Should we care that 50% of state schools didn't produce any medicine applicants in 3 years?

[legallady]

Well if no one from those schools wanted to study medicine then maybe not but if they are not achieving the grades to be able to apply or are not being given the correct advice then maybe we should.

Certainly it seems wrong that half of applicants in that time frame came from independent and grammar schools. It suggests that our qualified doctors a few years down the line will come from a very narrow demographic - similar to our lawyers and politicians - and that can't be good for our society.

What (if anything) is going wrong?

I agree with rabbit too. I'm quite pleased that neither of mine wanted to go in for any of the ridiculously competitive University courses (medicine / vet / law / etc).

Word - obviously it's the arts that are my chief concern. The Brobdingnagian expense of the music process is driving me to despair. I do not see how ordinary people can possibly be on a level playing field.

I recently listened to a very successful friend giving a talk to young people who aspire to, if not be him, then at least have a similar career (arts). He was talking about all the stuff he did for free after we left university, to get his name known and get experience etc. And as I listened I remembered how I started paid work the Monday after we graduated, because I had literally no other option. Whereas he was from a monied background. He's a lovely lovely bloke but - theres a real disconnect between people who can afford to invest the time in doing free stuff to build their reputation and people who simply can't. And there seems to be very little understanding from either side (because I expect it was actually very hard for him, just a different sort of hard).

I think there also used to be less disapproval of the idea of struggling artists, musicians and actors signing on while looking for work... These days, the same people would be required to work 12 hours a day in a supermarket, thus giving them no time whatsoever to look for the work they actually trained to do.

Rabbit I am not so old that I am from the time of people being able to sign on while doing unpaid work for arts organizations. Also, he was from a monied background he wouldn't have been signing on even if he could have been signing on.

Mind you, artists were always supposed to starve in garrets... along with the vast majority of musicians and actors. These fields have NEVER been considered a good option for anyone who wants to try and ensure they can always support their own family. That's why medicine, law, veterinary science, accountancy etc, are so popular - because they are seen as safe ways to find what is likely to be a reasonably secure and steady income. They are seen as professions that are likely always to be needed, whereas artists are seen as dispensable with when the going gets tough. If you want to point to a time when art, music and drama were for any but the most wealthy dabblers or most insecure and impoverished, you are thinking of a dot in history.

So that's alright then, is it? You're fine with only the monied having the opportunity to pursue transformative enriching careers (or even getting an education that might facilitate this)?

was specifically about arts funding cuts rather than equality of opportunity within the arts sector but much of what he says is relevant. Art should be for everyone, the opportunity to pursue a career in the arts should be for everyone, not just the rich. The divide between ordinary and wealthy people in this area is far far more worrying than the fact that some state schools don't have anyone getting in to medical school. Really - I don't pull a hair for that. I'm much more worried about the low numbers that go to music college from state schools. That actually matters.

Right through history the arts have been paid for by people with lots of money (patrons). There is nothing, but nothing new about this.

Of course I'm not alright with it, but it's a bit silly to be annoyed that so many people are seeking security of employment, by competing for the very few professions that offer it, given the situation is as it is. More people competing to get into the arts will not make it more secure.

There are increasingly more "secure" (which is a relative rather than absolute notion) jobs for people trained in the arts within business. Obviously the opportunities for self-realisation and/or celebrity are more limited but eg designing luxury goods and experiences requires people with very strong arts training. I have many friends who work for LVMH, Hermes and even l'Oreal with arts training.

Other rabbit - people are not in a position to compete because they are priced out from primary school onwards. It's a much bigger problem than the possible fact that not every school sees medicine as the holy grail.

The problem is, it genuinely is very expensive to pay for someone to go through medical school and to pay for someone to go through music college. It's expensive to pay for music lessons in primary schools, whether individually paid for by parents or funded as part of the national curriculum/to cover the costs for those who can't afford to pay. The wealthy don't want to pay lots of tax and the poor can't afford to. Where do you expect the funding to come from? Do you expect the teachers to work for nothing and the musical instrument makers to give instruments away for free? Or for funding to be taken away from elsewhere? Do you want support for poor people who want to get into medicine to be taken away, so that more energy can be put into supporting poor people to get into music?? Who will then be able to afford to listen to this music? Will the concerts these people play in then have to be subsidised, also? Or will they have to focus on the popular music market, for which I see very little sign of talent being a necessary pre-requisite?

