Do we have too many students?

[Terbinator]

I basically asked the same thing and no one posted in my thread

My main point of annoyance being the Government's own teacher recruiting website says a degree is "needed" for you to teach - says it all.

[Lucio]

I've argued previously that we should be looking at making sure higher education serves a purpose, that state funded degrees should be directed towards gainful employement because the job requires a long period of technically orientated training that an employeer would be ill suited to provide.

So, things like programing, medicine, law, accountancy, teaching and so on are fine to fund at a state level

Purely academic degrees, or ones that for the most part are designed to be "nice to have but not essential", shouldn't be state funded.


Places on state funded courses should then be competative, they know the typical wastage figures, they know how many jobs are likely to be around at the end of the course and can then dictate how many people go through the course.

[scaryjim]

Places on state funded courses should then be competative, they know the typical wastage figures, they know how many jobs are likely to be around at the end of the course and can then dictate how many people go through the course.

This already happens for a number of health-related courses like Nursing and Occupational Therapy. But there are a number of problems with it, not least that if you make the course desirable as opposed to other courses (by preferentially funding it) you'll find the brightest people getting on the course whether they want to be a nurse, doctor, lawyer, teacher, whatever, or not. And since you'll only have trained the right number of people for the number of jobs you're expecting to fill, you'll find that a proportion of your graduates suddenly turn round and decide they don't want to go anywhere near a school, hospital, etc. So you have a shortage of good candidates for those roles.

And this does happen - the IT PGCE I almost did had people every year finish the course then go straight into industrial IT training, making far more money than if they'd gone teaching - and they had the benefit of a fully funded Postgrad course and a £666 a month training salary while on the course. Good use of public funds?

[jim]

I basically asked the same thing and no one posted in my thread

My main point of annoyance being the Government's own teacher recruiting website says a degree is "needed" for you to teach - says it all.

I'm not sure about that. Logically speaking, I think if you're going to be taught by someone, you should be a level above the student.

If you're going to teach Primary school children, you should have a secondary education. If you're going to teach Secondary school children, you should have a degree. If you're going to lecture undergraduates, you should have a doctorate. And if you're going to oversee postgrads, you should probably be a professor or renowned in your field.

If I came to University and found out I was being taught by someone who, last year, finished the same degree course that I'm about to start, I think I'd be asking for my money back.

[Terbinator]

I'm not sure about that. Logically speaking, I think if you're going to be taught by someone, you should be a level above the student.

If you're going to teach Primary school children, you should have a secondary education. If you're going to teach Secondary school children, you should have a degree. If you're going to lecture undergraduates, you should have a doctorate. And if you're going to oversee postgrads, you should probably be a professor or renowned in your field.

If I came to University and found out I was being taught by someone who, last year, finished the same degree course that I'm about to start, I think I'd be asking for my money back.

While I'm not disagreeing with you, it genuinely does say a degree is a requirement of becoming a 'teacher' on the .gov website - only adding credence to the 'degree' needed mentality.

http://www.tda.gov.uk/get-into-teach...s-degrees.aspx

You need to have a degree to become a teacher.

[BobF64]

Education is a right, a university degree is a privilege.

Exactly.

Some people will tell you that "going to University isnt just about the degree, its about changing you as a person", well, surely theres got to be a cheaper way to do that as well? 12 month army training maybe?

[badass]

One has to wonder where this 50% target came from?
I can't help but wonder if it was driven by a certain Doctor of Letters (That is a person that competed their Bachelorate/Masters, then did a Ph.D, then decided that the real world was still too scary so decided to study to be a Doctor of Letters)
That same person that hid in academia all those years then ran our countries finances, building up debt at a huge rate when the economy was booming so we had less to fall back on when recession hit in 2007/2008 at which point he thought that since he did such a competent job as Chancellor he should then be Prime Minister.
Guess what his Doctorate was in?

History. What a ****

[Nerval]

One has to wonder where this 50% target came from?

it doesn't seem generally acknowledged that all of the Blair era's targets were just made up numbers.
If any of the government had lived in the real world of work, they'd know that a target should be a calculated, achievable figure, derived to some purpose, rather than a made up daft number to gain votes from red-top readers.

I'm amazed that Blair never got so far as to promise that his education system would ensure that All our young people would be above average.

[Terbinator]

The Tory work camps look attractive.

