learning not earning
Many of you will already know that I live in an isolated and privileged world where my household staff polish my rose-tinted spectacles daily whilst serving me lashings of 1940s life generously sprinkled with a liberal helping of Bevan’s idealistic philosophies (surely in this celebrity-chef-obsessed day and age it should be ‘drizzled’ with – ed?), but wasn’t there once a time, not so long ago, when higher education was seen as a social good, enriching our whole society, rather than merely enhancing an individual’s prospects for a greater salary? It was about learning not earning.
Just a few short years ago it was at least billed as more about the UK producing a skilled, adept, intelligent and knowledgeable workforce, one which could not only compete with the emerging economies from around the globe but win business, attract investment and ensure our whole way of life. Now, it appears to have been reduced to another case of haves, have nots and I’m alright Jacks. The purpose of higher education is now seen purely as a means to one’s own, individual ends. A bigger wad. Thanks Margaret.
But beware, there’s history.
Tony Blair recalled recently in his memoirs that the closest he actually ever came to losing his job wasn’t over Iraq but over tuition fees where his increasing of fees to £3,000 was passed by the slimmest of all margins, only five votes. This from a government with a whopping 161 seat majority. Earlier in 1984, Tony’s hero, was forced to drop the idea in the face of a furious backlash. This Lady’s not for turning…unless she obviously ain’t gonna win! And where was this furious backlash coming from? Why, the C1s and the middle classes as the poor would obviously have been protected and the rich couldn’t care less…provided the cost was tax-efficient and could be offset.
The irony is that irrespective of the degree, a higher paid job is not necessarily the outcome. In fact, in this day and age (and perhaps for the foreseeable) a job, any job, isn’t necessarily the automatic outcome! Perhaps successive governments shouldn’t have consented, via the acceptance of cheaper short-term power & fuel alternatives and the adoption of all free-market principles, to the widespread demise of our manufacturing and industrial production? Perhaps they shouldn’t have ignored the blindingly obvious need for a nationwide apprenticeship scheme which warranted they same funding and visibility as any higher education programme? Perhaps they shouldn’t have devalued the whole higher education entity by collapsing the two-tier university and polytechnic system into one amorphous entity? Perhaps they should not have funded irrelevant and ultimately redundant courses in the same manner? In respect of this last perhaps contentious point it will be enlightening to see exactly how many students are going to place themselves in upwards of £40,000 of debt for a 2:2 in Media Studies from Leicester’s De Montfort Pol…er…University. Not many I suspect.
And don’t you just the position this places the liberals in? Reneging on a cast-iron election pledge as many as 42 of the 57 liberal MPs are going to have to vote against their coalition for the proposal to be defeated. The trade off between power and principle can never have been so clearly evidenced.
