble while I was in the construction phase.
( we are eternally grateful for that) where as Les Dawson put it

"I was born in a tough neighbourhood, in times of great scarcity
You had to put your name down to be mugged."

Such is progress modern kids don't even have to be patient and wait their turn!

 

[flecc]

I read yesterday about the dramatic increase in the number of unconditional university place offers. That’s right, they will take you on a degree course regardless of the grades you achieve.

I think university education, or rather what it has become, is one of the biggest scandals of recent times. These places, which masquerade as education establishments, are rinsing young people for £27K a time whilst shovelling “pop star” quantities of cash into the pockets of senior university staff. Is there any wonder they have now extended their offer to take £27K off people regardless of ability? It’s perverse.

Teenagers may as well get in the fields and start picking fruit because after graduation day and that proud, tearful photo with Mum & Dad, many are going to be left holding a degree certificate which is worth less than lavatory paper, and a huge debt for the privilege. Many are being well and truly ripped off and they should never have been allowed to go anywhere near a university except to clean or maintain it.

Once again following the example of the USA where it's long been the norm for all students, regardless of ability, to go on to higher education after school, only commencing work in adulthood.
.

 

[oldgroaner]

Once again following the example of the USA where it's long been the norm for all students, regardless of ability, to go on to higher education after school, only commencing work in adulthood.
.

I think you mean retarded adolescence?

 

[Woosh]

this week YouGov weekly poll:

Q: In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?

Right to leave: 42%
Wrong to leave: 47%
Don't know 11%

 

[tillson]

Don't worry, after Brexit this will be part of Government policy
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/aug/01/universityfunding.highereducation
"
Cash-strapped British universities are awarding degrees to students who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees, The Observer can reveal.

The 'degrees-for-sale' scandal stretches from the most prestigious institutions to the former polytechnics and includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, foreign and home students. In the most extreme case, The Observer has evidence of a professor ordering staff to mark up students at risk of failing in order to keep the money coming in.

Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, London and Swansea, told The Observer the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs.

In the most blatant example of the financial pressure to pass failing students, Professor Richard Wynne, head of Bournemouth University's design, engineering and computing department, emailed staff telling them to 'minimise' the number of failures because of a drop in applications.

He wrote: 'I would urge all academic staff involved in marking examinations etc to look very carefully at those students gaining marks in the 30s. If the mark is 38/9 [just below the pass mark] then please, where possible, look for the extra 1/2 marks if appropriate and not leave it to the exam board to make this decision.'
ash-strapped British universities are awarding degrees to students who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees, The Observer can reveal.

The 'degrees-for-sale' scandal stretches from the most prestigious institutions to the former polytechnics and includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, foreign and home students. In the most extreme case, The Observer has evidence of a professor ordering staff to mark up students at risk of failing in order to keep the money coming in.

Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, London and Swansea, told The Observer the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs.
In the most blatant example of the financial pressure to pass failing students, Professor Richard Wynne, head of Bournemouth University's design, engineering and computing department, emailed staff telling them to 'minimise' the number of failures because of a drop in applications.

He wrote: 'I would urge all academic staff involved in marking examinations etc to look very carefully at those students gaining marks in the 30s. If the mark is 38/9 [just below the pass mark] then please, where possible, look for the extra 1/2 marks if appropriate and not leave it to the exam board to make this decision.'

There is of course the point that most Graduates ending up working in Mc Donalds anyway.

By the way it's a new concept to me that one should have a measure of ability to be ripped off, for I come from an area in Hull that the Germans had reduced to rubble while I was in the construction phase.
( we are eternally grateful for that) where as Les Dawson put it

"I was born in a tough neighbourhood, in times of great scarcity
You had to put your name down to be mugged."

Such is progress modern kids don't even have to be patient and wait their turn!

That’s outrageous, but unsurprising.

 

[oldtom]

I can't remember reading or hearing this on the BBC or Sky:

Tom

 

[oldtom]

This Austrian-American expert on PR and propaganda said this about 'The will of the people':



Who would have thunk it!

Tom

 

[Danidl]

I read yesterday about the dramatic increase in the number of unconditional university place offers. That’s right, they will take you on a degree course regardless of the grades you achieve.

