On Jan 10, 10:10*am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:29:24 -0800 (PST), 1506 wrote:
On Jan 10, 5:59 am, wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:44:53 +0000

Graeme Wall wrote:
The problem is who gets to define which courses are vocationally
useless For instance golf management courses I would take to be a
subset of estate management which is a long established and valid
course. I would agree that the general course (estate management in
this case) should be subsidised to whatever level the government of the
day thinks is appropriate and the specialist addition (golf management)
should be for the student to fund.

Well thats never going to be an easy one to solve since there has to be a
line drawn somewhere and someone will always object that their course should
be subsidised. I'd start with suggesting that all science, engineering and
major humanities courses - english, languages, history, law - should be free
so long as the students complete them and pass. Other courses should be
subsidised on a sliding scale based on how I would guess some national
committee feels how intellectually rigorous or useful they are. Media studies
should be somewhere near the bottom.

B2003

And then, with respect Boltar, you have created another taxpayer
funded Quango. *Better, IMHO to let the market decide. *If there is a
shortage of MBAs, then clearly an MBA would be a good investment. *If
we need civil engineers, the a BSc in such would be money well spent.
and so on. *If the state has an interest in encouraging study in a
particular field, then by all means give a grant to the institutions
offering the degree. *But, preserve us please from liberal arts
degrees.

Please preserve us from lunatic ramblings from the US of A. *Since when
did the market have to decide what *individuals* want to do with their
talents? * All of this nonsense that only obviously marketable degrees /
qualifications are the only ones that should be funded needs to be
dispensed with immediately. *

More ad-hominem drivel. Do you have any original thinking to
contribute? And, do check your facts.

The UK has a strong and viable arts
movement as well as a media industry that generates very considerable
earnings. *Why should we only fund economists or doctors or lawyers? *We
need variety amongst the talented and qualified young people who emerge
from our universities. I also completely fail to see why they should be
forced to rack up tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt just to gain
a higher education. *If we could afford it for my generation then we can
afford it for future ones. It is an investment in our future success as
a country after all and we are not exactly the smallest economy in the
world either. *I can completely understand why people took to the
streets even though I don't agree with them smashing the place to bits
because some of them felt like it.

So, let me understand: What the UK has today is success?

On Jan 10, 3:28*pm, Paul Terry wrote:
In message ,
writes

Though I think some intellectually and vocationally useless courses -
golf management studies and similar nonsense - should be fully paid for
by the student.

Strange though it may seem, golf management students are more likely to
find graduate-level employment within six months of leaving university
(90%) than those in many other subjects, including engineering (85.9%).
Computer sciences (81.8%) has the worst graduate employment record,
medicine the best (99.3%).
--
Paul Terry

The reason for graduate unemployment in engineering is that employers
insist on people having several years' previous employment experience
in one narrow speciality, these are the same employers who whinge
about a 'shortage' of engineering graduates. The situation is similair
in computing.

On Jan 10, 11:21*am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:13:50 -0800 (PST), 1506 wrote:
On Jan 10, 10:10 am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:29:24 -0800 (PST), 1506 wrote:
And then, with respect Boltar, you have created another taxpayer
funded Quango. Better, IMHO to let the market decide. If there is a
shortage of MBAs, then clearly an MBA would be a good investment. If
we need civil engineers, the a BSc in such would be money well spent.
and so on. If the state has an interest in encouraging study in a
particular field, then by all means give a grant to the institutions
offering the degree. But, preserve us please from liberal arts
degrees.

Please preserve us from lunatic ramblings from the US of A. Since when
did the market have to decide what *individuals* want to do with their
talents? All of this nonsense that only obviously marketable degrees /
qualifications are the only ones that should be funded needs to be
dispensed with immediately.

More ad-hominem drivel. *Do you have any original thinking to
contribute? *And, do check your facts.

Oh we're in the "insult the contributer" mode are we? * I'll bear that
in mind next time I have taken some photos or have other info of
interest. We can both play at being childish and stupid if you would
like.

Clearly you can dish it out, but not take it.

I have plenty of original thinking in my head thanks very much. Nice of
you to enquire.

Care to point me at some of the facts you are alleging I am missing?
And please *not* a biased set of data that merely supports your right
wing agenda.

Your post made some invalid assuptions.

The UK has a strong and viable arts
movement as well as a media industry that generates very considerable
earnings. Why should we only fund economists or doctors or lawyers? We
need variety amongst the talented and qualified young people who emerge
from our universities. I also completely fail to see why they should be
forced to rack up tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt just to gain
a higher education. If we could afford it for my generation then we can
afford it for future ones. It is an investment in our future success as
a country after all and we are not exactly the smallest economy in the
world either. I can completely understand why people took to the
streets even though I don't agree with them smashing the place to bits
because some of them felt like it.

So, let me understand: What the UK has today is success?

And the US is more successful is it? * I suggest you define success
given you have now set it as some sort of benchmark. I just used it as a
future concept not a current one.

Again invalid thinking. I implied nothing of the sort. The United
States are in very steep decline. You seem to forget that within
living memory the United Kingdom was the greatest nation on earth by a
considerable margin. It is not your place to suggest anything to
me. If you want a benchmark, take a look at the year on year GDP
growth of India, Singapore, or Panama.

