To think NHS course students should be made to pay tutition fees for their courses

[reallytired]

A band 5 nurse starts on 21K and this salary will rise through out their career. It is not an exceptional salary, but it certainly aint the worse paid graduate job. I have a friend who is a band 7 nurse and she is doing very nicely. There other nhs degrees where people can do an earn a living outside the nhs like physios or dietitians.

I feel its unreasonable that teachers have to pay for student loans to cover tutition fees and not nurses. Surely a good teacher is as valuable as a nurse.

It's nearly time FourEyes!

I'm very pleased for my DD that they have brought in bursaries for Teaching, hopefully she will get £20k when she finishes her degree, or do they get it once they've finished teacher training?

QTS students still pay Uni fees even though they are school based for most of their time I believe, so that is more like student nursing.

DD volunteers in a high school twice a week to get her work experience in, which costs her in petrol and suitable clothes.

Maybe Maths, English and Science teachers should have all their fees paid, perhaps once they've been teaching for 3 years?

I am a teacher and when I qualified (2004), your entire student loan was paid back for you if you remained in public sector shortage subject teaching for 10 years. I have and it has (well, 2 years to go). So that particular scheme was a success, and I was very lucky to get on it, it only ran for 2 years.

Teaching bursaries for many subjects are very generous these days, especially maths where they practically throw money at you.

In fact, I suspect most will finish their careers at 5. Again, there aren't exactly endless Specialist posts and it takes a lot of extra work (and usually I think another degree) to get there.

I was just thinking the other day when Holly Branson got married that it's a shame she can't be made to reimburse the NHS for the massive cost of her medical training. She spent one year as a junior doctor and is now, I believe, working in a business capacity for her father's Virgin Healthcare, which stands to do very nicely out of the break-up of the NHS. It might not be so bad if her family actually paid tax in this country.

Thankfully DD is doing Maths stressheaderic.

That's awful crazyspaniel, she should definitely be made to repay the cost of her training.

a student nurse is ward based for 50% of teaching time and has about 5 weeks holiday per year.

When you are on practical placements you are working 37.5 hours per week(including nights and weekends), i don't know many other course that require you to do that and all for a bursary of less than 7k!!

Most people I know doing other degrees are in uni about 15 hours a week and have about 4 months holiday. I know which sounds better to me.

Well, things are quite tight for jobs in the Health Service at the moment. I know quite a lot of juniors are worried about the future. Maybe she couldn't find an NHS job? Maybe she just wasn't that brilliant at the patient care side of things?

I think though that doctors are still overwhelmingly from rich families, aren't they? There's a real struggle to get people from working class backgrounds into the profession. And I can imagine how incredibly daunting the idea of five years' study and loans could be - especially when if you have the qualifications to get into a medical degree, you could probably find something else that doesn't pay badly but would give you returns on your work much sooner - very important if you are actually supporting family through your degree and not just yourself.

That's bad re Holly Branson. She stayed just long enough to find out that it is actually quite hard work and not particularly well paid for the hours then trotted off into something much more lucrative!

LRD- I would definitely say that most doctors are from families with above average incomes and I am referring to those of my own generation who didn't have to pay tuition fees. Not all privately educated though by any means. Nowadays, the situation can only be getting worse and a lot of potential male applicants are not going into Medicine as the realise that they can earn a lot more money more easily in another profession.

I don't think setting different types of students against one another is that helpful.

I teach English at university and a lot of people would sneer at English students - 'only coming in 2 days a week' blah blah - but then of course English students go on to make up a disproportionately large share of teachers. People on 'vocational' courses aren't the only ones giving something back.

That said, I personally think people headed for NHS jobs should have their fees paid - not that others shouldn't, but they definitely should.

Also, the idea that only scientists work hard at university whilst arts students doss about is bollocks generally inaccurate. Arts students have less contact time, true, but also much, much greater expectations of independent study and reading outside the classroom.

YABU nursing students work 50/50 theory and practice atm, however in Wales thats due to change soon so there will be far more time out working than studying in Uni.
I think all vocational degrees should be free, they are training for a specific job, mostly a job that serves the general public rather than doing a businees degree or sports science etc etc.
When i trained we also got a bursary of about 6k a year (wow) but even that is now dropping to 1k.

