peterms Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Of course we will always need the certain types of uni grads to make this country function properly, but it's my belief schools should promote apprenticeships more. We need all sorts. People with theoretical knowledge, people with practical knowledge, people with technical skills, people with people skills, and so on. University graduates don't make the country run properly, nor does any other single group of people. It's more about having the skills in place to supply the things that are needed at the right time, and that calls for a wide range of talents, which we can't always specify and recruit in advance. But we're clearly short of people in some technical roles like several things related to buildings and the things they need to operate properly, so let's have more people with those skills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 I'm from the IW, well... reside here. Hampshire and the IW have 200 places (apprenticeships) and 22,000 applicants. It is crazy. Island alone only has 20 of those, there are over 3,500 unemployed and applicants of the correct age for those 20 are 3,000 in sane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 That's a great one. What is interesting, though, is their air of general embarrassment and awkwardness. It's like it's their first ever demo, and they're not quite sure what to do. Some way distant from flashmobs and Sukey. Yet if people like this are protesting in places like IoW, then Lord Snooty and pals are right royally ****. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Those were the first lot there, it got noisier and louder as we went on, more people than I have seen protest for a long time. Lib Dem and Independent councilors came out in support. A lot of fun and good to see people caring about things, passion for what they believe in! Like I said a few pages back, they are taking away tourist information centres, a swimming pool that helps dis-advantaged children, a bus service that old people use to get into town (council funded bus service, we only have one company - this other one does the little routes the big one doesn't do, council funded and we are losing it) and wait for it, lifeguards being removed from a HOLIDAY DESINTATION'S beaches, so if you don't want to drown, go to Bournemouth. Support centre for children, giving advice on studies, giving help to those in trouble, those who did not pass, giving sexual health advice - the only place on the Island that is an all in one stop shop is being taken away, womens refuge is being cut back to the point if any "wife beater" knows, he will know where it is, it will be the only "base" so many things being taken away but some listed above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 I'm not fighting for a political party, I am fighting for what people deserve, what they need and that is the most important thing IoW cuts, no thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Those were the first lot there, it got noisier and louder as we went on, more people than I have seen protest for a long time. Lib Dem and Independent councilors came out in support. A lot of fun and good to see people caring about things, passion for what they believe in! Like I said a few pages back, they are taking away tourist information centres, a swimming pool that helps dis-advantaged children, a bus service that old people use to get into town (council funded bus service, we only have one company - this other one does the little routes the big one doesn't do, council funded and we are losing it) and wait for it, lifeguards being removed from a HOLIDAY DESINTATION'S beaches, so if you don't want to drown, go to Bournemouth. Support centre for children, giving advice on studies, giving help to those in trouble, those who did not pass, giving sexual health advice - the only place on the Island that is an all in one stop shop is being taken away, womens refuge is being cut back to the point if any "wife beater" knows, he will know where it is, it will be the only "base" so many things being taken away but some listed above. And that's happening all around the UK. People like Osborne and Pickles are being wheeled out to denounce councils for choosing to make cuts to services instead of making "efficiencies", but everyone with a brain bigger than a peanut knows that's lying subterfuge. This is just the start. It gets more interesting from here on in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Definitely just the start. The one funny thing about the IW council is that the two who have mismanaged the finance and somehow been able to fritter away millions are... the Condems! (it has been Lib dems > Conservative) and, we are the ones who suffer. My nieces, my girlfriend (she is 19 and doesn't yet drive, the wightbus was her link to get into Newport!) and so so so so many more people whom I have spoken to, interviewed, spent time with, documented and so on. Change to the Tories, is just the coins they can take from your pocket. And... back to impartial for my write up about it... So, better go finish it really lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 I'm not fighting for a political party, I am fighting for what people deserve, what they need and that is the most important thing IoW cuts, no thanks That campaign may suffer from lack of clarity. Is it against the council, the government, both, neither, or what? Looks like it started as a campaign against spending cuts while putting off until later the issue of who is responsible, ie postponed the discussion on the political line of the campaign. Deciding that will lose some supporters and some momentum. Still, no doubt they can recover from that. Especially if there's a degree of public anger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 We've got a lot of ideas and protests coming up, there is an anti condem motion going on - and those people have joined this battle, the spending cuts right now are priority as 23rd of Feb they are finalised (the leader of the IWC has given us 2 days to come up with alternatives, nice guy eh? as he is releasing the info on 21st and wants it ready for the full council meeting two days later!!!!) right now, as I said this is a priority, protect the things that make the Island and make the community and give freedom to those who cannot otherwise get out and so on. Then the big push starts against everything else ^^ and I really must go write, its got to be ready for 7 :-/ lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Sorry if ths has already been mentioned somewhere but is it time to admit a mistake and bring back Polytechnics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Sorry if ths has already been mentioned somewhere but is it time to admit a mistake and bring back Polytechnics?And turn nursing degrees back into training, remove the vocational from the intellectual and properly determine how the two should be funded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 The point for me is that they should pay more towards the creation of social capital because they can afford to - not that they should receive a personalised bill for their own individual education like checking out of a hotel. Thoroughly agree. There is a value in having a better educated population, not just a workforce trained in some no doubt useful but specific skill. It's not just about churning out cogs for the existing machinery. And I agree with this, too (even though I don't perhaps agree with the more university places part of your argument earlier). In economic terms, it's all very well to suggest that we should be concentrating on training people with skills in the specific areas we need but