University - They've made a catch 22 situation haven't they?

[msrisotto]

The government wanted everyone to go to uni. Now employers expect their candidates to have gone to uni. There are limited funds available and so not everyone can get into uni - what do they do? What on earth was the big push for everyone to go on to university about? What was wrong with apprenticeships and the like?

The big push was to artificially reduce the unemployment figures, specifically for "NEETs", by keeping as many people in education as possible. Of course, numbers can't be reduced now, in an admission that it wasn't required by industry, or there would be accusations of reducing social mobility.

Apprenticeships cost a lot of money to run and with only a small amount covered by government there was no way of guaranteeing that enough would be offered. There are some excellent apprenticeship schemes out there, but with the recession etc. it is difficult for companies to know that the long-term job is there at the end of it. So it's a gamble spending tens of thousands of pounds on several years of training which could go to benefit someone else.

agree with Barbeasty. Also they managed to get the students to pay for their own education by borrowing massively.

I found myself agreeing with Kenneth Baker on BBC Breakfast this morning, that University should not be the only post 18 pathway. I graduated in 1992, with a degree that led straight to a job (degree name = job title, that kind of degree). Over the last 18 years the demands on graduates to get jobs/chartered have gone up and up (we tend now only to take on MSc/MEng graduates) as a degree alone no long sets people apart from their counterparts.

Also, in my field (Civil engineering) - until the recession - we did not have enough graduates to fill the work available. The work is still there, but currently not funded (we still need railways, motorways, flood defences, power stations, coastal defences, and will continue to need them in future), but we are not generating a workforce to do it.

I am delighted that my nephew yesterday got the A level grades to do the only degree course he had ever wanted to do (since he was 7!) but I think, as a whole "UKPlc" has to really rethink the "need" for everyone to go to university. We need develop alternatives, and consider what subjects are "must dos", what are "could dos" and what are "nice to dos", and maybe set up funding accordingly and what level of academic and vocational training is required.

In Germany and France, it is not expected that 18 year olds all go to university and yet both have become the power horses of Europe. The problem is we have hardly any manufacturing and therefore rely too much on the service sector that has traditionally been more degree-orientated and now the Public Sector is being supported by an industry that is increasingly under pressure.

I am sorry but unless things change drastically I am worried for the future for my kids in this country. Having worked for many years and seen graduates coming into jobs to expect great things, only to find that they have now replaced the office junior, I believe the whole system of degrees has been devalued. Kids are expecting far more than the jobs have to offer. I am encouraging my DCs to be as multi-skilled as possible and not just academic. I always want them to have transferable skills with other countries so that they can leave GB if they want to.

I don't know much about the apprenticeships that are on offer in the UK but I really like the way they are run in Germany. You choose your profession and depending on your level of education, learn a trade. Usually 2 years if you have A-levels and 3 years if you stopped at GSCE level.

It's a brilliant scheme as you earn money and learn at the same time. Did mine 10 years back and in my final year earned 600 Euros a month or so, so as you can see, it certainly was financially viable.

And its good for the companies too. Even though you are still learning, you are treated like a proper employee and do much of the same jobs and if you are good, you have a job at the end of it and the company has a very good qualified employee.

Don't get me wrong, there are many employment issues there too but I think as a scheme it works very well. As previous poster said, not everyone is expected to go to Uni as you can still have a very good career from an apprenticeship.