Are universities open to all?
The arguments I made in a previous article about university education brought about some debate from a friend of mine. Natasha Sinton collared me and said that she can’t really disagree with the “yearning by both major political parties to get more working-class kids into tertiary education”. Thanks to the wonders of MSN (the summer holidays mean she’s gone home to Lancashire and can’t physically attack me for saying these things) we had a debate over the merits of university for all.
Tash: I agree with the government trying to help working class people into university.
Chris: Well I don’t disagree with that, but I disagree with it when it means that my degree, which is quite good, is made worthless because people can get degrees in hairdressing.
Tash: I don’t think it will because people will see the difference between them – the vocation degrees and diplomas and things are obviously different. It’s just making practical education as valid as academic education, which is what a lot of the population is going to be using. It’s making it so people who are good at their jobs but don’t have anything on paper to say so can set themselves apart from others like you can in an academic context.
Chris: But why can’t colleges offer vocational degrees and not universities?
Tash: They do.
Chris: I know.
Tash: They’re trying to get people into some form of further education.
Chris: So why don’t they do that and universities keep with more academic subjects?
Tash: Well I imagine unis like ours [Newcastle University] will do, but places like Northumbria maybe will do vocational things – as they did when they were polytechnics. Also because people who want to do hairdressing or whatever have just as much right to the experience of living in a different city and everything else which goes with the studying as people like us who want to learn about books for a few years.
Chris: But there are colleges for that.
Tash: I thought the target wasn’t necessarily for degrees – it was for some kind of further education; so staying at a college or whatever and doing it part time while working like a friend of mine is planning to do would come under than category.
Chris: What about GNVQs?
Tash: It’s a different but equally valid kind of learning to classroom based GCSEs, and one which is of a lot more use to the large percentage of the population who will go into practical jobs and people who are good at practical things but never quite got on with school. They’re not devaluing education, they’re just modifying it.
Chris: But is it not better for people who are good at practical things to do the shorter courses rather than three years of degrees and take on that debt?
Tash: Hmm. So where actually does degrees in hairdressing and stuff?
Chris: [after a quick Google search] The University of Derby and the University of Greenwich for two. Most of the places are colleges, which makes me wonder why universities do them too.
Tash: I don’t see how it makes a difference to you and your degree whether other people do theirs in a college or a uni?
Chris: It makes a difference because people don’t look at specifics, they look at generalities. So if people read an article that says that your university offers courses in stand-up comedy or something ridiculous, they associate that with academic easiness. Plus I also question whether it’s worthwhile for people to take on thousands of pounds of debt for a vocational degree they can do for less at a college.
Tash: That’s up to them though – it’s not up to you to say that they should study at wherever. And it’s not okay for people to study degrees like that as opposed to us studying Sex and the City?
Want to join in the debate? Leave us a comment.
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