Hello,
Well it's through. Not much surprise there, though I was expecting a narrower majority than 21.
I'm finishing off marking in the office at the moment, so don't expect any thoughts as to what's going to happen in HE now for a while. There was something I wanted to say about what's happened this afternoon though. Mainly about protesting.
The Peter Chalk building on campus here is mostly used for lectures and events. I'm told that yesterday evening and throughout today that Newman A, a lecture theatre in the building, has been occupied by students protesting against the fees increase. I can understand their anger, even though I may not entirely agree with it. However I would say that I cannot see how effective the occupation of Newman A would be. It will not change the government's policy, nor the university's support of that policy. It will disrupt a day's lecturing and make several people's work more stressful for minimal reward.
Likewise this afternoon my class was interupted by chanting outside. Protesting should be carefully targetted, or it will simply end up being counterproductive.
Rant over.
Later: Oh it gets worse. I read later that the royal car was attacked. These are two people who despite your views on elitism have nothing to do with the passing of the tuition fees bill. All you are doing is harassing two pensioners effectively.
Even later: Dog excrement through Nick Clegg's letterbox? Oh come on. You might seriously dislike the man but he has two young children and a wife that has nothing to do with this. That's just abuse.
I'm puzzled by this.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the argument which says that a student should take a loan to pay for his university education now, on the basis that it can be paid back over, say, 30 years (?) and anything remaining at that time will be written off.
What an example to start working life with an education debt of, say, (3 x £7,000) = £21,000 (or more) to which many will then want to add a mortgage?
Debt is not good news.
Am I alone in thinking this? What have I missed?
It's more nuanced than that though.
ReplyDeleteI would refer you initially to this website:
http://www.factsonfees.com/
Where the Coalition attempts to put its case across. The key weakness to the NUS position, to my mind, is the continued insistence that the new tuition fees system is bound to bar the average wage-earner from university. That may be true. However it will depend on what amount the various universities want to charge their students and there is no guarantee that that will be £7,000. Higher fees are more common in the United States, but they are far from universal. If I remember rightly, the University of Michigan charges around £1,500 a year.
With the expansion in the number of universities and the number of students, we have reached a point where some action will have to be taken on raising fees. It's notable that even in Scotland the Scottish Government is analysing how to raise new revenue for its HE sector. Whether that should be higher fees or a new graduate tax is up for question. It's worth remembering though that fundamentally Labour are still pledged to rises in fees. Now I've been arguing for a while that with fees rises will have to come considerably better auditing for the HE sector in this country. That does not negate the basic point here though. Inclusive, high quality tertiary education requires capital to function.
Yes this may cause potential students not to go to university. However one of the major rules of government that the protesters seem to be ignoring is that one simply can't always have what one wants. If they have a way to have our current system for our current costs then let them speak, or else hold their piece.
I'd like to say that despite all of that, I still don't believe that this action by the Government merits assaulting the Prince of Wales and his wife, abusing Liberal Democrat MPs and disrupting ongoing tutoring on university campuses. However serious and pertinent questions also need to be asked about the policing tactics used in London.
david hugh singeisen, tu me fais honte...
ReplyDelete