Lefties Ruin Student Unions for all?

Racisim, bigotry, and good old fashioned cotrived left vs right pig-headedness all met in the firey inferno of UCLU’s AGM on the 5^th and resulted in the kind of divisive outcome that has led generations of students to dismiss their unions as nothing more than crazy demagogues whose internecine bickering serves no purpose other than to warm chairs.

 

The debacle followed on from the very heated ULU senate meeting where ULU Presiden Jen heuesman was taken apart for her initial refusual to fulfil the most basic task of a union president, represntation of member. Having realised that the room was clear in wanting a letter condeming condemnation of OTC and other service groups, Jen constantly reiterated waffle about ‘cultural and spiritual reasons’ for not wanting to sign her name on the basis of ‘generations of pacifisim’. But this argument was swiflty dispatched by an OTC group leader who pointed out that these students groups in no war particiapted in any kind of hostile activites so the pacifism argument was a non-sequiter and entirely irrelevant to the argument.

 

In the end, and despite some desperate squeaks about ‘checking equal ops policy’ on jens part, the vote was a clear cut demand for the ‘part-time’ President of ULU to actualy do her job, the only dissent being ‘usual suspect’ SOAS. The UCL delegate to senate, Andy Fernando, was pleased to be able to bring the news of success of this motion to the AGM the following day, and was emboldedn by the near unanimity of other UL colleges supporting the pro-OTC motion.

 

So what when wrong at UCLU? In scenes reminisent of NUS conference, or the happenngs of some dysfunctional polytechnic Student Union, lies, ignorance and fear-mungering half-truths were flung around to irritte and agitate. Students on both sides of the argument were made to feel like their union was riding rough-shod over their views, and was deliberately picking a marmite issue to stir up bad blood between students.

 

The result was a tense and worked up AGM where no-one present was there to hear the issues discussed and to vote according to the arguments made. Everyone there knew how they were going to vote before they arrived. Any neutral student would be bewildered as the major component of the debating was slagging off the other side. The AGM had little to do with finding out about what students felt and how their union could represent them, and more to do with which group could mobilise the most angry people to turn up and vote their way.

The resulting mess is what drives students up and down the country from feeling that their union is there to work for them and to represent their views. It’s what makes it easy for the people we try to lobby to dismiss student unions as nothing more than frivillious and unreprentative. It’s what makes it hard to convince students to come to us with their problems. It’s what destroys a student unions sole source of ligitamacy, the trust of it’s students.

 

Maybe someday student unions will move away from dablling in geo-political issues like israel-palestine, maybe someday student unions will find the issues that unite students around a common cause, not divissive issues and minority pet projects. Someday, student unions will be the defining positive expereince of a student’s career at university, and have the prestige and legitimacy they deserve.

NUS President loosing Touch With Reality?

(with reference to the quotes in http://live.cgcu.net/news/1563 )

It is clear from this that even Gemma Tumelty is beginning to grasp the fact people shouldn’t take the commitment of taking several years and several thousand pounds to work for a degree, lightly. She identifies the problems arising from selling the idea of a degree, any degree, is a ticket to the highly paid job of their dreams. I’m quite sure that this has never been the case, most intelligent people have always known degrees are merely a way to get your ‘foot in the door’, to get a chance to show you can do well in the world of work.

But rather than accepting that if the NUS claims some kind of leadership on behalf of students, it has a duty to also lead students. It has a duty to inform it’s potential (i.e. those considering HE) and current members of the hard truths, and not to continue to propagate the fairy-tale of guaranteed success. Implicit in her statement is also the idea that all degrees, from all institutions have the same market value.

For those that think this ‘market value’ is some evil right wing imperialist conspiracy, I point you firmly in the direction of your UCAS application. If there were no market, then we would be allocated university and course by lottery. The fact is universities ask for, and students work toward obtaining, the qualification the university recons are required to have a good chance of completing and succeeding on a particular course. There is an implicit market insofar as my physics a-level is valued for say, a physics, chemistry, or maths degree, but would most likely not be valued if I wanted to study English literature. Look at General studies! If all A-levels were equal, why would so many institutions state explicitly that they will not take General Studies into account when making offers? If all qualifications are equal, where is the outrage?

If I ever graduate, my degree will have a different value to someone who managed to get the same degree in the 3 years it is supposed to take. In the same way, my degree in the market place of media industry graduate jobs is far less valuable than that of a media/arts degree from nearly anywhere else. To ignore the fact giving someone a graduate job is a big financial gamble, and that it makes sense to interfere where employers make their own judgments, is populist tabloid politicking at it’s basest.

I am also concerned that Gemma, with all here years in the coddled world of being a sabbatical, has lost touch with the reality that pretty much EVERY graduate does not get their ‘ideal’ job straight away, upon graduation. Heck, I still have no idea what my ‘ideal’ job would be. I’m disappointed that our figurehead for students nationally is happy with empty sound bites rather than engaged intelligent comment.

