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.
