University 'free for all' to sign up students - regardless of exam results

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  • Universities have been accused of allowing admissions to descend into a “free for all” after it emerged that school leavers are increasingly being offered places regardless of their exam results.

    Figures obtained by the Telegraph show that unconditional offers at some of Britain’s leading institutions have more than doubled over the past five years.

    It comes amid fierce competition among universities to attract students, with top institutions preparing to drastically lower their entry grades to entice school-leavers during the “clearing” process, as they scrabble to fill their remaining places after A-level results are released next week.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017…s-exam-results/

    Presumably there will now be courses in tying shoelaces for the terminally stupid so they can get a degree. It's obvious what will happen, pass marks for degrees will drop and we will have a nation of uneducated morons. I already know a graduate in 'Photography ' who is working in the only job he could get, as a shop assistant in TK Maxx.

  • University isn't for everyone. There should be far more technical colleges where citizens can learn skills and trades. The death of the artisan class is the biggest catastrophe for any civilization. And it spells goodbye to home grown labour. That includes teachers and nurses.

  • I agree the real need is for real trade and profession apprenticeships where you earn as you learn instead of mickey mouse degrees that are not worth the paper they are printed on, and student loans that they have no real intention and/or chance of ever paying back.

  • The fact that London has more Polish plumbers than English ones, goes to prove that point.

    Without turning this into a thread about immigration, but I don't see why we cannot have apprenticeships and our own people trained up to do whatever skills are required.

  • University isn't for everyone. There should be far more technical colleges where citizens can learn skills and trades. The death of the artisan class is the biggest catastrophe for any civilization. And it spells goodbye to home grown labour. That includes teachers and nurses.

    Our eduction system might be about to get a overhaul soon, as I don't know if you're aware LW, but in the UK now, eduction or training is compulsory to 18 and most secondary (high schools) are not equipped to handle the extra amount of pupils.

    Some parts of the country have always had a more American/Continental form of eduction. Children go to a primary/junior school to begin with until the age of about 10. Then onto a middle school until 13, then a high school after that.

    But most eduction is two tiered: primary 6-10/11 and secondary 11-15/16.

    I think by the time kids are 13 if not earlier, it would be obvious whether they are academic or not. If they are, they should go to grammar school and into university. For the rest, a good solid education backed up by practical learning and skills.

    It's something I never had from my school. It was during one of the many changeover times... The UK went through many of them each time a new Education Secretary came along and changed the whole system to meet their whims. (Hello Mr Baker...:cursing:) We did not learn skills, in fact we didn't learn anything.

    For woodwork/metalwork, you were given projects to do, ie make a shelf. But you were never taught about wood, metals, tools etc. How can you make things when you don't understand about the material you are working with or the tools to use? I hated it.

    Later on I opted for the "girls" lessons aka "home skills" like cooking. There was only me and one other boy who did this, as boys never went down that route originally. But again, it was projects as before. "Cook a meal for 4 people" "Prepare a sumptuous starter" Ok. But they never they told us how to cook a egg, or prepare pastry or anything like that. Totally useless.

    So, having technical colleges and such like would be a good idea.

  • I was banging on about this for seventeen years in my keyboard activist days. It was a deeply held conviction of British and English nationalists, but because they couldn't keep to the point, that idea fell to ashes along with their parties.

    It is still a bloody good policy, though and should be implemented. It isn't an ideological thing, it is a practical thing and if anyone truly loved their country and respected their heritage and people, they would see to it that tax payer's funds were spent training them in skills appropriate for the needs and sustainable prosperity of the future of their civilization. (She said, vehemently.) X(

  • Presumably there will now be courses in tying shoelaces for the terminally stupid so they can get a degree. It's obvious what will happen, pass marks for degrees will drop and we will have a nation of uneducated morons. I already know a graduate in 'Photography ' who is working in the only job he could get, as a shop assistant in TK Maxx.

    Media degrees are a popular choice around my parts... says it all really.

  • I was banging on about this for seventeen years in my keyboard activist days. It was a deeply held conviction of British and English nationalists, but because they couldn't keep to the point, that idea fell to ashes along with their parties.

