I’ve just invited AC Grayling to attend the Aldwych Group handover session. Is it because I agree with the New College of Humanities? No. Is it because I want to be controversial? Certainly not. As far as i can tell this whole palava isn’t even going ahead anymore but I want to get a point across none the less - because I think that what he has done is indeed very clever.
I will not believe the hype that this NCH has been created entirely as a profit-making establishment. With no research output and fees set at the same level as your average international student, I’m not convinced that profits will be that high – especially not if they are flying in high-profile lecturers from across the world. And so what if some jobsworth has exposed that the one-to-one tutorials probably won’t be with those same high-profile lecturers? It’s still promising what we’ve all been hoping for – a personalised education where we can truly feel like members of the academic community rather than a burden on our over-worked lecturers and their research.
The truth is - Grayling’s initiative is intelligent. The government (past and present) are attempting to revolutionise a sector that didn’t really want to be revolutionised, they have put regulations on a sector that doesn’t really want to be regulated (see: student numbers), and worse, they have lured this same sector in to chaos with funding cuts that are killing off anything that isn’t considered “economical”. Universities have been forced to look like coke dealers, enticing youngsters in to their dens of adrenaline-inciting knowledge. A first just a little taste at an affordable price – it makes us look cool to employers and if anything it’s a brilliant form of escapism from the yokel village-life we have all become bored of. Then - once we’re hooked – the bill starts to rise, until it has become an unrealistic burden on our bank accounts. So the government starts handing out loans and we are long-term indebted to the government in its role as cartel manager. These loans are at an ever growing rate of interest and it is unlikely that many of us will ever be able to pay it back. At least in this game we don’t end up paying with our lives, I hope.
Does it really cost £16-18,000 a year to educate at an undergraduate level? I don’t have all of the facts but that is what they tell us. Without financial transparency we will never know if that sum is just a ploy for universities to get money out of the government and the government to get money out of students. But I’m warming to the idea that at the moment we are all losing at this game – including the taxpayer.
So, in comes Grayling with his New College of Humanities. It’s like a cleaner, upper-class drug. The education is pure, and is delivered to you on a silver platter. Who cares if it’s not economical – humanities are fun. If you have the cash, he’s got the knowledge. If you don’t have the cash but you do have the minerals for it – you can still get in on it. Personally I don’t think enough attention has been given to the number of scholarships they are intending to offer – well above what most top universities are going to offer. Why shouldn’t those who can afford help those who can’t? That’s another choice those choosing to go the NCH will be making. Surely it’s a good thing?
Everybody seems to win. The taxpayer will no longer be subsidising ‘lazy’ students. Students (albeit only 375 of them) will be getting a top-class education without needing to pass through gruelling A-levels or a lengthy, competitive and often soul-destroying interview process. The academics will be able to teach however they like without over-regulation and probably (though I’m not sure) without having to adhere to as many quality assurance guidelines.
The only thing we seem to lose is that sense of public good behind a publically subsidised education. But at £9k a year I’m going to predict that that ‘sense’, if we can even claim there is such a thing, will wane as students become accustomed to consumerism in education. To return to my previous analogy the government wants our money to go where the good stuff is, not where we are going to feel the cosiest sense of public duty. The NCH is finishing this exhausting game of charades for us, not because Grayling wants to, but because it is a simple solution. I can’t imagine that he has set up the NCH because he ‘hates education’ as one FaceBook group states; the big question is how should we react?
Well, I for one am not going to jump on any bandwagons just yet. I’m going to take my signature approach to these sorts of things: the ‘wait and see’ approach. It could go one of two ways – it will either flounder and the predictions of “thick middle class kids buying their way to a BA” will come true or it might help to save humanities and show up universities with poor widening access records. It’s probably not going to be for everyone, but I’ll tip my hat to him for putting his neck on the line to try this idea out.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Women Officers
One of my four new year’s resolutions this year (by request of my colleagues) was to learn to take on enraging information and deal with it in a less emotional manner. The most challenging test of this so far has been researching for this article, after which I immediately scrapped the resolution, resolved that I am who I am and I think emotions are healthy. It’s good to get angry and upset about things, it spurs you on to change them.
