Westministenders: The Beginning of Negotiations

[RedToothBrush]

Transition has a few hours left.

Then negotiations start and trade stops.

Far from being over, there are huge numbers of issues that lay unresolved.

And businesses both now in the UK and EU will cease to trade with each other just because the red tape is such a pain.

So whilst people will celebrate and think things are 'done' that just shows how much people are paying attention.

It will be interesting to see people gradually realising what has been lost...

I was a uni student during the last lockdown. I am also a university lecturer.

This is not the same to have all lessons online and be in a building.
Yes teachers are working their arse off to make the lessons working online. Sometimes it’s pretty hard to do tbf but you make it work, learn to use technology (both lecturers and students) etc... The course I am teaching has a huge part that is very hands on and just can NOT to be taught online. I have no idea how this is going to work if the lockdown is extended beyond the 15 feb. Because basically the students will have lost between 1/4 and 1/3 of their teaching.

What you dint get and will never get is the peer to peer support. I have taught the first year in the course. They are all struggling with no knowing each other but been asked to work in groups. It’s an issue with making yourself vulnerable in some ways when you’ve never really talked to the people in that group.
There is also the fact that a lot of the learning happens in the corridors, at break time or at lunch time. Students learn a lot from each other, hearing other people questions etc... And it’s not just about whatever subject they are learning. It’s also about growing as an individual.

All that is part of university is about. So yes the students are not getting what they were supposed to do.

Completely agree that students are not getting what they're supposed to out of being at university. It is what being stuck in the middle of a pandemic has done to us all. On that I think we all agree.

Ivory tower though? Lol, I've taught for 20 years and never experienced that. Better analogy is that it is increasingly more like factory farming thanks to the Tory/Lib Dem decisions on cutting HE public funding and replacing it with student fees.

I'm extremely worried about the university sector.

It's been said on here before but universities were an area where the U.K. punched well above its weight. Many of our universities have an international reputation and international standing.

We take that for granted. 🤷‍♀️

The government was repeatedly warned that Brexit threatened that standing, the way we universities can utilise that standing, and the actual financing of universities.

And now we have coronavirus on top of Brexit.

And where is the support for this incredibly important sector?

Nowhere.

I'm seriously worried.

I worry that the unthinkable might actually happen and we will actually witness losing some big universities / or them having to bring in such savage cuts that they plummet in their international standing.

This government.

The damage.

It's hard extraordinary.

FWIW
my child has never met the vast majority of people on their course or in their hall.
How are they supposed to decide who to rent a house with next year
when they have not met them?

Zoom is NOT a replacement for sitting next to people and learning from/with them.

£9250 a year tuition plus £7500 a year accommodation
charged at 5% interest from before you graduate
is NOT acceptable

PS, as an accountant, my opinion of business degrees is pretty unprintable

It is NOT possible to do lab work remotely. It just isn't

And where is the support for this incredibly important sector?

I think we're the convenient scapegoats being Citizens of Nowhere, Metropolitan Liberal Elite, Experts.

@pointythings

Thing is re the Euro Share trading, there's going to be a substantial cohort of Leavers who will think this is a Brexit benefit - it's the elites getting a taste of their own medicine.

Which wasn't on the side of a bus.

.

@ListeningQuietly

FWIW my child has never met the vast majority of people on their course or in their hall. How are they supposed to decide who to rent a house with next year when they have not met them?

Zoom is NOT a replacement for sitting next to people and learning from/with them.

£9250 a year tuition plus £7500 a year accommodation
charged at 5% interest from before you graduate
is NOT acceptable

PS, as an accountant, my opinion of business degrees is pretty unprintable

It is NOT possible to do lab work remotely. It just isn't

No, it's not the same as physical attendance and it's particularly crap for first year students. But the cost is not the fault of the universities. It is your government who has commercialised the third level sector and them you should be canvassing about this.

The universities are doing their best. It is, in most cases, not as good as in-person as the university experience is about much more than lectures and labs. But you know what, life is crap for everyone else too.

