threebikesmcginty
Corn Fed Hick...
- Location
- ...on the slake
Couldn't unemployed law students be melted down into something useful like wheelie bins.
Unemployed law students
- Thread starter Ludwig
- Start date
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Archie_tect
De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
- Location
- Northumberland
Wasn't it Tony Blair that decided that everyone should have an opportunity of a university education... thereby wrecking the education system in the UK leading to tuition fees and the rest....
Not really Blair's fault. Wilson and Thatcher expanded the university system massively. As politicians are they like to make grand statements or ride on waves. The university expansion was already very well established and carried on under Blair. It's just instead of taking the credit, as it is an unpopular policy he gets the blame. Not really a Blair thing, many countries in the world have even higher percentages going to university than we do. The theory is largely based on the idea of a knowledge based economy.
Our workforce is woefully under-educated and under-skilled compared with many developed economies, but just churning out more graduates isn't the answer. And although tuition fees have their disadvantages, they do at least concentrate the student's mind on whether three years of some peripheral course is a worthwhile investment.
It's the way of the world now. If you talked to engineering graduates you would find the same thing on a much bigger scale. If you talked to enough physics graduates you would find the same thing. Same in Maths. Same in Chemistry. These days there are even more starting out job problems with medicine than in the past. Quite a few NQTs can't find teaching jobs and end up being Teaching assistants for a year or two (or occasionally more). NEETs are a much more diverse group of people than people seem to think.
Boris Bajic
Guest
I do find it odd (and did find it odd at the time) that the Blair Government spoke loosely in terms of 50% of school leavers benefitting from a university education.
I have never been in a classroom in which 50% of the pupils appeared sufficiently bright, engaged and aware to make me believe that they would add much to the world through gaining a degree or that a university education would add much to their lives.
Yet 50% was the aspiration. Somehow there seemed to be an implicit belief that as a society we would become brighter.
Similarly, I was bemused by the EMA process, which to my jaded eyes seemed little more than a way of keeping youngsters off the unemployment figures. All of our children are (or were) state educated. The eldest shared her A-Level classes with quite a few students who would have been kicking Coke bottle along pavements had it not been for EMA. They might have used their time better (and negatively affected the efforts of others less) had they done so.
I used to do some recruitment for one or another branch of the Civil Service. It all got a little silly when everyone had a first-class degree and a good MA (or MSc) but few could differentiate between subject and object pronouns and many said 'like' four times in every sentence.
Of course some of those were degrees from the University of Who the Fook Are You, but they were still first-class degrees in the hands of people unable to spell 'if'. Some of these will be law graduates and if they are now out of work, they did not show sufficient grasp of the laws of competition and those of supply and demand when applying to university. There are jobs out there for articled clerks, but not everyone will get one.
Time for my medication and my blanket, I think.
I have never been in a classroom in which 50% of the pupils appeared sufficiently bright, engaged and aware to make me believe that they would add much to the world through gaining a degree or that a university education would add much to their lives.
Yet 50% was the aspiration. Somehow there seemed to be an implicit belief that as a society we would become brighter.
Similarly, I was bemused by the EMA process, which to my jaded eyes seemed little more than a way of keeping youngsters off the unemployment figures. All of our children are (or were) state educated. The eldest shared her A-Level classes with quite a few students who would have been kicking Coke bottle along pavements had it not been for EMA. They might have used their time better (and negatively affected the efforts of others less) had they done so.
I used to do some recruitment for one or another branch of the Civil Service. It all got a little silly when everyone had a first-class degree and a good MA (or MSc) but few could differentiate between subject and object pronouns and many said 'like' four times in every sentence.
Of course some of those were degrees from the University of Who the Fook Are You, but they were still first-class degrees in the hands of people unable to spell 'if'. Some of these will be law graduates and if they are now out of work, they did not show sufficient grasp of the laws of competition and those of supply and demand when applying to university. There are jobs out there for articled clerks, but not everyone will get one.
Time for my medication and my blanket, I think.
Hacienda71
Mancunian in self imposed exile in leafy Cheshire
- Location
- Wilmslow, Cheshire
Many smaller law firms are reluctant to employ graduates at the moment as the cost of their training, post undertaking a cognate degree is prohibitive in the current economic climate. The issue is further magnified when the trainee does not need to remain at the firm that has trained them post qualification. I know a number of practices that are having this dilema at present where existing solicitors are having to take on the work load of retiring partners with no help despite having their own existing clients. The profession I work in is seeing the same issues. It reminds me of the late 80's and early 90's when many of us graduating would work free of charge to obtain our letters and get our collective feet in the door.
accountantpete
Brexiteer
Unfortunately the Professions have always tried attract large entrant numbers whilst limiting the numbers practising.
This is either to
a) Maintain the highest possible standards
or
b) Limit supply at the top whilst providing a cheap labour source thus keeping the existing membership on the gravy train.
This is either to
a) Maintain the highest possible standards
or
b) Limit supply at the top whilst providing a cheap labour source thus keeping the existing membership on the gravy train.
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
Is that because he, rather than you, found you, rather than him, to be a snooty, xenophobic git?
asterix
Comrade Member
- Location
- Limoges or York
Degrees weren't supposed to be vocational, I thought. They were meant to find people who had the brains to think original thoughts and then stretch that capability to its utmost. Then they could go out into the world and make a difference.
The problem is that the corporate world does not want original thinkers because they are dangerous to it; it wants salarymen.
The problem is that the corporate world does not want original thinkers because they are dangerous to it; it wants salarymen.
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
We have the most qualified and poorest educated youngster in Europe.
It doesn't help that sixth form colleges steer their charges to the 'soft' A-Levels and universities promote soft degrees that appeal to the 'soft' A-level students. Both types of institutions benefit from increased funding that rewards recruitment and retention of students.
In the mean time universities have axed maths, physics and engineering departments, the latter two because they are expensive to fund the former because of the migration to Theatre Studies, Sports Studies, Business Studies, Accountancy, Law, Forensic Science, Criminology and the like.
I have recently returned to teaching Science after a thirteen year sabbatical teaching ICT. I was gob smacked by the lack of chemical stock, basic equipment and near total absence of the 'good kit' that I used to take for granted. The department proudly boasts of having computer controlled Lego sets as an indicator of how they are bang up to date only they don't see the light of day as the small parts migrate into the nooks and crannies of pockets, bags and socks and a lesson isn't long enough to do something constructive. Very little real science seems to be taking place aided and abetted by watered down curricula, and poorly delivered vocational qualifications that are too easy to obtain.
As much as I despise Michael Gove, he does have a point in moving things back towards end of course examinations and beefing up the curriculum content and insisting that students who fail to get a grade C or higher in Mathematics having to continue their maths education post-16.
The thing is, do universities and colleges have the capacity to accommodate an increase in numbers of students who want to pursue technical, scientific and technical vocational courses?
In the recent OECD survey, England came 2nd for over-qualification. It also stood out very starkly with Spain in having the perception of a lot of low qualification jobs and a lot of high qualification jobs (quite polarised). On Literacy there was a large under-skilling, the second worst. There are various other tables where we aren't so bad. Not the whole story as there is a discussion on the methodology and explanations.
On the fees thing, I don't see what are largely 17-18 year olds under the pressures of parents, teachers and society as being rational agents with knowledge of all the strategies and payoffs.
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flatflr
Guru
- Location
- Just over here
So many people going to uni and getting degrees and not going into the manual trades has always reminded me of this very appropriate sketch
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01xasUtlvw
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01xasUtlvw
I think it's still the same point, though - when the tuition was free nobody really needed to give any thought as to whether the course was worthwhile.