Between 1988 and 2011, KCLSU has had two female presidents. The last female president was in 2000 – 2001 meaning that there hasn’t been a female president for ten years. Ten years. In fact, since 1988 only 36% of Presidents and Vice Presidents at KCLSU have been women, when at the moment our demographic is actually over 60% female. That was bad enough, but when I started researching how far behind we were on the gender equality front on trusty Wikipedia*, I also found out that in 2000 absolutely no Nobel prizes at all were awarded to women. Or in 2001. Or in 2002. Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 followed by a peak of 3 women winning in 2004, then back to none for 2005. In fact, of the 260 winners between 1988 and 2010 only 19 were women. Now, I’ve had all sorts of apologist, defensive and sometimes downright sexist excuses thrown at me about why this is but these are just two examples of hundreds that highlight the fact that there is still a problem, whether we like it or not. It makes me cringe when people say things like “men and women are just made for different roles”. In the world of student politics especially, that is – quite frankly – poppycock.
So, we can’t solve the Nobel Prize issue at the moment. We also probably can’t successfully address the millions of underlying issues surrounding female attainment in all areas of society any time soon. But, if everyone just changes their attitude slightly, we might be able to start to change everything. For instance, next time a young girl says she likes physics or science or engineering, try not to raise your eyebrows and say things like “oh!” (If this catches on, we might have more than two female Nobel Prize in Physics winners by the time I’m retired). Or next time someone makes a comment about the UK having a female prime minister, try not to make a joke about “how well that turned out last time LOLZORDS!". And while we're on that note please, please stop comparing strong women to Maggie Thatcher – it’s really, really off-putting. But most importantly, let’s get our own house in order.
I’m not suggesting that women officers will be more able or better than male officers, I’m saying we’ll never know until we give it a good go. So if you are considering going for a position of power or responsibility, be it at KCLSU or in the wider world, do the world a favour and go for it. Incidentally, nominations open on the 31st January and close on the 18th of February for all KCLSU Student Officer Positions. Check the homepage for details.
* I also checked this out on the Nobel Prize website.
Between 1988 and 2011, KCLSU has had two female presidents. The last female president was in 2000 – 2001 meaning that there hasn’t been a female president for ten years. Ten years. In fact, since 1988 only 36% of Presidents and Vice Presidents at KCLSU have been women, when at the moment our demographic is actually over 60% female. That was bad enough, but when I started researching how far behind we were on the gender equality front on trusty Wikipedia*, I also found out that in 2000 absolutely no Nobel prizes at all were awarded to women. Or in 2001. Or in 2002. Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 followed by a peak of 3 women winning in 2004, then back to none for 2005. In fact, of the 260 winners between 1988 and 2010 only 19 were women. Now, I’ve had all sorts of apologist, defensive and sometimes downright sexist excuses thrown at me about why this is but these are just two examples of hundreds that highlight the fact that there is still a problem, whether we like it or not. It makes me cringe when people say things like “men and women are just made for different roles”. In the world of student politics especially, that is – quite frankly – poppycock.
So, we can’t solve the Nobel Prize issue at the moment. We also probably can’t successfully address the millions of underlying issues surrounding female attainment in all areas of society any time soon. But, if everyone just changes their attitude slightly, we might be able to start to change everything. For instance, next time a young girl says she likes physics or science or engineering, try not to raise your eyebrows and say things like “oh!” (If this catches on, we might have more than two female Nobel Prize in Physics winners by the time I’m retired). Or next time someone makes a comment about the UK having a female prime minister, try not to make a joke about “how well that turned out last time LOLZORDS!". And while we're on that note please, please stop comparing strong women to Maggie Thatcher – it’s really, really off-putting. But most importantly, let’s get our own house in order.
I’m not suggesting that women officers will be more able or better than male officers, I’m saying we’ll never know until we give it a good go. So if you are considering going for a position of power or responsibility, be it at KCLSU or in the wider world, do the world a favour and go for it. Incidentally, nominations open on the 31st January and close on the 18th of February for all KCLSU Student Officer Positions. Check the homepage for details.
* I also checked this out on the Nobel Prize website.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Aldwych Group Response
Today’s fees vote is a huge disappointment to all of those students and members of the general public that have been campaigning against this rise in tuition fees. Complacency is not an option. Promises have been made by the government and the Russell Group about the benefits of higher fees and it’s imperative that students and student unions hold the government and their institutions to account on this subject in the forthcoming period.
