My rant in the middle of a higher education debate

Gordon Freeman writes:

"The taxes of every fast food employee who may never walk on a campus are supporting students who go to colleges and universities around the world. In that sense, the debate [about higher education] is not “academic” or an intellectual plaything, it is profoundly serious. As a result, I believe universities have not only a responsibility to help envision a sustainable future but they have a duty to do so."

I wrote...

As universities are the “manufacturer” of minds running the economy and politics of this country, I agree that university faculties have an obligation to change. Unlike at school, where there is a large focus on citizenship, although arguably not taken as seriously by many schools as it should be, universities have no focus on the wider sense of community and duty other than to create a network of “friends” that can help one get on in their chosen career through their alumni. This sort of self interested networking: developing relationships with those that can help in your career and dismissing any other kind of friendship as irrelevant, then carries on into professional life. The political system is one area where evidence of this can be seen, as is the media - like minded people gathering together to inculcate their views onto other minds.

Universities need to focus more on turning out minds that understand the importance of community and the wider world outside their own particular spheres and disciplines. The focus on self service and regarding oneself as superior to others simply because they have been granted a privileged access to higher education needs to be halted. I would recommend measuring the value (superiority) of a person in society in ways other than the number of qualifications gained in an education system that has apparently produced such self serving, greedy, uncaring leaders that seem to dominate press coverage.

As an aside, the current focus on qualifications as the means to improve the British economy is in some ways farcical. Forcing people who do want to attend college to stay on in the “prison” of education or to “prove” they can do the job they have been doing very well for many years with silly paper qualifications is a joke. Cleaners at my place of work were recently forced to undertake an NVQ in “cleaning” - in their own time, not in work time that is. A waste of their time and our money that made them feel that their many years of experience counted for naught. Someone who has been carrying out a job for years and doing it well should not have to prove themselves in a nonsense qualification that taxpayers and those sitting such silly "tests" have to pay a useless Quango for.

As a later years graduate, who CHOSE to study for a degree, to prove to myself that I was as intelligent as many of the graduates who had dismissed my contributions when they discovered I had not attended a university, I believe that people should be allowed to study if they choose to do so and would certainly reccommend it as a means of learning how to structure one's thoughts. But we must recognise that for some people it is not the way - hands on learning, taught by someone who knows what needs to happen can in some ways be more valuable than theoretical knowledge that is often forgotten and put aside when work actually begins.

The current state of affairs in the country and indeed in the world, highlights the fact that we need more than book learning and worthless paper awards to develop a new future in which everyone should be rewarded for what they do POST EDUCATION - not what they know. I fear that the current focus on getting qualifications, particularly for those who neither want them or need them is taking funds away from those who want to improve their knowledge - as in the EQL debacle.

We know that if we all focused only on our self interests the human race would quickly die out, yet we fail to take account of this in our daily lives these days. And sadly those that spent their formative years in higher education institutions, those now in power, seem to be much more professional self servers than many other members of society who lack a university education.

The ELQ debate

(my contribution to the discussion on the government halting the partial funding for those people who want to study at undergraduate level, although they already have a first degree...)

As someone working with young people I believe it is necessary to have a wider spectrum of skills and knowledge rather than specialist knowledge in one area. I chose to specialise in English at degree level because that was what was needed to achieve my goal to become an English teacher - there was a shortage of these at the time I was studying. But I also discovered I was interested in: social psychology, biopsychology, philosophy, economics and sociology as well as my specialist curriculum subject area. I have been learning about these subjects in a number of ways, one of which is studying university courses at undergraduate level; sadly these part time courses now cost at least a third more than they did before the funding was withdrawn which is making me think twice about signing up for them.

Now, many people would say that it is time for me to move on to postgraduate education and stop wasting my time on undergraduate studies. But as a societal need, I believe we need some people to be educated across a much broader knowledge base. This can only be achieved through access to certificate/diploma/degree courses at the undergraduate level. Specialisms are all well and good but the breakthroughs and new innovations generally come from the bringing together of different disciplines - denying graduates and even PhDs the funding to bring a new focus to their work can only deter some from doing it - and who knows what we might lose.

We need to change minds somehow…

Why a blog on Education?

Well, I left school with few qualifications in 1972.  Always thought I was as intelligent as the next man (or woman) and wanted to prove it to myself.  The Open university had been formed at the latter end of the 1960s and in my mid thirties I embarked on my first OU course, which turned out to be engineering based - "Living with Technology".  I chose this because it had an element of IT and I had learned how to program computers.

I was shocked when it turned into an engineering course!  But I had started and my company (International Computers Ltd - ICL) was paying for the course so I submitted my first three assignments and found I was getting distictions on every assignment.  Sadly, workload, travelling around assisting with ICL's delivery of the Faraday Lectures, meant I had to abandon the course halfway through at the behest of my boss.  As they were paying for the course I had little choice as computers were not mobile at all back then - green screens time and no graphics!

I did not get the time or opportunity to embark on another course until I took volountary redundancy from ICL, now Fujitsu Services, in 2002.  This time I stuck at it and despite working in a secondary school full time as a Learning Support Assistant I managed to achieve my degree and another 120 points of study in 4 years!  I was hooked.  Learning was fun and became an addiction...  I now avidly read text books on a number of subjects and keep finding new topics that interest me.  I would love to become a perpetual student - but distance learning does not provide enough social interaction and I also discovered I loved working with young people. 

I had originally planned to become a teacher for my second career, despite the drop in salary it was a safe option and would provide me with a decent pension.  But knowing that dedicated teachers spend an enormous amount of time outside the classroom would mean I would have to give up my studies as I like to be the best in whatever I do and that often means putting in more hours than more talented people might have to do.  I tried being a learning mentor, but that drained my emotions as I wanted to adopt all my mentees - I have not had the opportunity of bringing up my own children and the impact on my emotional health was great. 

However, as a mentor I had also had the opportunity of covering lessons for absent staff and of teaching small groups in my subject area of English.  I took a job as a cover supervisor and actually enjoy "teaching" the whole gamut of subjects to a large number of pupils.  It allows me to keep an emotional distance from the problems young people face but still allows me some interaction and the sense that I am doing some good ensuring they work in the lessons I cover.

I do not have to plan lessons, and I have studied most of the subjects taught at university foundation level, including maths and science, I have studied French and German and my studies in philosophy and psychlogy help in other subject areas.  My experience with computers means that I can teach ICT and Business Studies - no subject has proved a problem, even in my weakest subject - Maths - my perseverance in conquering it has led to my learning a few tricks that I can pass on to weaker students when covering maths lessons or helping with one to one. 

I am in an ideal place at the moment and want everyone else to be here with me - loving learning and recognising what a sound knowledge base adds to simple life experiences and to the choices available in this knowledge society. 

Hence my commitment to Lifelong Learning and the reason for the creation of this blog.