I think university education, or rather what it has become, is one of the biggest scandals of recent times. These places, which masquerade as education establishments, are rinsing young people for £27K a time whilst shovelling “pop star” quantities of cash into the pockets of senior university staff. Is there any wonder they have now extended their offer to take £27K off people regardless of ability? It’s perverse.

Teenagers may as well get in the fields and start picking fruit because after graduation day and that proud, tearful photo with Mum & Dad, many are going to be left holding a degree certificate which is worth less than lavatory paper, and a huge debt for the privilege. Many are being well and truly ripped off and they should never have been allowed to go anywhere near a university except to clean or maintain it.

Perhaps I am wrong, but my understanding is that unconditional places means that the candidate has met the requirements for admission ,otherwise known as matriculation, and is therefore no longer in a mad scramble for competition,because there are less places when qualified applicants. Surely that is a good thing?.
The quality and value of a university or other third level education or training program is a complex and completely different situation.

 

[tillson]

Perhaps I am wrong, but my understanding is that unconditional places means that the candidate has met the requirements for admission ,otherwise known as matriculation, and is therefore no longer in a mad scramble for competition,because there are less places when qualified applicants. Surely that is a good thing?.
The quality and value of a university or other third level education or training program is a complex and completely different situation.

Again lots of words, but when we boil the ........

We are left with a situation where people are being admitted onto courses with no minimum standard for entry. The world where that is a good thing does not exist. It’s a very bad thing in the real world.

This is half the problem. People talk things around in circles with lots of words and disappear up thiervown jacksy.

 

[oyster]

Was this claim by Rab C Nesbitt a deliberate attempt at fiction, or was he just Trumping?

One thing is for sure, the statements made by government ministers should be like the deserts in McDonalds which carry a made in the morning sell by the afternoon expiry date.

This governement and it ministers are so bad they appear to have lost their vital spark.

(Via Rab C and Para Handy.)

 

[Danidl]

Again lots of words, but when we boil the ........

We are left with a situation where people are being admitted onto courses with no minimum standard for entry. The world where that is a good thing does not exist. It’s a very bad thing in the real world.

This is half the problem. People talk things around in circles with lots of words and disappear up thiervown jacksy.

The minimum standard of entry is the Published entry requirements for the programme. Normally it is agreed by the program validation authority. Thus if one was taking an a engineering programme validated by the The Engineering Council, for admission to their registered titles , the programme, the faculty, the facilities, the duration of study and the entry criteria are all examined. The entrance criteria will for instance demand that ALL candidates have achieved a specific score in Math and or specified science subjects at the appropriate level. Similar standards apply in any of the other regulated professions.
Now if there are places available on a programme, and there are candidates who have met these published admittance criteria it would be illegal, in most countries to not admit them...
I have done this for a living, and currently supervise the admittance procedures for professional Engineering grades, so an apology is in order.

 

[flecc]

The minimum standard of entry is the Published entry requirements for the programme. Normally it is agreed by the program validation authority. Thus if one was taking an a engineering programme validated by the The Engineering Council, for admission to their registered titles , the programme, the faculty, the facilities, the duration of study and the entry criteria are all examined. The entrance criteria will for instance demand that ALL candidates have achieved a specific score in Math and or specified science subjects at the appropriate level. Similar standards apply in any of the other regulated professions.
Now if there are places available on a programme, and there are candidates who have met these published admittance criteria it would be illegal, in most countries to not admit them...
I have done this for a living, and currently supervise the admittance procedures for professional Engineering grades, so an apology is in order.

Shouldn't you be challenging The Observer and The Guardian who reported as fact what you object to, quoting names of those in office at universities who'd allegedly stated it?

Tillson was only quoting what they've published.
.

 

[tillson]

The minimum standard of entry is the Published entry requirements for the programme. Normally it is agreed by the program validation authority. Thus if one was taking an a engineering programme validated by the The Engineering Council, for admission to their registered titles , the programme, the faculty, the facilities, the duration of study and the entry criteria are all examined. The entrance criteria will for instance demand that ALL candidates have achieved a specific score in Math and or specified science subjects at the appropriate level. Similar standards apply in any of the other regulated professions.
Now if there are places available on a programme, and there are candidates who have met these published admittance criteria it would be illegal, in most countries to not admit them...
I have done this for a living, and currently supervise the admittance procedures for professional Engineering grades, so an apology is in order.