The increased student contribution will have many consequences, one of which will be the higher expectations of students. Universities should never just be seen as ‘service providers’ and students do not, for the most part, wish to be seen simply as consumers, however the further marketisation of higher education will consolidate this approach. I hope that you will not neglect your new responsibilities in this area, and would emphasise the need for further investment in your institution’s student union, increased transparency on university spending, and guarantees of investment into front line services.
I urge all institutions of the Russell Group to constructively engage with their student unions in decisions around how the extra income raised from fees should be spent. Questions surrounding the quality of education, delivery, access, employability and information advice & guidance are more relevant than ever before, and the burden of answering them should be shared equally between government, institutions and students. The student voice must hold more weight than ever before and institutions should take proactive steps in ensuring that their students are heard
The increased student contribution will have many consequences, one of which will be the higher expectations of students. Universities should never just be seen as ‘service providers’ and students do not, for the most part, wish to be seen simply as consumers, however the further marketisation of higher education will consolidate this approach. I hope that you will not neglect your new responsibilities in this area, and would emphasise the need for further investment in your institution’s student union, increased transparency on university spending, and guarantees of investment into front line services.
I urge all institutions of the Russell Group to constructively engage with their student unions in decisions around how the extra income raised from fees should be spent. Questions surrounding the quality of education, delivery, access, employability and information advice & guidance are more relevant than ever before, and the burden of answering them should be shared equally between government, institutions and students. The student voice must hold more weight than ever before and institutions should take proactive steps in ensuring that their students are heard
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Debate vs. Bait
To Debate
1. to discuss (something) formally,
2. to consider (possible courses of action)
To Bait
1. to put a piece of food on or in (a hook or trap)
2. to persecute or tease,
3. to set dogs upon (a bear or badger)
Debate vs. Bait: engaging with the issue.
So, cuts to higher education, further education and a rise in tuition fees affect a few different groups of people. Some are voters, some cannot yet vote, some are powerful vice chancellors of universities and some are politicians. So, what was the plan? How were each side to get their point across during this ‘debate’? Well first of all, both sides did some research. The NUS created the graduate tax model for fees under the blueprint, which was voted on at an NUS conference, admittedly not the best thing they’ve ever come up with but we’ve all been told so many times that coming to the table with only an opinion is not good enough, you need evidence, a plan. The NUS tried to sit at the table, only to be told they couldn’t. The Browne Review didn’t have any student stakeholders on the group, let alone students of the future. Instead, the NUS and others were baited with the idea that they would still have a chance to feed in to the review through consultation papers and giving evidence. The blueprint was rejected and if their views had been taken on board it’s unlikely that the result of the Browne Report would have been quite so free-market with such tokenistic concessions.
Debate vs. Bait: Education.
Its funny growing up and being told that every exam you take it ‘getting easier’ and that it doesn’t mean anything to any employers. It makes me feel like we’ve all been locked in a room being taught wrong information by some crazy scientists, only to have been set free and unleashed into ‘the real world’ of higher education where we are told that that students are inarticulate or stupid, effectively being punished for our poor educational history. Some students have managed to snap out of it and conform to the ‘real world’, those that go on to be entrepreneurs or who managed to feed off of their peers that subject to the other, probably more expensive, side of the education experiment where they were apparently all taught the right information (how to play golf with a royal etc). Suddenly, those that escaped are engulfed into ‘networks’, and are suddenly employable, they’re able to spin their extracurricular activities into employability attributes and call in favours in big business. Suddenly, they’re allowed to join the debate.
Others that didn’t integrate into this ‘real world’ were baited into carrying on learning wrong or useless information and those pesky outsiders have created institutions where they can do this. They graduate only to be told that their degrees are useless, they’ve got a load of debt and there aren’t any jobs for them. If I may be so bold as to say, these students were baited there, and not by people of our own generation but by the very generation that are now telling them everything they have worked for is pointless. Is there an answer, or is it ok for politicians to sit back and just accept that they may or may not have messed up and there may or may not be a mass youth unemployment issue? I know which is the path of least resistance, but I’m not sure that there is anything of much use to these people at the end of it.
Debate vs. Bait: Voting and political engagement.
