General Election 2017

[PompeyVillan]

16 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Labour to scrap tuition fees? That's one way to get the youth to vote... 

It's gonna go further than that. It's truly progressive. A national education service with a focus on further education as well as higher education. 

I'll be interested to see the details when the manifesto comes out, but I think the idea is that anyone can access further education and students can higher education for nothing.

For the many, not the few. As they say.

 

[StefanAVFC]

I like the idea but think more needs to be done to incentivise STEM degrees and deincentivise certain humanities/soft subject degrees.

at school it was like "Stefan you get good grades, you're going to uni, if you don't you're doomed'

in my current work, I didn't need uni, I have a great future lined up. At school, STEM was never pushed. It was just 'go to uni then work it out'

This needs to be attacked from all sides.

incentivise STEM degrees

remove then stigma behind not going to uni; even now from the start of high school its "good grades, uni. Average to bad, nope"

lets make unis, cost -free places of academic excellence. Not places where 18-21 olds doss for 3 years with 8 hours a week lectures ending up with thousands of debt and a piece of paper that means little, all because "its what you do"

I was that dosser for 3 years and I hugely regret it.

Edited May 10, 2017 by StefanAVFC

[MakemineVanilla]

36 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Labour to scrap tuition fees? That's one way to get the youth to vote... 

The whole education package he's promising is costed at around £50bn, which he will raise by raising taxes on businesses by 33%.

He has promised to raise the minimum wage.

At the same time he has promised to 'safeguard Britain's vital industries' and that 'every new job will be a good job'. 

These aims seem to be mutually exclusive.

[snowychap]

28 minutes ago, jon_c said:

can you be more equal?

Revised seventh commandment.

Edit: I'm guessing that Labour are campaigning with the intent of making us a more equal society? Surely all they mean is a society where there is less inequality than there is currently?

Edited May 10, 2017 by snowychap

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, jon_c said:

.... but can you be more equal? Surely something is either equal or not. 

You can be in an Orwellian world. 

[HanoiVillan]

I think the point @jon_c is making is that it should be 'closer to equal' rather than 'more equal'. In the same way that today I'm 'nearer to being dead' rather than 'more dead'. 

[TrentVilla]

4 hours ago, mjmooney said:

Local LibDem MP Greg Mulholland posted this on his Facebook page:

This was my response: 

Naturally, he didn't reply. 

I'm surprised you didn't query "necessary stress"

[Awol]

3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

This needs to be attacked from all sides.

incentivise STEM degrees

remove then stigma behind not going to uni; even now from the start of high school its "good grades, uni. Average to bad, nope"

lets make unis, cost -free places of academic excellence. 

Basically you want to go back to the system as it was in the 80's /early 90's.

Good plan, it was fine before  but some clowns said changing it was 'progressive' and so here we are. 

[TrentVilla]

4 minutes ago, Awol said:

Basically you want to go back to the system as it was in the 80's /early 90's.

Good plan, it was fine before  but some clowns said changing it was 'progressive' and so here we are. 

Hmmm that's a lot of extra people unemployed and on the statistics rather than studying film studies.

[a m ole]

3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

I like the idea but think more needs to be done to incentivise STEM degrees and deincentivise certain humanities/soft subject degrees.

at school it was like "Stefan you get good grades, you're going to uni, if you don't you're doomed'

in my current work, I didn't need uni, I have a great future lined up. At school, STEM was never pushed. It was just 'go to uni then work it out'

This needs to be attacked from all sides.

incentivise STEM degrees

remove then stigma behind not going to uni; even now from the start of high school its "good grades, uni. Average to bad, nope"

lets make unis, cost -free places of academic excellence. Not places where 18-21 olds doss for 3 years with 8 hours a week lectures ending up with thousands of debt and a piece of paper that means little, all because "its what you do"

I was that dosser for 3 years and I hugely regret it.

Totally agree and I'm the same. My degree did get me my first (real) job and started my career, but nothing I learned in my degree was of any use. It was my hobbies and self learning in creative practice that actually contributed to being able to do my job, and also actually pass my course too.