I’m usually pretty quick to apologise if I have made a mistake, but in this case one is not due because you are very wrong.

I understand that the entrance criteria demands that candidates achieve a specified score as a condition of entry onto a particular course. However, that specified minimum score is now being disregarded, fact. Universities are saying, it doesn’t matter if you don’t get the grades, we will take you and your £27K regardless, fact. So you are quite wrong in what you say.

I completed a Mechanical Engineering degree 30+ years ago and know all about applying for places and grade requirements for entry. In some instances that has all gone now. The university will admit you even if you fail to achieve the grades.

I retired a couple of months ago, but in my final year, I was compelled to obtain a qualification in Learning & Development through Leeds University. I can honestly say I did not learn a thing, and it was a complete waste of my employer’s money. Somehow, these places have managed to take the patently obvious and common sense values, flower them both up with unnecessary words, and then sell the resultant BS back to people. The staff running these courses were complete dick-heads living in a self complementing, self important bubble.

Higher education in many establishments has been totally wrecked and they are offering zero benefit to young people.

 

[Danidl]

Shouldn't you be challenging The Observer and The Guardian who reported as fact what you object to, quoting names of those in office at universities who'd allegedly stated it?

Tillson was only quoting what they've published.
.

Tilson can make his own apology or excuses should he wish. Quoting a 18 year old article is neither useful or fruitful. Nothing quoted in that article contradicts anything I stated. There is an ongoing dialogue or tension , as there should be, between the validation committees of the learned societies, the faculty members in the college's,and the bean counters in the finance departments of those same colleges. The faculty members are both grateful to the learned societies, for helping them keep up standards,and obtain equipment, and worried about demanding to much from the central authority in the college. I have been in both sides of the fence,and see the validation committees as being the truest friend to both the faculty and society in the long run.
Interestingly some time after those types of reports started circulating in UK newspapers, a number of the middle East countries, who had been sending students to UK sent delegations to us. In many cases the oil rich state was sending and paying for groups to attend. They were very disappointed with the amount of tuition hours their students were gettung in non validated programmes and wanted assuances from us,that we kept records and timetables.. There is a value in being accredited.!!

 

[Danidl]

Tilson.
There is nothing a learned society can do about a college admitting unqualified candidates. What it can and will do is withhold accrediation from the programme. That is a slow response as accreditation takes place at say 5 year intervals. A pragmatic accreditation committee, knowing that there are always a few exceptional candidate s , will allow a small percentage. My original response was about admitting qualified candidates.
I can sympathize with your response about the Learning and Development course. Such courses have value in helping young staff transition from being researchers to other roles, but will be of much less use to someone with a long career behind them... You can't put old heads on young shoulders, but at least the training reduces the number of glaring faux Pas. The self importance of those lecturers , I can relate to.

 

[Danidl]

Tilson.
There is nothing a learned society can do about a college admitting unqualified candidates. What it can and will do is withhold accrediation from the programme and apply conditions. In the UK the various societies value their Royal Charters and in other countries we value our state recognition. . If the national organisation ,then fails to do its job,and allows it's standards to drop, it is likley to be reviewed by the international committeees. This will at best be a slow response as accreditation takes place at say 5 year intervals... But it does work in the longer term.
A pragmatic accreditation committee, knowing that there are always a few exceptional candidate s , will allow a small percentage. My original response was about admitting qualified candidates.
If colleges are admitting substandard students and giving them substandard tuition, they will in time lose their accreditation, of that I am sure.
I can sympathize with your response about the Learning and Development course. Such courses have value in helping young staff transition from being researchers to other roles, but will be of much less use to someone with a long career behind them... You can't put old heads on young shoulders, but at least the training reduces the number of glaring faux Pas. The self importance of those lecturers , I can relate to.

 

[oldtom]

I'm bound to say that I agree with 'Tillson's remarks on the status and value of the UK university system today.

Having visited a goodly number of colleges around the country over the last few years, I have been struck by what I can only describe as a diminution of the ethos which has prevailed over not years, but centuries. That opinion, and that's all it is, I suggest, coincides with the demise of free university education which has moved our immensely wealthy universities much closer to an identifiable business model of the kind common among large corporate concerns.