What can we do about it? We’re fed a line that we can and should be engaging in political debate as constructively as possible. This has been particularly noticeable in the aftermath of the violence at the protests. Similar to the question of the Browne Review, you need to look at who is sitting at which table. Who is engaging in the debate? Not the unemployed youth or the hundreds of students now stuck with ‘pointless’ degrees (unable to take a new, less pointless one because of ELQ regulations) as far as I can tell and certainly not the 16 year olds about to lose their Education Maintenance Allowance. There’s no real ‘stakeholders’ forming the policies in any structured and easily accessible way. I don’t even think that there are any MPs that don’t have a degree? This in itself makes engaging politically without a degree from a good university seem completely out of reach. Imagine what sort of policies and decisions would be being made if people could engage in such a way that meant that the decisions being made positively affected the group of people they represented. Imagine.
Instead, we are all baited with the idea that we can use our democratic right to vote for a party that we think has our best interests at heart. Except that isn’t, as far as I can tell, how it happens either. The Lib Dems are an easy target here, so I won’t go into to much detail. But needless to say the last election has created a few more generations of people completely disengaged with voting and political engagement, particularly students. It seems that as a politician you can tell people you are going to do one thing, get in to power, a compromise on what ever pledges you’ve made as it suits you. This is true for all parties and all MPs, if you ask your average UK voter I’m not sure that they would know many good or effective ways of holding their MP to account.
Debate vs. Bait: Protest.
So, what options have we got left? After 2 years of personally attempting to engage constructively with the political system, trying to influence the outcomes of things that will affect me – not just higher education – I can admit that I am exhausted. Joining the debate appears to be quite simple, but affecting the change you want to see, incredibly hard. I was talking to Talk radio Europe the other day and he asked why not many of us sabbatical officers go in to politics after our years in student politics. This was precisely my answer, that attempt after attempt to engage have left me feeling dissatisfied and nothing I have said seems to have been taken on board. So we protest. This is the last resort. And as the past month has shown, it can be risky and with limited success and as Daniel Trilling recently pointed out in the New Statesman: ‘protest has been neutered’. Similar to voting and attempting political engagement – I know protesting happens but I’ve rarely seen it work. For everyone that thinks students are just throwing their toys out of the pram, ask any sabbatical officer how much of their life they’ve spent trying to persuade government and universities how important it is to fund higher education as fairly as possible and see how dead their eyes are. The government is caught in a vice because it has no money, universities are in a vice because they have no money, Students are like small animals trapped in a cage because its predicted that at some point they’ll have enough juicy meaty money to give the government and universities to make up for deficit. This isn’t just £9,000 a year in fees; it’s being trapped in a 7% interest rate debt repayment system with the government for 30 years.
I’m not condoning violence in any situation, I’m strongly against escalating a protest into any sort of violence both because I’m just generally against violence and also because I have my suspicions that the police van and the kettling incident from the 24th is beginning to look more and more like bait, creating more and more reasons to cut us out of the debate. It’s sad that we just ended up baiting and being baited by the Police. They can’t protest, and this is normally where having a good relationship with students comes in handy. Unfortunately, I know that most students hold a grudge, and that ship has sailed for the police. The poor preparation from the 10th Nov - for which I actually blame MPs for giving the impression that students wouldn’t be engaged in the debate (arrogant and wishful thinking on their part, in my opinion) – led to baiting of the police by the general public, students and parliament. Can you imagine if they hadn’t stepped up their game for the 24th? How weak they would have looked? But now we’re stuck with an artificial (yet physical) barrier between students and the police, where neither appears to be truly willing to work together, to fight for each others rights or (and I hate to say it) to ‘unite’.
Give the Lib Dems their dues, Simon Hughes has agreed to support and instigate an inquest about the Police van on the 24th, and the use of kettling in general. He’s also agreed to take on board any suggestions he receives from students regarding the higher education debate. A recently Q&A session with Hughes was laced with poor arguments that made me think that he was having trouble getting his beliefs and the work he has been asked to do to converge, but I can sympathise with how hard it is to explain yourself in front of a group of rowdy students – especially if they’re from LSE. But my conclusion here is that if one doesn’t allow people to engage wholly in the democratic system – to be able to influence policy that affects them and have confidence that their votes count for something, one is essentially baiting people. This isn’t acceptable, but I can’t see how it’s going to change unless political engagement becomes genuine and useful.
1. to discuss (something) formally,
2. to consider (possible courses of action)
To Bait
1. to put a piece of food on or in (a hook or trap)
2. to persecute or tease,
3. to set dogs upon (a bear or badger)
Debate vs. Bait: engaging with the issue.
