REVOLTING STUDENTS

One has to wonder how it is that all the thousands of protesting students can take so much time away from their University courses. Is it that the courses are, effectively, part time, or are they so easy that missing a few lectures makes no difference ? Of course it may also be that most of those involved in the demonstrations are not real students at all, but 'political activists'.

Personally, I find the whole fees debate mystifying.

Student goes to school, chooses a career path and picks a relevant degree course, gets the necessary 'A' levels and trots off to University. The Government pays all the bills up-front with the student taking on loans for a proportion of the costs. Once the student leaves University and achieves a certain level of income, he/she starts to repay the loans. What is unfair about this ?

If anything, it is unfair to those who choose more expensive and useful courses as they will almost certainly achieve a reasonable salary and have to repay their loans, while those who choose useless courses will never achieve a good income and will never pay back their loans. It seems to me that this methodolgy will encourage more students to take useless courses and simply waste 3 years of their lives 'bumming around'. And then there are the questions as to what happens to the loans of students who eventually emigrate and of those who 'drop out' ?

Why do we have so many people going to University at all ? When degrees, per se, were relatively rare they had value; now they are commonplace, their value is determined by the name of the Institution that awards them and the traditional Universities are, inevitably, held in higher esteem. Is a degree in Art from Chichester University of any value ? Is it comparable to a degree from Oxford or Cambridge, or Leeds or Bristol ? Of course not and everyone knows it.

Let's stop being ridiculous pretending that everyone can benefit from a University education. Return to the former system in which most school leavers took relevant vocational courses at their local Technical college, many supported by employers. That is the way to resolve this mess.