are those the needs we have now or the needs we will have in the future? Surely it needs to be some combination of both? What we can't do is precisely forecast what skills and particular professions (other than those specific ones such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, &c.) we will need in the future and therefore it strikes me as much more sensible to have a more throoughly and highly educated workforce which should increase the flexibility in the labour market required to adapt to what are likely to be quite difficuly economic challenges for the kind of country that we have (in the context of competing with developing - at a huge rate - economies across the world). Much more important to me, though, is the benefit to all of having a better educated society (which obviously is not just about University education but about education overall as education should not just be about the direct economic benefits or returns of a course). We might then make better decisions as to whom we elect, how we hold them to account, whether we let them get away with murder, whether we fool ourselves in to accepting the status quo of excessive consumerism, &c., &c., &c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 The point for me is that they should pay more towards the creation of social capital because they can afford to - not that they should receive a personalised bill for their own individual education like checking out of a hotel.Thoroughly agree. Is that best achieved through a graduate income tax Someone grauates, earns average 30k per annum for 40 years, pays £12k Someone grauates, earns average 100k per annum for 40 years, pays £40k Someone grauates, earns average 250k per annum for 20 years, pays £50k before early retirement and then earns £100k per annum on his savings for 20 years putting another £20k in the pot Under tory proposals Someone grauates, earns average 30k per annum for 40 years, pays £36k Someone grauates, earns average 100k per annum for 40 years, pays £36k Someone grauates, earns average 250k per annum for 20 years, pays £36k The only possible reason any govt would WANT to introduce debt to the education system is in order to be able to sell that debt on, and kickstart the education finance industry that makes so much money in the US. it used to be the case that society invested in the people, educated them and reaped the rewards. Now the view seems to be that you invest in yourself and you reap the rewards. The reality is that the banks will invest in your education and they'll reap rewards. Me-centric politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 The only possible reason any govt would WANT to introduce debt to the education system is in order to be able to sell that debt on, and kickstart the education finance industry that makes so much money in the US. To be fair, this isn't introducing debt in to the system, though, is it? It's just increasing it and widening the scope. The debt has been in the system since 1991. I think the debt is also important for the point I put forward in one of the other threads (in the same way that mortgages, for eaxmple, were/are a means of weighing (and tying) down the people). Me-centric politics. And economics and social policy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted February 9, 2011 Moderator Share Posted February 9, 2011 it used to be the case that society invested in the people, educated them and reaped the rewards. Now the view seems to be that you invest in yourself and you reap the rewards. The reality is that the banks will invest in your education and they'll reap rewards. Me-centric politics. Something else has changed though. It used to be the case that Uni was very much a minority step following leaving school. For various reasons, including keeping people off the dole figures, as well as a desire, perhaps, that more people should have access to Uni level education, I think it's a (narrow) majority of school leavers who go on to Uni. That's one hell of a shed load extra courses to be paid for. So while I stop short of what I see as your (uncharacteristic) narrow and materialistic focus on this, part of me thinks you've got it partly right, and to that extent, I agree with at least part of what you say while disgareeing with the other part. It was university that taught me to equivocate like this. . My views on this may come across as materialistic and narrow, but I don't believe they are. I'm trying to look at a problem and see whther the proposed solution is better or worse than the status quo. The problem is two fold, in the simplest terms - firstly not enough skilled workers in a variety of fields, including that of your incompetent plumber, coupled with an excess of people leaving Uni with qualifications that are of no benefit to them, or of the national wellbeing. secondly -the cost of all these extra people (compared to the past) going to Unis is huge, and the original model of "completely free" no longer worked. The Labour Gov. brought in fees to help with the costs, the new lot have upped the fees. As I said earlier my ideal would be more akin to Gringos tax, as above, but apparently that's too hard. The Tory version, is one of the very few things that I think they have more right than wrong. I do not accept that people gaining benefit from additional education, when (and only when) they can afford to pay back some of the costs of their benefit, should not do so. If it was only a few people, then it's a drop in the ocean. But it's not, it's huge numbers - around 40,000 of them went on to the dole last year (2009). That's a lot of people trained in stuff that's not of much use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 ...around 40,000 of them went on to the dole last year (2009). That's a lot of people trained in stuff that's not of much use. Immediate economic use, perhaps. Though is that more of the fault of the economy that is quite happily built around having a certain level of unemployment (as shown by unemployment levels in an apparent boom) than those people who go on to get a degree? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted February 9, 2011 Moderator Share Posted February 9, 2011 around 40,000 of them went on to the dole last year (2009). That's a lot of people trained in stuff that's not of much use. Given the employment market of the time I'm not sure a great deal of store can be placed in that number as anything more than a sign of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted February 9, 2011 Moderator Share Posted February 9, 2011 That may be true, or maybe not, though I think the wider point of all these extra people going to Uni, but there being no benefit to them or society of their 3 years spent at Uni is unclear, or alternatively that they can afford to pay loans back, and there's no problem with fees. On the one hand you get media stories suggesting that "One in four university graduates still without full-time jobs after three years" heil Graduates warned of record 70 applicants for every jobGrauniad and on the other you get stats which suggest that going to Uni still gives you a better than average chance of getting a job and being able to pay back a loan grauniad, again though as one comment says, it rather depends if they are flipping burgers (inapropriate degrees) or running the world (all is well, and they can pay back their loans) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 inapropriate degrees How are they inappropriate? Degrees aren't necessarily (and certainly shouldn't necessarily be in my book) either vocational courses or with some specific career in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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