Universities

When I say that I doubt that I will take a Gap Year, many adults are surprised. “Why”, they say, wide-eyed, “it’s such a wonderful growing experience / important rite of passage / chance to save the world.” Hm. All this may be so, but I am by no means alone in dismissing a year spent abroad. I can see many reasons for this. The first comes from the infamous video “Gap Yah.” Everyone has seen it. My grandmother has seen it. If you haven’t seen it, then you can find it here. In addition to being very funny and easily quotable, it does highlight a significant reason for the

Today’s A-level results once again see the pass rate continuing to rise, in this instance for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of entries gaining an E or above, up from 97.5% in 2009. While not wishing to detract from the efforts of students and teachers, unfortunately such a rise has become all too expected, to the point where there would almost have to be a public inquiry if it were not to happen. Nor should the introduction of the A* at A-Level warrant particular attention, except perhaps to say that it serves as a symbol of how far we have allowed grade inflation to go.    

This is the second of our posts with Reform looking ahead to the Spending Review. The first, on health, can be found here. What is the budget? Education is the biggest area of government spending after welfare and health, totalling £89 billion in 2010-11. This budget increased by 64 percent in real terms between 1999-00 and 2010-11. Total, per-pupil school spending doubled in real terms over the same period. Where does the money go? Expenditure on schools was £46 billion last year. The vast bulk of school spending goes on people: the average school spends 78 percent of its budget on staff. The byzantine arrangements for school funding mean that

The contours of an agreement on how to pay for university education are clearer today after Rachel Sylvester’s interview with David Willetts. Up-front fees look to be on the way out.  Willetts tells Sylvester, ‘It’s very important that it’s signaled very clearly that the money that is paid back comes out of your earnings once you have graduated and are in work.’ It also seems that different courses at different institutions will have different prices. Willetts proclaims that he wants something that ‘links you to your university and the course you did at that university.’   So far, this looks like simply collecting variable fees through the tax system. But the

Twenty years ago, students typically took low skill “summer jobs” simply to earn money.  Now, most offices and organizations feature youngsters putting in unpaid time for work experience.  It might be a week or two, or even half a year. The practice has its critics.  Union leaders are decidedly edgy about free labour competing for jobs with their members.  There are charges of exploitation and bad treatment.  The caricature has unpaid interns working photocopiers or being sent to collect sandwiches or laundry for management, without gaining any useful hands-on experience. Some critics detect class bias in unpaid work experience, saying that only affluent middle class children can afford to work

Vince Cable is announcing to Metro that “We do not want to make such deep cuts to transport, energy, science research and universities.” Really? According to whom? The science budget, which has shot from £1.3bn to an indefensible £3.7bn, is a prime example of a cost that should not be borne by the taxpayer. Scientists are best left to get on with this themselves, and companies are more than capable of funding research. On energy, again, there are many expensive vanity projects just begging for the axe. Given that Cable is in charge of the universities brief – the most important part of his otherwise non-job – you can expect