If gemma considers those of us who have worked hard to get good a-levels, so that we can turn that hard work into a place at a university whose qualifications are valued, ‘privileged’ then she is happy to insult the thousands of exceptional people who have the grit or intelligence to succeed in so called ‘bog-standard’ comprehensives. If it is upsetting that universities seem to have lots of public school pupils, because they have received a better education resulting in higher grades, then why is she not using her assumed leadership to fight for those of us who were ‘handicapped’ by not getting such an education. Where is the campaign to improve education for the many?

Thankfully, we do not yet live in a communist utopia, so the government limits it’s interference with the operations of businesses, but imagine how quickly we would lose all semblance of competitiveness if companies had to meet quotas of students from former polys, or quotas of people with thirds. A degree symbolises hard work, learning, and achievement, and it would de-value still further the degree for it simply to be a ticket to the next round of social engineering.

Would gemma be happy being operated on by the graduate of Leeds Medical School (according to the times, the bottom of the medicine league table), who got a 40%? Would she put her life in the hands of someone who only just got through with the minimum of knowledge to pass? (I accept medicine is a tricky one because the initial requirements are so very high).

Why is the NUS not taking a lead in educating those considering University, so that before they take the plunge, they are made aware of the risks, the work, and the cost? Why is the NUS leaving, quite frankly ludicrous, myths about where a degree will take you unchecked by reality. Why is it shirking its responsibility to lead students?

With no re-election to seek, I had hoped Gemma might finally start being a bit more adult and honest in her representation to and for students.

Polytechnics

Come on people, lets stop this nonsense, and admit what everyone knows but doesn’t want to say. Manchester Metropolitan does not deserve to be called a University.
Thanks to ‘New’ Labour’s efforts to get 50% of the population into Higher Education, we seem to be swimming in piss-poor universities with the provenance of last night’s kebab. This idea that you need a degree more than anything is polluting the system with absolute crap. To be fair, an SAT level 7 in English is worth more than most of the degrees peddled today, because at least that proves that you can write a bit, and probably know the difference between a semi-colon and a colon. And the idea that a First Class Honours Degree in History from Manchester Metropolitan University equate even one iota to even a Third Class Honors Degree from Oxbridge is more that laughable.
Now, to be fair, im not saying that Man Met is the worst, let alone the only, former trumped-up polytechnic displaying its shoddy wares like some stereotypical used watch salesmen. But I feel that the continuation of the word “University” instead of “Polytechnic” degrades all the other institutions deserving of such a suffix. Manchester Metropolitan just happens to be the most convenient and local of such a place.
Seriously, such places should have kept to being polytechnics, and been proud for being good at what they did. Not sullying the name university, and heaping mountains of debt on to unsuspecting students. They should have concentrated on providing well respected vocational courses that most employers really want. Trained plumbers, electricians and carpenters; and then really encourage aprentiships as an excellent way to get both a job and an education.
It may be a bit anecdotal, but famously a group of city bankers gave up their jobs and became plumbers, and earnt far more in their new careers. In London a plumber can quite happily charge a £50 call-out fee on top of £75p/h. In emergencies, they can pretty much charge what they like as the insurance company will pay it. They can work when they want, and hike up their rates on weekends and bank holidays.
Contrast this with the shrinking graduate employment pool, where these days a graduate will come out of university with, on average, in excess of £12,000 of debt. With poor job prospects and skills employers don’t really care about, how long will it be before the average Tescos checkout position will have applications from10 English graduates per vacancy.
No-one wins in this era of target driven, government fixation on “educashun educashun educatshun”. The students feel so pressured into having to go to university that they will end up doing a worthless degree at a non-entity university, only because they believe that that’s what they need to get a job. Employers end up with huge gaps in the employment market and no-one to fill it. Those they do employ end up needing classes in basic literacy and innumeracy because their degree in popular music has left them barely able to articulate a coherent sentence, let alone to stand up and do a presentation to the board. The Government ends up with a big bill for funding all this extra “universities”, so much so it is prepared to give two universities £60million cash just to merge so they no longer have to fund one of them.  And middle-ground universities have to fight tooth and nail to distinguish themselves from the old polytechnics.

            We need to stop the “student ambassador” programs in schools which encourage ‘challenged’ students to go to university by sending cash-strapped student in to sing university’s praises; these are precisely the people who would benefit from bricklaying classes in a secondary modern comprehensive school as it would show them real and acheiveable career goals. Pushing for the poor and stupid to go and waste three years and thousands of pounds is plain sadistic. Actually intelligent children from such schools will always make it to the university place they deserve, but taking the bathwater with the baby tarnishes the true universities with the ex-polytechnic brush.