I've been on a teaching sabbatical for the past year so will be back teaching online shortly. I'm currently trying to figure out how to do the interactive elements online as I tend to do a lot of practical work in class. It will mainly involve students working together in breakout rooms. I will do whatever I can but the students also need to take responsibility and participate and adapt to the new ways of doing it. Working life for many will involve virtual communication. They should see this as a learning opportunity too.

Hopefully we will be back to normal in september and we can teach in person again.

Amusing blub from a gofundme. Not for the less bright ...

One of the biggest embarrassments for the United Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic has been the fact that our Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty has been forced to ask someone else to move his slides on for him. This is why I am raising money to send him one of those little Bluetooth clicky things you get on Amazon.
With his own means of advancing PowerPoints in place, I can foresee the following benefits for both Professor Whitty and the UK government as a whole:

• Professor Whitty would be able to 'take back control' of his own press briefings.
• Each press briefing would be approximately one minute shorter, bearing in mind that it takes roughly three seconds to say 'next slide please' and wait for the action to occur, and the average number of transitions per Coronavirus briefing currently stands at 20. This could even allow for one more question from a member of the press, or roughly a quarter of a question from Robert Peston.
• The civil servant who is currently in charge of slide transitions could be deployed for more important tasks, or even sent to work remotely, further reducing the risk of Coronavirus spreading in Downing Street and Whitehall.
• Professor Whitty could be allowed to take the clicker home with him and deploy to other professional and personal areas of his life. When he isn't advancing slides, it could easily be configured to advance tracks in a Spotify playlist or control a Nespresso machine if he has the appropriate home automation equipment in place already, which to be fair he probably has if he is the Chief Medical Officer as they are usually worth a few bob.
• Once the pandemic is over, the UK government will be capitalise on the notoriety of the clicker and use it to create a London-based tourist attraction in its own right, similar to the way that the Crown Jewels are currently displayed. This would not only stimulate the capital's economy due to the number of visitors who would then go on to visit other famous sites, but it would also provide much needed employment - the security detail alone would probably run into at least twenty full-time posts per year including management. After a suitable period of time, it could also be taken on a tour of the United Kingdom to achieve similar benefits under the government's current agenda of 'levelling up' the regions.

In the event that this appeal raises enough to purchase a half-decent clicker, any amount on top will be used to provide IT equipment to disadvantaged children in Essex. This would be achieved by working with an existing network of organisations who would be able to quickly identify families who are in need of extra help as it now looks likely that there will be an extended period of remote learning.

Ochon
Working life for many will involve virtual communication.
Sorry but that is just not true.
White collar folks seem to forget that a LOT of the population do jobs that cannot be done through a Zoom screen.
PART of the job is online
but MUCH is physical, face to face, practical
Engineering, Sciences, Medicine, Data collection, Retail, Hospitality, Arts, Leisure etc etc etc
and that is even before we get into the non graduate trades
and physical jobs

The degree that my child is now taking will lead to careers that will NEVER be online and have always involved PPE .......

COVID is a hiccup
Brexit is stupid

Has this piece by Max Hastings fbclid=IwAR37vfO4yE7rsPcaWq2diYtT7UUq48I4CEXq3GMdNSrBwZrFrqzEh9swPfU been posted? About WW2 delusions.

It goes well with the David Allen Green post yesterday.

I note how Hastings says that Churchill's half American parentage allowed him to see that the USA needed to come into the War - although he doesn't say that the Americans probably had different objectives. They weren't propping up the plucky little British Empire, that is for sure. But I think then that this looking towards America became a distinct disadvantage - meaning that the country ended up looking two or three ways - the 'special' relationship, which wasn't, the Commonwealth and our European trading partners, which as he points out, we had never tried to understand.

LQ - you could also add, won't be on line, and cannot be fully automated. No public facing job can. Automation benefits the boring mechanical jobs where the same task is performed over and over again.

I absolutely agree that the normal student experience has been trashed and I am very sorry for the young people I know who have been deprived of this rite of passage especially those who like one of my DDs do a course where the inhibitions to learning practical skills would seriously compromise career chances. Career chances that in her case were already seriously compromised almost from the day of the Brexit vote when entry level jobs for the inexperienced evaporated as the impact of the vote on future planning of projects bit and projects went back to the EU with their citizens.

