Morning everybody, and what a grey and miserable one it is - outside as well as in my head.
It hasn't started well: I woke to the sound of
the Universities Minister, who was privately educated then subsidised by the state to go to Oxford University,
telling the world that students should pay massively inflated fees, and that
hearing lectures on screen down at your local further education college should count as 'going' to university.
Naturally, I have a few problems with this.
Firstly, this model of 'education' is clearly not going to apply to the rich, the privileged and the powerful. In fact, it will keep the socially exclusive institutions clear of oiks: those too poor to attend the Oxfords, Cambridges, Imperials and Durhams.
Secondly, further education is a noble sector of which we should be proud, despite the damage done to it by thirty years of neglect. It isn't, however, university education. FE teaches skills - important ones - university teaches independence of mind, encourages philosophical exploration and tries to foster risk-taking. The point of a university education is that the student educates him or herself, with help from us. Watching a lecture on screen implies that education is simply a matter of facts to be memorised, rather than an intellectual and emotion exchange, in which debate and argument
are the education. You need to talk about things with fellow students and tutors, look things up in quality libraries, watch people's body language and talk shit in coffee houses. That's education - not writing down what you're told.
That's the theory, anyway. In practice, we're forced to return to virtual rote learning to keep our pass rates up and placate management, who now seem actively opposed to the model I've just proposed. Hence the replacement of humanities, which they see as truculent and subversive, with things like Uniform Studies (supposedly profitable franchise bullshit).
Thirdly, David Willetts' vision of education encapsulates everything that I hate about Conservatism. As a political philosophy, it centres on individualism: the individual should be permitted to consider only his or her immediate profit when making any decision. Ethics, the collective good and any other consideration is secondary or hostile to self-enrichment. I think this is socially destructive and immoral. For me, subsidising an individual student is a wise investment in society.
For instance, why would you become a primary school teacher, or a university lecturer, under Willetts' scheme? You'd have to get into debt to the tune of £30,000+, then take another two or three degrees (funding unknown), only to work for a relatively low wage comparable to what someone with a 2.2 in Economics can get in the private sector. Why should the binman subsidise the medical student? Because the binman's daughter might be that student, and the binman might find himself in need of a transplant which can't happen because not enough surgeons could be found (we already pillage poorer countries for their doctors and nurses).
Similarly, how would a working-class student become a politician, lawyer, judge, senior civil servant or doctor under this system? It's already rigged so that the tiny minority of privately-educated children take the
majority of places at the elite universities. These degrees won't (I hope) be available via the FE podcast method - so these influential professions will continue to be the preserve of our superiors. Why is this a problem? Because we need these people to have experience of life. When I was a juror, the lawyers and judges weren't familiar with things like how people drink lager (I kid you not: a serious discussion was held to enlighten everybody). When you're deciding whether a council has illegally withdrawn funding from respite care for disabled children, or fixing school intake criteria - whether in court or in Parliament - we need you to understand how life is lived outside the magic circle of private school, Oxbridge and the higher professions.
In the end, I think that this is a brilliant country because by and large, its citizens care about each other. Not everyone, not all the time, but on the whole. This evil, evil government is openly encouraging you to stop all that, and shift only for yourself and possibly your family. If you haven't got the cash or the confidence to get into huge debts, the professions are closed to you. Fuck off.
You can probably tell that I'm toweringly angry about this. I got into education for three reasons. Firstly, I have no other skills at all. Secondly, it's what I love, or loved. Thirdly, and most importantly, I have that postcolonial understanding that education is what levels the playing field. To some extent, you can overcome the conspiracy against you by learning how the world works.
Not any more. I no longer believe that my management have any educational values beyond a balance sheet, and I know, absolutely, that the government sees education as simply one more burden on the state which should be paid for by individuals out to make a lot of money.
If you think your degree is dumbed-down now, wait until you see what your younger siblings are going to get. As for me: I'm going to publish as much as possible so that I can leave this country. Resistance, as they say, is futile.