[Saracen]

....

edit: Also, is this Russell group thing really important Saracen? ....

Honestly? I don't know.That's why I pointed out that it was a 'statistic' on a BBC program that the number of employers that won't even consider non-Russell grads has tripled.

But .... I didn't get a source for where the Beeb got that, so I don't know how reliable it is. And, of course, that statement could mean that there were 3 employers doing that and now there are 9, or it could mean 30% used to be like it and now 90% are. In the latter case, hell yes, it's important if not critical, but in the former, it's important only if you want employed but one that that tiny handful of employers.

My guess would be somewhere in-between, but where in-between, I've no idea.

That's one of the beauties of statistics, innit? A statement like that one looks really impressive .... until you break it down a bit.

[Saracen]

....

Guess what his Doctorate was in?

History. What a ****

Or to be more accurate, History of the Labour party, and Scottish politics. I didn't need to guess though, because I've asked before how that qualifies him to run our finances, let alone country. But, I might also point out, much the same (or more) could be said about Osborne, Cameron and Clegg.

[Saracen]

.....

I'm amazed that Blair never got so far as to promise that his education system would ensure that All our young people would be above average.

Don't go giving politicians ideas. They might not see the small problem with that.

[Terbinator]

Or to be more accurate, History of the Labour party, and Scottish politics. I didn't need to guess though, because I've asked before how that qualifies him to run our finances, let alone country. But, I might also point out, much the same (or more) could be said about Osborne, Cameron and Clegg.

Aye. In this case (and a lot of others politically) the US (and others) use of employing policy specialists is a lot more desirable, rather than employing generalists [read; bum buddies] IMO.

[Saracen]

I've argued previously that we should be looking at making sure higher education serves a purpose, that state funded degrees should be directed towards gainful employement because the job requires a long period of technically orientated training that an employeer would be ill suited to provide.

So, things like programing, medicine, law, accountancy, teaching and so on are fine to fund at a state level
....

But by extension, does (for instance) accountancy need a degree?

Back when I did my Chartered articles, about 97% of entrants to Chartered Accountancy were graduates, but that 3% (or whatever it was) proves that it's not actually necessary. Typically, the rule was you either were a graduate, or you were an exceptional case for some reason, like a mature graduate retraining after leaving the armed forces (one of my friends on my training was an ex-fighter pilot), or you had some medical reason for not going the Uni route.

But .... rare though it may have been there were other routes. Oh, and if you were a non-graduate, you did a five-year training as opposed to three-year training. And while 'relevant' degrees (accounting, economics, statistics, law, etc) would exempt you from some of the Chartered exams in year 1, the graduate entrants included history, geography, geology and all sorts.

So, really, even then, the fact that a degree was close to mandatory was only really a method of pre-selection. It was a pre-cursor to where we are now. And if you drive up the number of people with a degree, you drive up the point they pre-select at, to a 2:1 or better, or to a Masters, or to a doctorate.

Hence my original question, do we need that many students (or rather, graduates)? It might be a laudable idea, as someone said, to increase the education level of the population, but do we need that many graduates, when large numbers have the devil's own time finding graduate level jobs or careers? Or does it end up meaning we have a well-educated dole queue?

[Saracen]

Aye. In this case (and a lot of others politically) the US (and others) use of employing policy specialists is a lot more desirable, rather than employing generalists [read; bum buddies] IMO.

Perhaps, though I'm also heartedly sceptical about many "policy specialists". I'm a whole-hearted believer, as an economist, that if you lock 15 economists in a room, they'll come up with at least 20 policy papers ..... most with substantial dissenting opinions.

If you want to start a war, lock those same economists in a room and shout, through the door, Keynes (*) is a pillock. And stand well back.





(*) Or, for the sake of variety, substitute any one of a dozen or more other leading names, from Friedman to Adam Smith, from Walrus to Leijonhufvud.

[SHare]

I agree with most of the posts here, there are far too many people doing degrees now and many of the degree courses are utterly worthless. I was in the bizarre situation last week at a open evening for a technical support call centre for a large PC manufacturer where folk with degrees were being turned away in favour of people that had A+ certification which I think shows the real scale of the problem.

The other problem is now that if you don't go to uni, where do you go? There are few jobs, few worthwhile apprenticeships and there are even fewer worthwhile college courses as our fine government has decided to use college as a way to keep people off benefits, and employers are wise to it.