On Jan 10, 10:13*am, Jeremy Double wrote:
On 10/01/2011 14:29, 1506 wrote:

And then, with respect Boltar, you have created another taxpayer
funded Quango. *Better, IMHO to let the market decide. *If there is a
shortage of MBAs, then clearly an MBA would be a good investment. *If
we need civil engineers, the a BSc in such would be money well spent.
and so on.

You're out of date, you need an MEng to become a professional engineer
these days!


Well thank you for updating me. :-)

On 10/01/2011 20:02, 1506 wrote:
You seem to forget that within living memory the United Kingdom was the greatest nation on earth by a
considerable margin.

You'd have to be very old to remember such a time. That came to end by
1918 and, arguably, earlier than that.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net

On Jan 10, 9:50*am, wrote:
On Sat, 8 Jan 2011 06:18:29 -0800 (PST)

MIG wrote:
reason, are the first enforcement choice of a violent Tory government
that despises its electorate.

LOL Ah , I needed a laugh this morning

B2003

For some reason I didn't find it all that funny watching a gang of
uniformed thugs beating up children who looked like my nieces and
nephews, and were doing nothing wrong apart from things like being
unable to pass through solid barriers that the thugs were trying to
force them through.

I didn't find it at all funny to be a couple of feet away from an
elderly man being hit from behind without provocation despite walking
as fast as he could in the direction that he was being forced in.

I didn't find it at all funny to see the uniformed thugs dragging an
unconscious woman under their feet, who was just an office worker as
far as I could see, instead of offering any help.

I didn't find it funny when I was grabbed by the collar and thrown
aside by one of the thugs when I asked where on earth they wanted us
to go, given that I was trying to leave the area and was being forced
back into the area that they supposedly wanted to disperse people
from, given the talk of water cannons etc.

I have stared into the cold, dead eyes of those thugs, and they are
not funny. Not funny at all. They don't care about anything except
for keeping their line straight. Anything in their path is fair
game. It could be your children, your elderly mother, anyone. They
just don't care.

And Theresa May is the latest Home Secretary to unleash them on the
public. The public includes you and anyone you care about, if you
care about anyone.

On 10/01/2011 09:49, d wrote:

And before you bleat on again about repressive police with guns explain why
somewhere like Sweden - a liberal left poster country if ever there was one -
routinely arms their normal police.

Don't they also arm their train drivers?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 10/01/2011 13:40, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 10/01/2011 13:30, d wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:16:10 -0800 (PST)
wrote:
Thank you for some sanity Boltar. And, let us not forget that this is
about teenagers who believe they are entitled to an education paid for
by the labor of working taxpayers.

Education is expensive in the United States. Parents and their
offspring are finding creative ways to deal with the cost. Several
Caribbean colleges now have US students attending bachelors=92 courses.
And, let us not forget India has outstanding medical schools and very
reasonable cost.

These punks need to lose their entitlement mentality. The UK needs
students who will stand up and be adults, not underdeveloped urchins
sucking at the state mammary gland.

To be fair , I don't begrudge univeristy education being free or at least
subsidised to a large extent. Given I had a partial grant myself I'd be
a hypocrite if I said otherwise. Though I think some intellectually and
vocationally useless courses - golf management studies and similar
nonsense -
should be fully paid for by the student.


The problem is who gets to define which courses are vocationally
useless

Me?

Of course, when people /are/ studying something clearly vocational
(other than medicine and law) we can complain they are doing dumbed-down
un-academic subjects which doesn't deserve places in proper universities...

It puzzles me that understanding modern mass communications is seen as a
waste of time, but splitting hairs over details of the popular
entertainment of Elizabeth I's era is a pinnacle of academic achievement.

For instance golf management courses I would take to be a
subset of estate management which is a long established and valid
course. I would agree that the general course (estate management in this
case) should be subsidised to whatever level the government of the day
thinks is appropriate and the specialist addition (golf management)
should be for the student to fund.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Golf Course Management
exists to meet a specific industry need, and at least some people doing
it might be getting funding from industries who need people filling that
need (cf some of the railway studies courses - we can laugh about
degrees in trainspotting, but the industry seems to think it is worth
sponsoring staff to do the courses).

ISTR there were degrees offered in paper production, which I doubt many
sixth formers would pick but which some tree-bothering companies might
be willing to support.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 10/01/2011 19:56, alexander.keys1 wrote:
On Jan 10, 3:28 pm, Paul wrote:
In ,
writes

Though I think some intellectually and vocationally useless courses -
golf management studies and similar nonsense - should be fully paid for
by the student.

Strange though it may seem, golf management students are more likely to
find graduate-level employment within six months of leaving university
(90%) than those in many other subjects, including engineering (85.9%).
Computer sciences (81.8%) has the worst graduate employment record,
medicine the best (99.3%).
--
Paul Terry

The reason for graduate unemployment in engineering is that employers
insist on people having several years' previous employment experience
in one narrow speciality, these are the same employers who whinge
about a 'shortage' of engineering graduates. The situation is similair
in computing.

Are there still job adverts demanding things like five years of
experience with ACME-Software 2010?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In message , at
23:38:36 on Mon, 10 Jan 2011, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
The reason for graduate unemployment in engineering is that employers
insist on people having several years' previous employment experience
in one narrow speciality, these are the same employers who whinge
about a 'shortage' of engineering graduates. The situation is similair
in computing.

Are there still job adverts demanding things like five years of
experience with ACME-Software 2010?

Probably. I remember adverts for people with 5 years experience
programming microprocessors, when the things hadn't been for sale
that long.
--
Roland Perry