The "debate" thread

[Niall]

Education. Compulsory schooling should be toughened right up on both the teachers and students. Its not on that all the teachers care about is getting their figures up instead of helping that one student who might be behind the others. Also, wack Uni prices up. Labour decided it would be a good idea for uni to be for every man and its job. Look where that got us! We now have a nation of young people who think they are too good to work in a "lower end" job because they have a degree in sociology or some bollocks like that. As silly as it sounds, we need people not to go to uni. We need more people to come out of school and go into things like apprenticeships (which there should be more funding for)

Couldn't agree more. Part of the issue is the labour-bred 'no one can fail' policy. Improving pass-rates for GCSE's & A-levels, and increasing numbers going to universities does not create a raft of more intelligent people. It creates a reciprocating circle of dumbing the exams and courses down to get everyone through.

And all this thing about uni prices currently. Sorry, but on my salary now, my student loan is something like £60 a month. Taken pre-tax as part of payroll. I don't even see it, and to say £60 a month could impact on your average graduate on enough money to start repaying (20k+ for my year) is laughable.
With the new system, yes it's a lot more expensive, but the minimum earning threshold is higher (25k+ iirc, instead of 20k+ as it is for me), and it will hopefully make people who are just going to uni 'for the experience' and to spend 3 more years hiding from the big bad world think twice about accruing that debt without making bloody sure they come out the otherside with a good, worth-while degree, so they can start contributing back to the society that paid for it, and so that loan starts getting repaid.


I completely agree with your thoughts on apprenticeships too (see my opinion further up the page! )

Degrees in some cases get you nowhere anyway!
I've been very close friends with 9 other guys since primary school, and out of 10 of us, 2 didn't go to uni (1 being me).
They all finished either this year or last year with a plethora of different degrees taken up.
One of my friends who has just come out with a degree in Film Production is starting work next week in a supermarket.... working for me. How many times did I get mocked for working there? Many. 3 years of working there and I'm a fresh food area trainer... and I don't have a massive overdraft to pay off.

However on the flip side, another of my friends was recruited straight into IBM on 29k basic salary for the first year.. so it does depend massively on your specialist subject and how hard you try. If you come out with honours, you are going to be recognised by your employer more than the next guy who's sailed through the course and barely managed a pass.

Uni is very much pushed on you by colleges and sixth forms like it is the only way to go in life, and sadly it's so far from true.

IMO, getting these jobs is about you as a person. I have always believed its not what you know, its who you know.
Ive been in the same situation. Left school at 16 and went straight to work. all my mates went to uni. 2 have carried on for another year and the others are still job hunting. One has been turned down by mcdonnalds and another got a job as a cleaner at a marketing company (funny really, she studied marketing at uni lol)