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...

while the government has committed to "target students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+".

I am afraid with the current Government, I will believe it when I see it. What stopped them setting up a task force any time since Erasmus started to encourage such students to take part?

We could start by asking when exactly Turing will be set up. Erasmus exists now.

Evidence please

Certainly, ListeningQuietly

www.researchgate.net/publication/248778770_The_SocioEconomic_Background_of_Erasmus_Students_A_Trend_Towards_Wider_Inclusion

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0958928719899339

I had tears well up seeing "This is our star" again, too.

For those who missed it first time, here's the whole video:

twitter.com/bydonkeys/status/1223175366421946369?lang=en

The people I know who did Erasmus - it was precisely because they were not privileged.

@ListeningQuietly - good to know. Send her my regards. Don’t always agree with her but she’s a valuable poster.

Just skimming the abstract about Erasmus, the underlying problem is that the children from the lower socio economic backgrounds tend to chose the less prestigious universities, which in turn have less involvement with Erasmus.

So I could rephrase my question. The Tories have been in power for ten years now. What Government initiatives have we seen in that time to encourage disadvantaged students to widen their horizons and aim for the more prestigious universities?

@BoreOfWhabylon , I had something in my eye too.
Onwards.

[quote Gronky]Evidence please

Certainly, ListeningQuietly

www.researchgate.net/publication/248778770_The_SocioEconomic_Background_of_Erasmus_Students_A_Trend_Towards_Wider_Inclusion

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0958928719899339[/quote]
First link = 2008 current Erasmus scheme

Second link : which table proves your point as its not at all clear ?

@Peregrina

Just skimming the abstract about Erasmus, the underlying problem is that the children from the lower socio economic backgrounds tend to chose the less prestigious universities, which in turn have less involvement with Erasmus.

So I could rephrase my question. The Tories have been in power for ten years now. What Government initiatives have we seen in that time to encourage disadvantaged students to widen their horizons and aim for the more prestigious universities?

I think the underlying fact is that there is a strata of people in the UK who lack ambition for their children.

During the miners strike, there was a question to Arthur Scargill on QT from an American student. She asked how was it that most coal miners seemed obsessed that the mines should be kept open for their sons to go to work in (which I seem to recall was one of the reasons for the strike). Why couldn't their children be scientists, or doctors, or anything else ?

Can someone please explain something to me about Gibraltar. If Gibraltar is now in the Schengen area and therefore the sm and cu (?) do Gibraltarians still have rights as EU citizens including FoM? Are Gibraltarians British passport holders? I think people from NI have to get an Irish passport to have these rights (easy for them to get though) ?

BBC report about changes - all making life more difficult.

I particularly noted this paragraph:
Even though trade with the EU will become trickier, the UK is free to negotiate its own trade deals with other countries, like the US. Brexit supporters say this will benefit the economy in the long run, although critics say it's more important to remain close to the EU.

I highlight the Brexit supporters say. In the past this was wholly Brexit will...

Peregrina, uptake differences across universities was identified as one contributory factor and I believe changes like contextual offers and the establishing of the Office for Students (admissions are part of its remit) are assisting with the admissions gap. My takeaway was that social clustering also played a large role (illustrated, I think, by TatianaBis and ListeningQuietly's anecdotes about Erasmus participants), among a number of other factors.

ListeningQuietly, figure 1.

Someone in government missed the joke with the idea of calling this new program Touring...the imitation game???
have been

@Kendodd

Can someone please explain something to me about Gibraltar. If Gibraltar is now in the Schengen area and therefore the sm and cu (?) do Gibraltarians still have rights as EU citizens including FoM? Are Gibraltarians British passport holders? I think people from NI have to get an Irish passport to have these rights (easy for them to get though) ?

No right of FoM as the Single Market would define it. But yes, freedom to travel within Schengen (which includes Spain) without a passport. So a Spanish and/or EU passport holder can enter Gibraltar without needing to show a passport.

Meanwhile a UK passport holder will need to pass a border control.

It really is bonkers.

I hadn't ever heard of Erasmus until I met a Norwegian in my second year who was here doing in. I am from a MC background
and was at a RG uni, but doing sciences so I guess Erasmus was more targeted towards linguists? Having said that, the Norwegian was an archeology student...

@Peregrina

BBC report about changes - all making life more difficult.

I particularly noted this paragraph:
Even though trade with the EU will become trickier, the UK is free to negotiate its own trade deals with other countries, like the US. Brexit supporters say this will benefit the economy in the long run, although critics say it's more important to remain close to the EU.

I highlight the Brexit supporters say. In the past this was wholly Brexit will...

Yes, about US trade ...

www.politico.com/news/2020/12/31/britain-biden-relationship-boris-johnson-451498

Found this that explains some things.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_passport_(Gibraltar)

During his lifetime, as far as I know, Alan Touring has never set foot in a european university (not even sure if he’s ever been to Europe, I remember his family had ties with India?), but only to the USA. Not sure if that’s supposed to convey a message...

Erasmus is open to all faculties, but some might struggle to offer it because there are not many equivalences in other universities and therefore a student would struggle to gets his/her exams validated and recognised when they return. I did a particular type of engineering that had this issue, hence it wasn’t even mentioned as an option to me, whilst other disciplines also within engineering were routinely doing it...
My personal experience dates back a couple of decades, and I’ve since met and employed plenty of young engineers who’ve benefited massively from joining the Erasmus.

Gronky
OK, I've looked at Fig 1 multiple times
and it tells me NOTHING about how Erasmus students compare with other Uni students.
Yup, kids who do languages and pure science and the like are more likely to have professional parents
that is not an Erasmus issue
its an international widening participation issue
and it WILL NOT be cured by Turing

Erasmus was the solution, not the problem
and I am GUTTED that my second child will not have access to it.

Gronky, I take your point. Individual Universities contextual offers are fine, but why is pulling out of Erasmus necessary? Why not keep it and add a Turing add on? It sounds like spite, quite honestly, and Johnson ought to remember that these people are old enough to vote.

However, as one born in the north of England, I think one problem with Oxbridge is that they are in the South. I have friends who were perfectly capable of Oxbridge entry but actively chose Manchester because it offered a lifestyle which they found more attractive.

(Then I had friends who went to Bangor or Lancaster because they liked climbing and Essex because they spent all their spare time sailing.)

I spoke to my aged parent yesterday (as they turned 85)
and they pointed out that according to all the news sources they see
across the pond

the UK has no use now that it is not the Bridge to Europe

Tonight's challenge
the cheeriest most uplifting song you can think of

I open the bidding with

@HoneysuckIejasmine

I hadn't ever heard of Erasmus until I met a Norwegian in my second year who was here doing in. I am from a MC background and was at a RG uni, but doing sciences so I guess Erasmus was more targeted towards linguists? Having said that, the Norwegian was an archeology student...

DH did Erasmus on an engineering course in the late 1980s. I’d never heard of it back then.