So, cuts to higher education, further education and a rise in tuition fees affect a few different groups of people. Some are voters, some cannot yet vote, some are powerful vice chancellors of universities and some are politicians. So, what was the plan? How were each side to get their point across during this ‘debate’? Well first of all, both sides did some research. The NUS created the graduate tax model for fees under the blueprint, which was voted on at an NUS conference, admittedly not the best thing they’ve ever come up with but we’ve all been told so many times that coming to the table with only an opinion is not good enough, you need evidence, a plan. The NUS tried to sit at the table, only to be told they couldn’t. The Browne Review didn’t have any student stakeholders on the group, let alone students of the future. Instead, the NUS and others were baited with the idea that they would still have a chance to feed in to the review through consultation papers and giving evidence. The blueprint was rejected and if their views had been taken on board it’s unlikely that the result of the Browne Report would have been quite so free-market with such tokenistic concessions.
Debate vs. Bait: Education.
Its funny growing up and being told that every exam you take it ‘getting easier’ and that it doesn’t mean anything to any employers. It makes me feel like we’ve all been locked in a room being taught wrong information by some crazy scientists, only to have been set free and unleashed into ‘the real world’ of higher education where we are told that that students are inarticulate or stupid, effectively being punished for our poor educational history. Some students have managed to snap out of it and conform to the ‘real world’, those that go on to be entrepreneurs or who managed to feed off of their peers that subject to the other, probably more expensive, side of the education experiment where they were apparently all taught the right information (how to play golf with a royal etc). Suddenly, those that escaped are engulfed into ‘networks’, and are suddenly employable, they’re able to spin their extracurricular activities into employability attributes and call in favours in big business. Suddenly, they’re allowed to join the debate.
Others that didn’t integrate into this ‘real world’ were baited into carrying on learning wrong or useless information and those pesky outsiders have created institutions where they can do this. They graduate only to be told that their degrees are useless, they’ve got a load of debt and there aren’t any jobs for them. If I may be so bold as to say, these students were baited there, and not by people of our own generation but by the very generation that are now telling them everything they have worked for is pointless. Is there an answer, or is it ok for politicians to sit back and just accept that they may or may not have messed up and there may or may not be a mass youth unemployment issue? I know which is the path of least resistance, but I’m not sure that there is anything of much use to these people at the end of it.
Debate vs. Bait: Voting and political engagement.
What can we do about it? We’re fed a line that we can and should be engaging in political debate as constructively as possible. This has been particularly noticeable in the aftermath of the violence at the protests. Similar to the question of the Browne Review, you need to look at who is sitting at which table. Who is engaging in the debate? Not the unemployed youth or the hundreds of students now stuck with ‘pointless’ degrees (unable to take a new, less pointless one because of ELQ regulations) as far as I can tell and certainly not the 16 year olds about to lose their Education Maintenance Allowance. There’s no real ‘stakeholders’ forming the policies in any structured and easily accessible way. I don’t even think that there are any MPs that don’t have a degree? This in itself makes engaging politically without a degree from a good university seem completely out of reach. Imagine what sort of policies and decisions would be being made if people could engage in such a way that meant that the decisions being made positively affected the group of people they represented. Imagine.
Instead, we are all baited with the idea that we can use our democratic right to vote for a party that we think has our best interests at heart. Except that isn’t, as far as I can tell, how it happens either. The Lib Dems are an easy target here, so I won’t go into to much detail. But needless to say the last election has created a few more generations of people completely disengaged with voting and political engagement, particularly students. It seems that as a politician you can tell people you are going to do one thing, get in to power, a compromise on what ever pledges you’ve made as it suits you. This is true for all parties and all MPs, if you ask your average UK voter I’m not sure that they would know many good or effective ways of holding their MP to account.
Debate vs. Bait: Protest.