    It is still a bloody good policy, though and should be implemented. It isn't an ideological thing, it is a practical thing and if anyone truly loved their country and respected their heritage and people, they would see to it that tax payer's funds were spent training them in skills appropriate for the needs and sustainable prosperity of the future of their civilization. (She said, vehemently.) X(

    People who are clever, whether academically or otherwise, will always rise to the top regardless of their situation, but I was part of a whole generation that was experimented on, and that's when the teachers weren't striking... And when they did turn up for work, the older teachers spent most of time lamenting about the "good 'ole days" when they could beat the shit out of little kids, which by the time I was in the system, was banned, thank goodness.

  • Totally agree about the abuse of children by means of corporal punishment. I saw a lot of awful things that made me hate it with a vengeance as it was mostly perpetrated against boys and it humiliated many of them for life.

    I fortunately missed the experimental thing. My education was pretty classically old world. So was my university. Thank the giant pixie. They are turning out partially ignorant graduates now and most young people have the general knowledge of an upside down dead tortoise. They know a stack about popular culture trivia but there is a huge void when it comes to things we all knew as a matter of course. I saw a quiz programme the other night and a young contestant had never heard of the Boer War and another didn't know a single precious stone from a selection. They probably know the latest tattoo on the arse of their favourite celeb, though.

  • Totally agree about the abuse of children by means of corporal punishment. I saw a lot of awful things that made me hate it with a vengeance as it was mostly perpetrated against boys and it humiliated many of them for life.

    My old teachers really missed those days, as I said. One teacher who, luckily, I never had as a teacher was a psychopath and more.... He was exceptionally tall, 6ft7, and extremely thin and pale and it was well known he was the worst for all manner of reasons.

    He taught English and you could hear him throughout the whole school floor when he shouted. He terrorised the 11 year olds that had him and he enjoyed it. They would come out of his class shaking and ashen. His cane was mounted by the blackboard, just to remind himself of the "good 'ole days.".... It was known during the corporal punishment days that he had his own form of punishment for certain boys, the pretty ones...which involved being taken to the back of the main school block where there was no windows or witness'.

    A maths teacher who I had, who also liked the sound of his own voice, was bad too. I didn't realise how bad until I left school. Even though corporal punishment had been banned, he beat the hell out of kids at a neighbouring school. After repeated complaints from parents, he came to my school, minus the cane, but still a thug.

    But, then during all the changeover times, we had the new wave of teachers and I could immediately see how eduction was going to be for the next few decades...:rolleyes:

    They were the total opposite of the older teachers. They wanted to be our "friends" instead and some of them even insisted on be called by their first names. Needless to say, you can guess what happened. Chaos.

    They were eaten alive by the kids and the last few years of my schooling was open warfare once the kids realised that the older teachers couldn't touch them them and they could do what they wanted with the younger teachers. Total waste of time.

  • kids/teens are taught no skills. Years ago in my day the ones who couldnt make the grade went to night school or polytechnic/college & learn with their hands- a trade. Cooking/hairdressing/woodwork joinery/car repairs/maintainance.

    Thats all frowned upon now as they dont want to know about people who work with their hands in this Country. They want everyone to remain in education up until 19+ and studying for an " ology" in something meaningless that offers no help in the real World.

  • Classic case yesterday. Mr Wing went to have his hair cut. Little lady who cut his hair said she was a university mech engineering graduate. She took the course, went to work in the industry, hated it and decided she really wanted to be a hairdresser.

    This is great. From my point of view any woman wanting to be an engineer has to be joking. Mr Wing is an engineer and I am about as far removed from what he does, and is interested in, as chalk is from cheese. But today, the new age social engineers push women and various others into careers in order to bump up targets for integrational dynamics. Another word for screwing up what works on its own terms. There are some females who like to do certain things and they should be free to do so as the law should be equal for all who qualify.

    But - this lady passed all the exams in theory and found that the workplace experience itself was totally opposed to her soul. Fortunately she is young and has changed her career soon enough not to have wasted her life. But - the amount of money spent on educating people who don't really want to be what they studied to be is the tragedy. There are many who would love that chance and can't afford to go.

    Society should be free and bunging targets into available holes in the wall isn't the way to do it. A lot of people see films and TV series about careers that they think they would like to follow. I remember the spate of lawyers spawned by "LA Law". Many found out that a career in law can be very tedious and lacks the glamour and endless excitement that is portrayed on the screen. You really need to be a law geek to want to bother.

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