education – The Daily Opinion

UK Has 6 Universities in Top Global Ranking

According to the most recent global table, the UK now has six universities in a top world ranking.

In the World University rankings it has emerged that, unsurprisingly, Oxbridge continues to remain in the top 10 (with graduates from there deemed to be “the world’s most employable”), along with Imperial and UCL, with Edinburgh and King’s College London holding a place in the top 20. In the context of the global ranking, Cambridge holds third place, beaten only by Harvard in second place and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in first place.

The type of subject also has a bearing on an institution’s position in the table; Oxford and Cambridge are the best subjects for seven key subjects, and according to the BBC website, “Oxford came top for English language and literature, philosophy, modern languages and geography in the QS World University Rankings by subject… Cambridge was first for maths, linguistics and history.” So while the UK is evidently the best place in the world for subjects such as English literature and geography, American universities such as MIT are clearly the places to go when it comes to the best education in technology.

However, many academics and educational spokespeople maintain that – with the detrimental effects on UK educational spending brought on by the recession, rising student fees and fewer applicants to university – the UK must increase funding in its education in order to remain at the top of the table.

Given the relative small size of the country, the UK has consistently proven that it can produce graduates whose education is highly valued in the global marketplace; the great influx of foreign students to the UK to seek a British degree is sufficient evidence of its great value.

A spokesperson for the Russell Group – an organisation of prestigious UK universities – has emphasised the importance of keeping the doors to UK higher education open, saying “If our universities are to compete in the future they need the government to provide light-touch regulation and continued investment, and to be welcoming to genuine international students.”. With international fees being several times higher for foreign students than for UK students, this is likely to be a challenge.

A university minister has remained cautiously optimistic about the future of the UK’s position in the world’s university ranking; “Our reforms to undergraduate finance have put universities on a sustainable financial footing and sharpened incentives to deliver a world-class student experience.”

Gove shocked by heckling headteachers

As Michael Gove attended the conference for the National Union of Headteachers he appeared to be taken aback by jeering and heckling aimed at him by the members of the union. During the question and answer session Gove was ruffled by ironic laughter and groans that were the frequent response to his answers.

The National Union of Head Teachers passed a ‘no confidence’ motion in the policies proposed and adopted by Gove, however, he remained steadfast in his belief in the policies and stated that he was striving for higher standards in schools.

When informed that, under his policies, teachers were suffering from stress due to SATs and OFSTED inspections, his response was less than sympathetic. Even when headteachers told him of their own experiences, including feeling that they were working within an environment of ‘bullying and fear’ whilst waiting for OSTED inspections and the subsequent results. Another example of the stress was reported by a headteacher who explained that in her school a governor with 20 years of experience ‘dissolved into tears’ when the school had to cope with SATs and OFSTED in one week. Still Gove seemed unmoved, even though the stress caused by his policies is shown to be affecting not only paid members of schools but also volunteers such as school governors.

Rather than accepting that his policies have caused upheaval and stress, and conceding that he could consider revising them, Gove instead insisted that the problem was that he had not communicated his ideas effectively. He would not be making any changes to his policies whether or not there was a problem with him expecting high standards and this was causing stress.

The overwhelming feeling that came from the question and answer session was that Gove was uninterested in the levels of stress that school staff were facing. He would not change his policies simply because headteachers were suffering and did not wish to work with people who were not happy to be constructive rather than just critical.

The general secretary of the National Union of Head Teachers, Russell Hobby, described the session as ‘bruising’. It is not just the National Union of Headteachers who have lost confidence in the government’s plans for the education system. The three biggest teachers’ unions, ATL, NUT and NASUWT, have also been vocal about their dislike of the policies and are planning regional strikes in response to the continuing dispute over pay, pensions and workloads.

It would appear that Gove has made his position clear and will not be backing down. It is also clear that the biggest unions in the country are not willing to accept this position and will continue to fight for what they believe teachers deserve. Evidently, a rough journey lies ahead, whatever the outcome and whoever ends up being victorious.

The Difficulty of Being a Graduate

There was once a time when being a graduate was all the rage. You had the world at your feet and you could march through any door and scream: “I have a first-class degree in engineering, now give me a job!” Admittedly, this is a little bit of an exaggeration, but the point is if you did that then they would actually give you a job. It’s not like that anymore, though.

A study from the Higher Education Statistics Agency revealed that 10,000 new UK graduates are now working in basic jobs; which to you and me means jobs that can be done by anybody without seeds for brains. This has actually doubled in the past five years. So it shows that we are on an upward trend, and it certainly can’t be blamed on the recession.

The recession caused many people to lose their jobs and for fewer jobs to become available, but it’s not something that would have seen such a dramatic increase. Yes, young people could now find themselves competing with people with years and years of experience, but it still shouldn’t account for everything. There are other reasons, and one of these reasons could be put down to the impact that more graduates are having on the system.