So, what options have we got left? After 2 years of personally attempting to engage constructively with the political system, trying to influence the outcomes of things that will affect me – not just higher education – I can admit that I am exhausted. Joining the debate appears to be quite simple, but affecting the change you want to see, incredibly hard. I was talking to Talk radio Europe the other day and he asked why not many of us sabbatical officers go in to politics after our years in student politics. This was precisely my answer, that attempt after attempt to engage have left me feeling dissatisfied and nothing I have said seems to have been taken on board. So we protest. This is the last resort. And as the past month has shown, it can be risky and with limited success and as Daniel Trilling recently pointed out in the New Statesman: ‘protest has been neutered’. Similar to voting and attempting political engagement – I know protesting happens but I’ve rarely seen it work. For everyone that thinks students are just throwing their toys out of the pram, ask any sabbatical officer how much of their life they’ve spent trying to persuade government and universities how important it is to fund higher education as fairly as possible and see how dead their eyes are. The government is caught in a vice because it has no money, universities are in a vice because they have no money, Students are like small animals trapped in a cage because its predicted that at some point they’ll have enough juicy meaty money to give the government and universities to make up for deficit. This isn’t just £9,000 a year in fees; it’s being trapped in a 7% interest rate debt repayment system with the government for 30 years.
I’m not condoning violence in any situation, I’m strongly against escalating a protest into any sort of violence both because I’m just generally against violence and also because I have my suspicions that the police van and the kettling incident from the 24th is beginning to look more and more like bait, creating more and more reasons to cut us out of the debate. It’s sad that we just ended up baiting and being baited by the Police. They can’t protest, and this is normally where having a good relationship with students comes in handy. Unfortunately, I know that most students hold a grudge, and that ship has sailed for the police. The poor preparation from the 10th Nov - for which I actually blame MPs for giving the impression that students wouldn’t be engaged in the debate (arrogant and wishful thinking on their part, in my opinion) – led to baiting of the police by the general public, students and parliament. Can you imagine if they hadn’t stepped up their game for the 24th? How weak they would have looked? But now we’re stuck with an artificial (yet physical) barrier between students and the police, where neither appears to be truly willing to work together, to fight for each others rights or (and I hate to say it) to ‘unite’.
Give the Lib Dems their dues, Simon Hughes has agreed to support and instigate an inquest about the Police van on the 24th, and the use of kettling in general. He’s also agreed to take on board any suggestions he receives from students regarding the higher education debate. A recently Q&A session with Hughes was laced with poor arguments that made me think that he was having trouble getting his beliefs and the work he has been asked to do to converge, but I can sympathise with how hard it is to explain yourself in front of a group of rowdy students – especially if they’re from LSE. But my conclusion here is that if one doesn’t allow people to engage wholly in the democratic system – to be able to influence policy that affects them and have confidence that their votes count for something, one is essentially baiting people. This isn’t acceptable, but I can’t see how it’s going to change unless political engagement becomes genuine and useful.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
My Heavy Heart
What a week to decide to go on work experience. I booked this week off in good faith that the Browne Review would not be coming out until next week - giving me enough time at a secondary school in North London to get some work experience on the one hand, but rally up some troops for the demo against cuts and fees on the other. What a mistake.
For some time, I thought that the only way we could get other students interested in coming on the demo and lobbying against cuts and fees was to drop the bit about fees and focus on the cuts. The cuts are going to be bad, really bad, but I'm not sure that any of us were prepared for the Browne Review announcement on the 12th. Unlimited fees!? Universities can charge UNLIMITED FEES!? It was rumoured that this might be one of the recommendations but I had put this to the back of my mind as scaremongering of the worst kind. I actually thought it was a rumour laid down by the Lib Dems or Labour as anti-Tory propaganda. Once again, what a mistake.
I have an undergraduate degree. For all intents and purposes I'm only against this ideologically, not practically. I don't need to be against this practically. As much as I'd like to go back and do my degree again I'm set in my ways - well on the path to becoming a teacher. But let's think about this for a second. I'm going to be a teacher. Sure, some teachers earn £100,000 (or whatever huge salary the Daily Mail is pushing on teachers today), but most aren't. The average salary for a teacher in the UK is about £31,000 a year. Under the Browne proposals, even if my degree fees were £12,000 a year and no more I would be in at least £40,000 worth of tuition fee debt after I'd done my PGCE at it's current price - without even taking into consideration living costs. I guess the theory is that you wouldn't go to a top university like King's if you were ONLY going to be a teacher. Or that teaching students social sciences isn't economically worthwhile. But teachers are teaching the academics of the future, and you'd think the Tories would want the teachers to be as well educated as possible. And I know that Religion, Philosophy and Ethics isn't the backbone of a good economy, but I definately would rather have a generation of children able to empathise with eachother than a generation of bankers.
