If your 17 year old wanted to take a day off school to attend the student funding march on Wed would you condone it

I am of course talking about the parents of the children.

I posted on the other thread about the 'campaign' - I work in the independent sector and there was a surprisingly positive reaction this morning to the student protest. I think the government have misjudged this one, even with their own voters.

Please take note LibDems - I am sorry about what I said yesterday, of course you are not secret conservatives.

"We need to move from a situation where people expect someone else to pick up the tab (for education/training etc) to one where the party that benefits most from said education (i.e. the individual) is also the one that pays the most."

It might be the case that the individual who receives the education benefits the most, but that is far from universally true. Our society needs people who are trained to think critically and analytically, to know the history of why the world they live in runs a certain way, to understand how to digest and present complex issues to different audiences, to understand how cultural heritage is a massive force in people's lives, to see how grievances arise, wars start, people misunderstand each other. Not to even mention all those obvious benefits to all of us of training medics and engineers, for which arguments are made for treating as tolerable exceptions.

The idea that higher education is either an indulgence or a route to a big salary overlooks the way it helps everybody live in a better society. It shouldn't be the preserve of the rich. The very people who will be turned away by the fees increase are often the ones who are best placed to understand some of the things I've just mentioned. What kind of government will we get 20 years on from this? How will it ever be representative of the people who live in this country? The injustices of this move will trickle down for generations.

It is ok for everyone to say that employers should take responsibility for training...
but can the employers afford it.
Firstly minimum wage has increased dramatically over the last 10 years. £2.50 an hour for a young teenager learning a trade...doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. (I worked in hotel for nothing as a teenager to get experience...on my day off from my job in another restaurant. Training people does take experienced employees time -I'm sure most of the time I hindered more than I helped.)
I'm involved with a playgroup in Scotland. We are facing a £7k loss this year and if something doesn't change next year will be our last year. ALL our staff now have to be 'qualified'. As well as general training (first aid, food hygiene etc etc) you would expect us to pay for the staff's qualifications? We have paid for 2 members of staff to get qualified - they can leave whenever they like and and now are expecting a higher rate of pay...is that fair?
I think the biggest problem is this obsession with 'training' people - someone can do the job very well can't be employed they don't have the right piece of paper...and lets not forget that part of the reason for encouraging training and HE was to keep the youth unemployment figures down... and artificial job creation for the people doing the training...

With apprenticeships etc. the employer benefits most. Without an educated workforce they have no business.

But at the moment they pay feck all.

Why do we need to put all the onus on the individual?

All that results then is that those with rich parents go to university while those whose parents have more modest incomes do not.

We used to have an enviable system of free higher education for all those who reached the right academic level.

We have now thrown it away.

We need to move from a situation where people expect someone else to pick up the tab (for education/training etc) to one where the party that benefits most from said education (i.e. the individual) is also the one that pays the most.

I don't object to assistance for those at the lower end of the income scale...but I think the majority of people should pay their own way.

Like already happens with cars, mobile phones, computers, and countless other things that enable us to function in the 21st century.

Agree excellent posts by Boffinmum.

Excellent post by Boffinmum.

Another consequence of employers refusing to train their workforce is the kind salary inflation seen in the financial sector in particular. Rather than fund training for existing employees, employers "bought in" staff with the skills they needed.

Ironically, the much-maligned public sector has always bucked this trend, enabling people to acquire professional qualifications on the job. Not for much longer though.

Yep, thanks for that post about employers/HE schemes Boffin, I didn't know that and it certainly explains a lot about why some very practical or vocational careers might now be 'degree based'.

I second gingercat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm anti tuition fees but - judging by the number of expensive weddings that I've attended of my university contempories - plenty of graduates could have afforded to pay back their fees.

And the money would have been better spent on their degree than on their wedding!

I'm hoping that companies will begin to sponsor people through university or offer proper apprenticeships.

Without sounding too sentimental, can I just say that I love BoffinMum's posts. They are always well-put, full of information and thoughtful.

That's not an apprentice scheme, abouteve, it is legalised slavery.

We need REAL apprenticeships with real training and a proper career path.

We don't have them at the moment because employers have been dodging their responsibilities for years.

There is a new apprentice scheme, employers pay £2.50 and hour and let them go for day release to college. I won't be advising DD to sign up.

Spot on, BoffinMum.

My dad gets quite heated about employer's refusal to take any responsibility for educating their workforce these days. When he left school he entered a very high quality engineering apprenticeship which resulted in a long career as the manager of a foundry. Such placements were plentiful then, now they are almost nonexistent.