That has led to some of the largest salary increases outside of the mainstream private sector during the years of austerity, indeed some vice-chancellors have enjoyed eye-watering pay rises while basic-grade lecturers, domestic and ancillary staff have been subject to similar restraint as other public sector workers.

The only other area I can think of where the highest echelon of management has seen such enormous salary increases is the charity sector which has transformed itself into the style of mainstream corporate business. Check out the kind of salary package enjoyed by the CEOs and other board members of these High Street concerns, staffed largely if not entirely by volunteers. Then consider the prices of the good they purvey compared to 10 years ago.

As things stand today, I cannot imagine post-'Brexit' where the kind of jobs will exist that might require a degree. Already there are lots of graduates, loaded with debt, who cannot find employment commensurate with their talent and ability. That aside, allowing other young people to enter the world of academe just because they nearly made the grade seems to me a very difficult concept to justify unless it's all about business, the particular business of further wealth accumulation.

I have never quite grasped how a generation of political and business leaders which enjoyed free university education can remove that fundamental right (as I see it) from the generations that follow. They should be ashamed, particularly of their lie that the nation cannot afford it.

Tom

 

[oldtom]

As an afterthought on universities, if we are out of the EU next year, this will apply:

UK citizens will no longer be entitled to study at any EU university under the same conditions as citizens of that country.

Tom

 

[tillson]

I'm bound to say that I agree with 'Tillson's remarks on the status and value of the UK university system today.

Having visited a goodly number of colleges around the country over the last few years, I have been struck by what I can only describe as a diminution of the ethos which has prevailed over not years, but centuries. That opinion, and that's all it is, I suggest, coincides with the demise of free university education which has moved our immensely wealthy universities much closer to an identifiable business model of the kind common among large corporate concerns.

That has led to some of the largest salary increases outside of the mainstream private sector during the years of austerity, indeed some vice-chancellors have enjoyed eye-watering pay rises while basic-grade lecturers, domestic and ancillary staff have been subject to similar restraint as other public sector workers.

The only other area I can think of where the highest echelon of management has seen such enormous salary increases is the charity sector which has transformed itself into the style of mainstream corporate business. Check out the kind of salary package enjoyed by the CEOs and other board members of these High Street concerns, staffed largely if not entirely by volunteers. Then consider the prices of the good they purvey compared to 10 years ago.

As things stand today, I cannot imagine post-'Brexit' where the kind of jobs will exist that might require a degree. Already there are lots of graduates, loaded with debt, who cannot find employment commensurate with their talent and ability. That aside, allowing other young people to enter the world of academe just because they nearly made the grade seems to me a very difficult concept to justify unless it's all about business, the particular business of further wealth accumulation.

I have never quite grasped how a generation of political and business leaders which enjoyed free university education can remove that fundamental right (as I see it) from the generations that follow. They should be ashamed, particularly of their lie that the nation cannot afford it.

Tom

I totally agree and very well put.

Charity, or rather charity CEO pay, is another national scandal.

 

[oldgroaner]

Higher education in many establishments has been totally wrecked and they are offering zero benefit to young people.

There is one practical benefit, of University for all, rather like Opera or Ballet,
it keeps the hooligans off the streets. (some of the time)

After all when you think the Bullingon boys all graduated from these hallowed halls, my reaction if I were young again would be to badly misquote one of Groucho's quotes.

"I wouldn't want selection for any University that will have me!"

Alas, among my many sins is the one of habitually saying when the MP announced another young hopeful for some onerous post where the average life expectancy of the appointee was about three months
"Oh God! not another graduate! is there no one out there we can get that knows what they are doing?"
His optimism in give them a chance was laudable enough, but the failure rate and disruption it caused was damn near 100%

I could never understand whether the reason behind this was a dearth of available trained talent, or Graduates were ten a penny.
Companies take advantage of them by pushing them into positions with little training and sometimes little aptitude for, then seem surprised that they find the going heavy.
It is neither fair on them or a substitute for bringing them in through a proper process of training and assessment.
This man had an interesting take on the subject
https://jarche.com/2018/04/what-they-dont-teach-at-university-but-should/