But, back to my heavy heart. I'm working with some amazing kids. This school is massive at 1,600 students. It's based over two sites in North London and is home to children from some of the poorest families in the UK. If you ever doubted what effect socio-economic deprivation has on a child's ability to learn and do well, spend a day in a poor school in London. Most of the teachers are NQT because the staff turnover is so high because of the behavioural problems they experience. Some of these children, however, are incredibly intelligent despite all of this.
Today, I was talking to a girl who wants to come to King's or Oxford to study law. I felt a lump grow in my throat. I ask her if she's seen the Browne proposal, and if she knows how much going to King's will cost when she applies next year. She said that she'd heard fees might be going up, but didn't know by how much - she'd been too busy preparing her personal statement to keep up with the news. Tomorrow I'm going to take in a summary of the Browne Review and hand it out to the year 12's and 11's. I wish Browne could be there to see their faces drop.
For some time, I thought that the only way we could get other students interested in coming on the demo and lobbying against cuts and fees was to drop the bit about fees and focus on the cuts. The cuts are going to be bad, really bad, but I'm not sure that any of us were prepared for the Browne Review announcement on the 12th. Unlimited fees!? Universities can charge UNLIMITED FEES!? It was rumoured that this might be one of the recommendations but I had put this to the back of my mind as scaremongering of the worst kind. I actually thought it was a rumour laid down by the Lib Dems or Labour as anti-Tory propaganda. Once again, what a mistake.
I have an undergraduate degree. For all intents and purposes I'm only against this ideologically, not practically. I don't need to be against this practically. As much as I'd like to go back and do my degree again I'm set in my ways - well on the path to becoming a teacher. But let's think about this for a second. I'm going to be a teacher. Sure, some teachers earn £100,000 (or whatever huge salary the Daily Mail is pushing on teachers today), but most aren't. The average salary for a teacher in the UK is about £31,000 a year. Under the Browne proposals, even if my degree fees were £12,000 a year and no more I would be in at least £40,000 worth of tuition fee debt after I'd done my PGCE at it's current price - without even taking into consideration living costs. I guess the theory is that you wouldn't go to a top university like King's if you were ONLY going to be a teacher. Or that teaching students social sciences isn't economically worthwhile. But teachers are teaching the academics of the future, and you'd think the Tories would want the teachers to be as well educated as possible. And I know that Religion, Philosophy and Ethics isn't the backbone of a good economy, but I definately would rather have a generation of children able to empathise with eachother than a generation of bankers.
But, back to my heavy heart. I'm working with some amazing kids. This school is massive at 1,600 students. It's based over two sites in North London and is home to children from some of the poorest families in the UK. If you ever doubted what effect socio-economic deprivation has on a child's ability to learn and do well, spend a day in a poor school in London. Most of the teachers are NQT because the staff turnover is so high because of the behavioural problems they experience. Some of these children, however, are incredibly intelligent despite all of this.
Today, I was talking to a girl who wants to come to King's or Oxford to study law. I felt a lump grow in my throat. I ask her if she's seen the Browne proposal, and if she knows how much going to King's will cost when she applies next year. She said that she'd heard fees might be going up, but didn't know by how much - she'd been too busy preparing her personal statement to keep up with the news. Tomorrow I'm going to take in a summary of the Browne Review and hand it out to the year 12's and 11's. I wish Browne could be there to see their faces drop.
Friday, 10 September 2010
5 reasons why I desperately want all of the students to come back.
1. King’s is a lonely place without the hustle bustle of students. I know that there are postgraduates hiding away in their research caverns somewhere – but as this is thesis/dissertation writing up time, it’s probably best that I don’t go bothering you all.
2. I’m not handing over to anyone, and this month is set aside for handing over to people. I’ve enjoyed doing work experience at Allen Edwards Primary School, but that was weeks ago now.
3. Some of the College staff have gone on holiday, and rightly so, it’s been a tough year – but this does mean that lobbying might have to go on hold for a while, though. I am having a meeting next week about graduate stipends but it’s definitely slowed down here.
4. I’ve been planning and planning and planning and now I just want to get started. I’ve got a plan for liberation, a plan for the Aldwych Group (of which I’m chair), a plan for representation, a plan to quash bad use of TurnitinUK – I just need some students to join in and it’ll all fall into place. But there aren’t many (see point 1).
5. I’ve run out of friends. They’ve all graduated, or finished their years as sabbaticals or moved back home for the Summer. Or they’re on electives.