However I do not think you should underestimate the impact of this lesson in resilience. And this pandemic started a year ago. Some parts of academia have already exploited the advantage of global reach that online learning can give, both in terms of the student body and lecturers. Of course you lose the advantage of in person teaching and the development of face to face communities and friendships but that is unavoidable with a worldwide pandemic that we are a year into. However platforms like teams do provide some basis for virtual relationships to develop into real ones. How many of you posting have met in real life? Yet I would say you have real relationships and a real community with mature norms, values and purpose. And online learning does provide you with the opportunity to be exposed to academics and museums, universities, institutes and other venues of learning globally. We have had a shit year in terms of traditional learning but there is also opportunity here and we have had a whole year to learn how to do it with many other countries a lot more proactive in exploiting them. In a normal year I would have travelled to a fraction of the places I have visited guided by some amazing academics online, and learnt less. And that applies to all generations of my family.

And whilst you could just shrug your shoulders and say “pandemic” has caused all these problems, it hasn’t. It’s impact around the world has been massively affected by the ability of governments to plan, use effective known public health strategies, lead and enable people to make the most of a difficult situation.

I note how Hastings says that Churchill's half American parentage allowed him to see that the USA needed to come into the War - although he doesn't say that the Americans probably had different objectives. They weren't propping up the plucky little British Empire, that is for sure.

The price of Americas assistance was the dismantling of the British Empire. Churchill tried to sell it to Roosevelt as a bulwark against communism, and was told "Sorry, sonny, that won't fly".

You'd have thought after Suez we'd have got the message. But English exceptionalism is - as my DF once noted - very much like an egg. The more you beat it, the thicker it gets.

@ListeningQuietly

Ochon Working life for many will involve virtual communication. Sorry but that is just not true. White collar folks seem to forget that a LOT of the population do jobs that cannot be done through a Zoom screen. PART of the job is online but MUCH is physical, face to face, practical Engineering, Sciences, Medicine, Data collection, Retail, Hospitality, Arts, Leisure etc etc etc and that is even before we get into the non graduate trades and physical jobs

The degree that my child is now taking will lead to careers that will NEVER be online and have always involved PPE .......

COVID is a hiccup
Brexit is stupid

Working life for many will involve virtual communication.

Sorry but that is just not true.

It is true. I'm not saying their working life will consist of only virtual communication. I am saying that for many university graduates, at least part of their job will include virtual communication so they should embrace the opportunity to develop skills that will help them to use virtual communication effectively.

Engineering, Sciences, Medicine, Data collection, Retail, Hospitality, Arts, Leisure etc

Of those, engineering, sciences, (some) medicine, data collection, (some) arts, (some) leisure, will include at least some virtual communication.

Non-graduate jobs aren't relevant to my point as they are not students.

The degree that my child is now taking will lead to careers that will NEVER be online and have always involved PPE .......

Ds1 has just graduated and he too is working in a career that will never be online and also involves ppe. Dd will also be mainly doing the same but will more than likely have some virtual element to her job depending on what she specialises in.

COVID is a hiccup

And hopefully is the last pandemic for quite some time.

Brexit is stupid

Never a truer word was said.

@Peregrina

LQ - you could also add, won't be on line, and cannot be fully automated. No public facing job can. Automation benefits the boring mechanical jobs where the same task is performed over and over again.

Interesting article here on jobs that potentially could be replaced by AI. Interestingly, they include doctors in the list. Can't see that happening as one of the key traits we value in doctors is empathy.

1.Universities' funding has been substantially cut by the Tory and they have to supplement the fees income with accommodation income (because they can't increase the fees but the fees don't cover the costs). It makes them most vulnerable during the pandemic and a number of universities are on the brink of financial collapse. The government has decisively said it would not support universities. What can they do? In my Uni, we are getting reports from SMT on how much we are projected to go into debt. We are actually financially ok compared to many, but I expect redundancies anyway.