Rather than banging on about putting more money into university education, this government should look at measures to force employers to face up to their responsibilities to invest in educating their workforce.

The elephant in the room here is that post-1997, as part of the change in HE funding policies, employers were expected to pick up the tab for people to do work based training schemes and work-related foundation degrees, but practically none of them have.

They refuse to invest in their own work force and expect the employees or Government to do it for them instead as well as shoulder the financial burden in the medium to long term as well.

It doesn't help.

how would it close down universities?

All the existing universities existed in the 80s (some under different names).

The number of courses may be less, or the number of undergraduate places on some courses.

Where is this money coming from to commit to our HE system? It wasn't there in the 80s, where is it going to come from now?

Personally, I am glad I went to university in the 80s as I feel the system then was much fairer.

I went to a fairly average state school then and all my friends who wanted a university education got it and those who wanted a good job with training or a vocational course got that.

Today they would have to get a degree to get into that same job or vocational qualification which is madness.

Increasing access to university has not worked, but I fear that the feeling that getting a degree is the only route to a good career is now so ingrained that it will never be changed.

I don't know, to reduce the number of courses would close down universities and result in job losses etc. Maybe they should commit money to our HE system, and only increase the fees to an affordable amount and keep a decent bursary system.

abouteve - but how is it going to be funded?

The current number of university places cannot be publicly funded, there are just too many for that.

The only way to offer funded university places is to reverse the massive increase in places and change people's expectations on university places.

It now seems to be accepted that every worthwhile career should be based on a degree. Why is this? We had excellent nurses, midwives, physiotherapists etc in the past without having to label them as graduates. What has changed?

Unfortunately, in an attempt to make everyone equal (ie have widespread access to a university education) we will end up right back where we started a century ago with university education only available to those with lots of money.

I don't call that progress.

I really hope that David Cameron does have a heart and can see the strength of feeling for what it is, a huge worry to come for most of our children, and not just a load of thugs having a good day out. We have had tears in our house since they won the election over the cuts to education funding. The public cannot just sit back and let them get away with doing what they want.

It's not just an annoyance that they are cutting our benefits by few quid a week.

I am another who thinks thet increasing access to degrees has not been a good thing,

It has just made jobs which used to be open to school leavers now only open to graduates.

When I did my degree in the 80s working class kids who were bright enough to benefit from it were able to get a degree without worrying about the financial consequences.

Those who were not university calibre got onto work based training schemes and worked their way up that way.

These training schemes are now only open to graduates. So these students are still ending up with the same jobs but are saddled with student debt as well.

A fully funded scheme for all young people to study for degrees will never be financially viable. So if we insist on offering the same number of university places then they will have to be paid for by the students. So now only the rich will be able to get a degree.

Theperfecthousewife - yes, times have changed but not for the better.

Now we are faced with making higher education only available to those who can pay for it. How is that an improvement on the situation in the 80s?

What we really need is a reduction in univerity places and an increase in places in work based training and vocational courses so that there are realistic options available for all.

Sorry, not read whole thread.

I'd be v happy if any of my kids went on a march like this - and v proud.

I might make them wear protective clothing/strong hat after what we saw yesterday, but I'd still want them to go.

Much too young now though. Though DD (still at primary school) said she wanted to go.

I would be proud if my boys felt so strongly about the unfairness of a situation they wanted to do something about it. My eldest is only 10 but already he 'does something' when he sees unfairness, whether it's playground bullying or earthquakes in Haiti.

I recognise that, unfortunately, university funding needs to be radically reorganised and that means students taking on more of the cost themselves. But a system which means that only the children of the rich think they can afford a degree is just plain wrong. I dread my kids going to Uni - although I hope they'll feel they can. We won't be able to pay for it and I hate the thought of them being saddled with so much debt at 21, on top of the debt they'll have to accumulate through mortgages and so on.

I agree with FN - if uni becomes the only post-18 route to learning and a good job, then this will be an increasing problem.

Ah, guess I was lucky then as I did the advanced diploma which meant I got a 6k a year bursary and then work paid for me to do the dissertation afterwards to turn it into a degree.

I do still think it should be a degree subject but one that should be funded by non-means tested bursary like the diploma was. I never knew it used to be a 2 year course, always thought it was 3 years. I have definetly seen less older women with a partner training now. Its all either teenagers or single mums who I guess get enough benefits so that they can do it. Its a shame to lose out on the women who have a working partner who would get no help.