Come back students,
Emilie
1. King’s is a lonely place without the hustle bustle of students. I know that there are postgraduates hiding away in their research caverns somewhere – but as this is thesis/dissertation writing up time, it’s probably best that I don’t go bothering you all.
2. I’m not handing over to anyone, and this month is set aside for handing over to people. I’ve enjoyed doing work experience at Allen Edwards Primary School, but that was weeks ago now.
3. Some of the College staff have gone on holiday, and rightly so, it’s been a tough year – but this does mean that lobbying might have to go on hold for a while, though. I am having a meeting next week about graduate stipends but it’s definitely slowed down here.
4. I’ve been planning and planning and planning and now I just want to get started. I’ve got a plan for liberation, a plan for the Aldwych Group (of which I’m chair), a plan for representation, a plan to quash bad use of TurnitinUK – I just need some students to join in and it’ll all fall into place. But there aren’t many (see point 1).
5. I’ve run out of friends. They’ve all graduated, or finished their years as sabbaticals or moved back home for the Summer. Or they’re on electives.
Come back students,
Emilie
Immigration Cap?!
I’ve just come back from the Aldwych Group’s first meeting of the year. Coincidentally, the theme of the meeting was Internationalisation. I say coincidentally because we all awoke after the weekend to see Students becoming yet another political pawn in the coalition’s game of populism – this time the finger is pointing at international students.
The UK has been resting on its laurels in Higher Education for a very long time. It takes a lot to prove that international students are more than just a cash-cow for universities running up a deficit. International students come here and are often hugely disappointed with our facilities, nothing on the facilities available in the US. Nonetheless, International students come to the UK to learn because we have some of the best institutions in the world. Not to steal our jobs and our women, heck they aren’t even able to steal our university places – the government controls UK student numbers and not how many international students an institution can take on!
International students are placed under incredible scrutiny by the UK Border Agency, try failing a year or having to retake a module if you’re an International student! If you team this up with the fact that international students pay sky-high prices in a completely unregulated market to come and study the same courses as UK and EU students, it does make you question why they would bother to come over here at all. For years, international students have been forced to carry around those pesky ID cards that the rest of us have campaigned against and none of us even batted a eyelid when that happened. One sabbatical officer from the Aldwych group explained how he had to tick a box that said “I am not a terrorist” whilst applying for his visa to stay on.
Internationalisation is absolutely vital to Higher Education. Any one that doubted this fact should have been at the Aldwych group meeting on Thursday where Paul White the PVC for Learning and Teaching at Sheffield University gave an inspiration speech about the importance of the internationalisation of Universities. Higher Education has changed. Students go to university because they want to get good jobs. Business has changed. Most businesses consider themselves as global businesses. They want global graduates to do their global business, globally and what better place to learn how to be a global graduate than at the home of one of the most global languages .Paul White spoke of ‘global agility’, employers wants students that can get thrown in at the deep end and respond to being out of their comfort zone efficiently. He encouraged UK students to become as international as possible. Take part in Erasmus schemes, study abroad, and travel. Let international students do the same.
Internationalisation is more than just building for better business. Internationalisation for the Russell Group institutions means better research. ‘The best and the brightest’ as Damien Green calls them are researching for us, across the UK at our top research institutions and across the globe at research institutions in China, the US and so many other countries. Immigration caps don’t only affect international students, they will affect the numbers of top research staff our institutions can employ, dramatically reducing our ability to compete in the global research domain. For a research institution, the outcomes of these sorts of outcomes are unfathomably negative.
But internationalisation means something even more valuable to me, and hopefully to some of the students I represent. Knowing as many international students as I have had the pleasure of knowing across my 4 years at King’s, means that I am aware of the immense world outside of the M25. Watching Obama’s inauguration and seeing students from the US crying with relief. Meeting Chinese students during plagiarism workshops and learning about the differences in pedagogy across the world. Watching the Superbowl at 4am on a Monday morning. Japan Society teaching UK students how to make origami and sushi in one of our student centres. Learning the cultural differences between Saudi Arabia and Staines. These are the things I am going to take away with me from my time at King’s. These are the reasons why having international students is so important to me. Life is so much bigger than the UK, and it’s time that our politicians and those commenting with such misinformation on various websites across the country realised this – before it’s too late and we’re left behind.
Emilie
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