I also think the non-stem courses themselves should be evaluated, they should have more focus on application to the real word of work. A lot of the mandatory modules I did were pretty much only of use if you planned to teach the course later in life.

[mjmooney]

48 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

I'm surprised you didn't query "necessary stress"

I thought about it. 

[Xela]

Quote

 

Local LibDem MP Greg Mulholland posted this on his Facebook page:

 

Quote

 

No-change parking machines cause necessary stress and discriminate against low earners and those who can't use other methods such as card payment or by phone. 

They act like a form of extra taxation. That is completely unfair and they should be banned. 

 

 

This was my response: 

Quote

It's all marketing psychology, along the lines of pricing items at (say) £2.99 rather than £3.00 - because people only 'see' the 2, and it seems less expensive. Setting a parking charge at £3.90 works on the same principle, with the added bonus that most people won't have the right change, and will put in £4.00. The resentment this causes is probably out of all proportion, and nobody would bat an eyelid if the charge was set at £4.00. In practice it IS £4.00 - with a 10p discount for anybody who can be bothered to carry around a pocketful of silver. In the grand scheme of commercial ripoffs, this is small potatoes of the 'first world problems' variety. If you want a parking-related issue to get angry about, I suggest addressing paid parking in hospitals - especially when they are of the 'pre-pay' type. Nobody knows how long they are going to be in, so the tendency is to overestimate, just in case. Apart from the argument that it should be free, at the very least they should use only 'pay on exit' technology, so we pay for what we have used, and no more.

 

Naturally, he didn't reply. 

 

 

Good reply @mjmooney

I'm curious as to why he thinks low earners are discriminated against by 'no change' machines. Are 'low earners' unable to obtain change? 

[mjmooney]

1 minute ago, a m ole said:

Totally agree and I'm the same. My degree did get me my first (real) job and started my career, but nothing I learned in my degree was of any use. It was my hobbies and self learning in creative practice that actually contributed to being able to do my job, and also actually pass my course too.

I also think the non-stem courses themselves should be evaluated, they should have more focus on application to the real word of work. A lot of the mandatory modules I did were pretty much only of use if you planned to teach the course later in life.

You are confusing education with training. 

[a m ole]

3 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

You are confusing education with training. 

elaborate?

[Chindie]

4 minutes ago, a m ole said:

elaborate?

There's more to education than building a workforce.

[a m ole]

Just now, Chindie said:

There's more to education than building a workforce.

I'm talking about benefitting the student, not the workforce.

[HanoiVillan]

31 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

Hmmm that's a lot of extra people unemployed and on the statistics rather than studying film studies.

The UK has excellent film, media and creative industries that are growing faster than the economy at large, are clearly the best out of any comparably-sized country in the world, and are a large export earner for the UK economy. 

[Chindie]

4 minutes ago, a m ole said:

I'm talking about benefitting the student, not the workforce.

Can a student not benefit from things that don't have work applications. My degree has roughly zero use to my career, but I don't feel it was useless.

Would it also not follow that, in this apparent line of thinking, that what benefits the student is about making a workforce?

[a m ole]

11 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Can a student not benefit from things that don't have work applications. My degree has roughly zero use to my career, but I don't feel it was useless.

Would it also not follow that, in this apparent line of thinking, that what benefits the student is about making a workforce?

Of course they can, but I think they should also do more to aid students in their career. It's not a case of one or the other.

To clarify what I was saying - I feel that it would benefit students to learn more how the content of their course might be applied.

Not training in how to do a specific job, but how what you are learning would enrich the career choices you might make.

Other people may have had different experiences, or went in different eras, thats fine. Maybe you had what I felt was missing.

[Xann]

Meant to go back to this, sorry.

On 08/05/2017 at 16:14, MakemineVanilla said:

The hatred of dollar worship seems rather pious and puritanical...

With an economy that consuming people and planet, desperate is the word.

You're entitled to your opinions on climate science, you know mine.