There’s no getting away from the fact that there are now more graduates than ever before. The more and more people go to university the more competitive it will get. And even though the number of new university students hasn’t surged in the past few years, we have to remember that these graduates are from three years ago. That’s where there were a lot of new university students entering university. Only now are we seeing the dramatic impact of what the last government did with their silly idea of having ‘50% of all young people going to university’ targets.

So more graduates equals more competition and fewer jobs equal more competition, but is there another contributing factor? There is. And that is the number of people who lack the ‘soft’ skills required to effectively function at work. It’s great to have those academic skills, but they apply very little to the real world. University students often lack experience, which means they are forced into these jobs. And what’s more, we have to take into account the fact that a lot of these degrees are completely pointless to start with. Why would anyone other than a theatre care less about the fact you got a degree in theatre? And why would a theatre care when all they want is talented people, not those with academic qualifications?

janitor — What graduate jobs are made of!

A surge in graduates, more pointless degrees, a lack of skills applicable to the real world, and fewer jobs are all contributing to the toxic mix that we have today. At the moment there doesn’t look as if there’s a solution. All I could ever say to graduates is to keep doing those basic jobs to get the skills needed, take up some voluntary work, and never act as if your degree entitles you to anything.

Student Loan Debt, Insert Sarcastic Slow Clap Here

We all remember the student protests and everything else that came with the government’s decision to boost tuition fees up to £9,000 a year. And the Liberal Democrats are paying for most of it. But there was something that was forgotten in the debate over education: the government promised that these additional costs to the state would peak at about £50bn in 2030.

Well that may have been a little bit of a miscalculation/error/blatant lie as a new study by Andrew McGettigan, for the Intergenerational Foundation, has revealed that it could be around the £100bn mark instead. And he did this by measuring the potential impact of allowing students to pay back only if they are earning at least £21,000 a year.

If this is true – which at the moment it looks like it’s turning out to be – then we can easily see why. Let’s look at why there are so many people going to university in the first place. This originally started a few years ago when the Labour Party thought it would be a good idea to get around 50% of all British teenagers into university. So they did that. But when the economic situation deteriorated they realised that allowing so many students to enter university at £3,000 a year wasn’t really that sustainable anymore as universities generally can’t afford to take on that many students at that level whilst sustaining themselves.

So the latest government took a little bit of a u-turn and decided to let universities charge up to £9,000 a year; with only a few universities with special consideration being allowed to charge the full price. So what happened? Inevitably, the main universities charged the full amount, but then everybody decided to follow and “special consideration” seemed to melt away like recent voter turnouts. Ok, that didn’t go to plan. That then led to a 9% reduction in the number of people applying to university on the next application cycle.

But the problem is they have also raised the level at which students have to start paying back their £9,000 a year student loan, to £21,000. This would be fine if economic times were great and people were riding to work on golden horses, but that’s not the case. So now the government is lending out £9,000 a year to students who won’t be able to ever pay back that loan.

Let’s look at the facts. £9,000 a year + maintenance loans for many = £27,000 minimum for the minority of students who didn’t need maintenance loans. Students need to have a job paying £21,000 a year in order to start paying back their student loan. Now take a look at the starter jobs these days. Those jobs are offering salaries of between £16,000 and £18,000, most of the time. So the student would have to remain in that job for quite a few years before hitting that £21,000 threshold.

The government now has to wait for their loan.

Another problem, though, is that many students have been misled. They are taking degrees that are completely worthless. And, yes, media studies is a worthless degree, and no I don’t care about which teacher made themselves a success from it, they are in the tiny minority. Those degrees won’t get them jobs. And that’s not all, even those students who are doing a degree that happens to be worth a damn have been misled as they believe that a degree warrants them a job. This means they will have absolutely zero experience as they are thinking that they are going to swagger in the door and kick that poor uneducated, working class buffoon out.

I read a BBC report last year that talked about how many employers find that graduates are not ready for the real world of work and can’t even do basic things. That sort of thing is rife, and it’s precisely why many graduates are out of work. Employers are rarely interested in students with a degree and little experience. A degree is a piece of paper, and not a lot else.

The unemployment rate for young people in this country is disgraceful, and many of them are graduates. So how does the government think it’s going to get its money back anytime soon? The economic crisis isn’t going to fix itself, and developments in the Eurozone only look to be making things worse. The answer is that the government won’t be getting its money back at all. Instead, the burden will be shifted back to the public, so now you’ve just increased the deficit due to your pathetic handling of the student loan situation.

It makes me wonder why they just didn’t keep university funding up and then leave the fees alone instead. Or, alternatively, they could have just stopped promoting the idea that every teenager should go to university. That’s nothing but a blind effort to get these young people off of the unemployment figures. The lower the figures the better the political situation for the government. You have to pity the saps who fell for it, though, don’t you?

What do you think about the current situation with university education, and how do you think they should have gone about it?