I am a student nurse, i am in uni for 15 weeks from Sept to Dec then the rest of the year i am on placement working 40 hours a week, weekends and nightshifts included. Alongside placements i have to complete additional modules.The £550 bursary i get hardly covers my rent and bills and working a part-time job is frowned upon, not that i would have time to do that if it wasnt. I think we deserve this bursary.

mapleleafmay the drop out rate for doctors is very high its not like one of the Micky mouse courses you don't get a degree of just showing up you actually have to know your shit its very long and hard and yu can fail at any point
Very long hours when a junior and just like the nursing students they get all the shit jobs and shit shifts you are basically the consultants bitch for next 4/5 years

Not every one can handle it also it takes a certain type those who can command the nurses respect don't get very far

Maybe she just didn't cut the mustard we don't know if she left Or was pushed

I've been told that applications to do nursing at uni are sky high for 2012. Not surprising when you look at the fees this shower of a government have introduced.

YonderRevoltingPeasantWhoIsHe sorry but my bil is a art student and basically he has been on a piss up for the last 3 years

One of this exam pieces was a toilet wrapped in bubble wrap pained orange.

Thats something my son could of done he is 11 but Giving someone surgery is not

When we went to the degree show I just though a lot of the art was a bot of a piss take really and ots not based on wether its good but based on the taste of the tutor at the time

With student doctors or nurses you either know it or you don't

I think if you want to o to uni to stick sweets to tea pot and be given a degree for it you jolly well should pay for it yourself but we all benefit from well trained doctors and nurses

adamschic good in my view the labour government really did our young people a disservice by allowing them to take up degrees that either have no job at the end

CSI which only have about 10 jobs going at any one time in the whole of the uk or just non courses were you don't need a degree
If your a painter do you really need to pay fees to a uni for them to tell you your good

I suggest a breathtaking artists work will be brought weather they have a 1st in art or not

I am a midwifery student beginning a second career. Placements are full-time including all sorts of night shifts and being on call. We are meant to be supernumary but are most definitely not- the ward quite often would not run without us and in doing a lot of the grunt work we are not making the most of potential learning opportunities. We have assignments and learning to do when we get home as well as run our homes and look after children.

I also need to work part-time to make ends meet despite receiving a means tested bursary. The work we do whilst training is more than making us deserving of fees which are paid for us by the NHS.

At the end of the day the nhs needs staff. It needs to encourage people, and as many end jobs aren't hugely well paid offering to lighten the debt load will help.

YABU - nursing students work throughout the course and although they are supposed to be supernummery end up working as part of the tream in many cases.

They wash, bath, dress people, clean them up after incontincence (that's poo as well), support the dying and their relatives, lay out the dead etc. It's hard physical work and includes night shifts too. Their study (which they MUST pass) has to be done on top of this.

I agree teachers are equally as valuable but their training is slightly different. I also agree that they should be exempt from tuition fees.

I take your point aboiut doing a set number of years in the NHS but most will do that anyway - I have never worked in the private sector and more than repaid my tuition (not that they did this when I was a student too many years ago).

Have they increased the maths bursary then? When I did it I got £9k but ofc had to pay for the course so that was £3k gone, I thought the cost of all courses had gone up to 9k? (not sure on that though) so wouldn't that mean the bursary is now equal to the cost of the 1 year PGCE? So you still pay for the 3 years of your degree... Hardly "throwing money" at them.

Anyone willing and capable of working weird shifts (Xmas Day anyone?), dealing with bodily fluids, heartbreaking situations and regular threats of violence is perfectly entitled to have their fees paid. We do actually need a health service (well, until the ConDems flog it to whoever they fancy ). We also need an educated workforce, so should fund teacher training also but I wouldn't begrudge an NHS worker their fees for a minute

I think all public services degrees such as medicine, nursing, radiography, teaching, etc should be funded and free for the students. It's not a walk in the park doing an NHS degree, it's bloody hard work, with lots of actual hands-on work and shifts involved.

Also very few nurses end up on a band 7. Someone I know has been nursing for over 12 years and is still on a band 5. Pay for nurses is reasonable for the area in which I live, but certainly not mega-bucks.