2.The whole move to £9250 a year is a travesty. I wholly believe a country can fund the education of its young people (see Europe). With this half-baked introduction of fees (kind of like in the US) but capped and backed by government loans (not like in the US), the UK introduced a bizarre, absolutely unique in its weirdness, education atmosphere. In the US, going to college costs a lot and at the same time is considered a part of 'becoming a citizen', an education necessary for partaking fully in society. Without doubt, statistics shows that college graduates earn more than those without (USA). In the UK, the push is to regard education as a commodity - and constantly evaluating whether you are getting what you pay for. This puts enormous pressure on the students. We've seen 300-500% increase in mental health issues amongst students. The Uni had to employ a psychiatric nurse!

And, yes, none of this is Universities fault. All Unis froze hiring new staff, promotion, etc. Many people retired before September. This means we all teach a lot more. Students are constantly in contact and we do endless hours of email every day. Our staff is burnt out. I feel very strongly that students who work can get excellent education, at least in my field, and indeed, last term I had some of the most amazing sessions with my students. Its as like they really appreciated what was done for them and very really engaged. Others never turned up.

I do sympathise that it is isolating, especially for 1st years, and many aspects of student life are missing. So many aspects of life in general are on pause.
But don't bash universities. Especially not indiscriminately.

COVID is a hiccup [] And hopefully is the last pandemic for quite some time.

Can't say I agree. We'd better get used to pandemics - and much more serious ones.

They will keep on happening until (a) we are extinct, or (b) we get the message.

You can't effectively turn an entire species (humans) into a single monoculture (which we have) and not expect Bad Things.

As far as a little teeny virus or bacterium is concerned, all of humanity is in a single petri dish. With the modern ability to get to a destination before an infection has had a chance to even get going.

Ivory tower though? Lol, I've taught for 20 years and never experienced that. Better analogy is that it is increasingly more like factory farming thanks to the Tory/Lib Dem decisions on cutting HE public funding and replacing it with student fees

You did say you were struggling to see the argument students were not getting a full education though?
Agree on the fee's & HE funding a very backward step.

No one can expect students to get a F2F experience in a pandemic, i think the frustration is that the Govt is not compensating them for this.
But tbf young people are getting turned over more than any other section of society, no wonder they rebel.

Can't see that happening as one of the key traits we value in doctors is empathy.

Well yes, but we also dislike judgement ...

It's never been done, so I can only speculate, but a study of outcomes where 100 people were sent to a real doctor, and 100 sent to a person with a book (you may need some sort of screen) might show that whatever doctors do, it's not visible in the number of referrals they make to more expert doctors.

Pretty certain an AI doctor wouldn't tell a patient about their abortion choices because "the disabled shouldn't be parents". Well, not if it was programmed appropriately.

I think it is good that students rebel, - it is actually part of university experience, to understand themselves as political subjects, to organise collective action. They should rebel, and make demands, and occupy VCs' offices. And certainly unis can make shitty decisions, have a culture of bullying, etc etc - they are not sacred spaces.

But tbf young people are getting turned over more than any other section of society, no wonder they rebel.

"Rebel" ?

Part of me wishes they would. Maybe a mob with burning torches and pitchforks could work wonders.

I think my single most defining memory of 2020 was that statue coming down in Bristol. I defy anyone to say they thought they'd see that in the UK ever.

DH (until he retired) and DD both work in the engineering sector. Both normally split their time between being out in full PPE and desk work - planning, analysing, reporting, and of course meetings.
When WFH was mandated, the desk work was done from home, with Zoom meetings as required. I certainly think Zoom and its ilk are here to stay. In time, some f2f will resume, but not all.

Of course, hairdressing, dentistry, plumbing, neurosurgery, physiotherapy, wallpapering can hardly be carried out over Zoom, and automating any of those is a long way off.

Teachers Covid rates up to 333% above average.

Re universities: I worked in one until I retired last year (not an academic). On my last day, we had a cheery all-staff email listing opportunities for taking early retirement (give 6 months notice and get 1 month extra leave) , sabbaticals, buying extra holidays, going part-time, etc. Even if you just wanted to move on to another employer they might give you a sweetener! All to save them money, obviously, though it wasn't made explicit: instead, it was linked to Covid, and people wanting to make lifestyle changes as a result.

There's a chill wind about to blow through the sector. Academia is no longer the cushy number it once was. Teaching staff are already under huge pressure to bring in extra money. Uni funding is a complex beast.