As for the speech you linked, this country is most definitely run for the people who can buy books, not borrow them. I would have thought that's obvious. That's at the heart of the Conservative philosophy and anyone who is hugely relaxed about huge inequalities of wealth, because with colossal wealth disparities, you get colossal disparities of power.

Is be happy to pay more tax. I'd be happy to see funding diverted from tax cuts for the richer than me to support arts. And I actually wouldn't have a problem with diverting some money from helping poor would be medics to poor would be musicians, yes. Very much so. I don't actually care if only Rich people become doctors. I do care if only rich people have the opportunity to study music.

Well, I'm happy with the paying more tax idea in order to improve provision for all, too. I'm not happy with taking one person's dreams of being a doctor away from them in order for someone else to become a musician, though. I don't see why one is a higher calling than the other... It's not as if much money is spent on helping poor medics as it is! In fact, I think what you are actually asking for is more money to be spent on music in schools and less on chemistry, biology and physics.

Very few actual writers make a living ( I know I'm dead lucky in this regard). However, the people involved in bringing writing to market are now being drawn from a narrower and narrower sphere.

Other rabbit - at the moment being a medic is clearly regarded as a higher calling, hence the emphasis on science and the evisceration of arts ed. This needs to be reversed

Its a damning indictment on the quality of the education system in this country.

Word - and not just writing. And the narrower the sphere the narrower the outlook. It's very sad. Because of a quirk of fate I know a lot of people who make their living from writing and they are all ordinary people like me (most of them I knew when we were teens) but they all have to do other things as well as write to pad out their portfolio careers (directing, producing, script editing, teaching mainly). I wonder if this generation will be so lucky. I don't know any artist artists though (you know, painters, sculptors etc). I know a couple of people in commercial design who took that route after art college, but we're forced to follow the money.

Music and the arts are great, but they are luxuries.
Essentials are health and food. Science is more likely to provide those.

Which graduates are most likely to find a cure for malaria?
or develop strategies to stop catastrophic climate change?

Glyndebourne survives and thrives without subsidy.
There is therefore little justification for other subsidies.
If the rich wish to divert money to the arts, they get tax breaks to do so.

But those who earn too little to pay tax worry a lot more about finding a friendly doctor and affordable fuel and food.

"Glyndebourne survives and thrives without subsidy.
There is therefore little justification for other subsidies."

The price of Glyndebourne tickets precludes most people.
There are many many arguments for investment in the arts: pump priming the commercial theatre sector that earns so much VAT and tourist-spend, as well as a world beating TV service and actors. Arts contribution to social cohesion, to education, to a mind-set of a society that promotes a humane, tolerant, imaginative approach to the world.

TheWordFactory - when exactly do you think that the publishing industry was not the preserve of a highly literate elite? I'm not at all convinced it is worse now than in the past (my DF was a publisher and writers/agents/publishers from across Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world peopled my childhood).

Haven't read whole thread, so sorry if this point has already been made, but medicine isn't an attractive profession to most people. That is because it is bloody hard work and mega-stressful.

It's pretty obvious to me why state schools don't promote it in careers lessons as much as private schools. Private schools are comfortable peddling the "don't worry, once you're qualified you can switch to the private sector and be paid shed-loads for less work" message, whereas state schools aren't.

Thinking back to my own state school in the late 80s, I distinctly remember the careers advisor saying medicine was very hard work, you needed to be be very clever, and to be comfortable with the sight of blood. Not surprisingly, it wasn't a popular choice.

There is a difference between existing/surviving and living. This Tory government, backed by their wealthy chums (and sadly it would seem a fair number of Gradgrinds who should know better) is determined to keep living the preserve of the wealthy while relegating the rest of us to existence/survival (and possibly enhancing the lives of the wealthy through service industries). The education system is increasingly reflecting this. It's scandalous. And this emphasis on the usefulness of science at the expense of everything else is part of that. This thread is part of that. Medicine is no more a special case than any other degree subject.

I think seeingthrufog has a point though and frankly the same applies for the arts. Part of the reason things are the way they are is actually because too few people of any background give a damn. Who wants to do medicine when it's such hard work, and who wants all that poncey arty stuff when you are entertained by reality TV, mainstream films, "Fifty Shades of Grey," Twitter, YouTube and One Direction? I don't see thousands of angry people picketing the opera because they can't afford tickets. They don't care what they are missing and it is far easier and more profitable to cater for what people want than to try and educate them to appreciate and eventually want something different.