Nice report!

I used to work in IT at a bank that has offices all around the world and workign at the main HQ

I had people from IT who have 3 to 5 certification from Microsoft and Linux always come up to me askign me things and I get this look on my face.....Like..

Hey wait... I am the one who is self taught with no certifications at all not even an A+ cert and

I get all these wankers comming to me all the darn time asking me for pc,network,OS issues and support.

Really now. I am sick of it! Besides it proves that these tests they take prove nothing!

Tuition Fees

Ending the caps is all very well for the poor and the rich, but what about those of us who are in the middle? Social engineering is already rampant - one friend's daughter was not allowed to go to an open day at Cambridge because she is not in receipt of the £30/week bribe that the government gives to disadvantaged pupils. Doesn't seem to matter that she's a straight-A* student, instead they are dropping the entry requirements to C grades for certain groups, just what we need for our future doctors/vets...

Another wasteful change

"It called for an end to the degree classification system and the supports the introduction of Higher Education Achievement Report - which has already been trialled at 18 universities and should go nationwide next year. This gives graduates a report card which includes existing degree classifications as well as more information on modules taken and extra-curricular activities."

Great, just like the "Record of Achievement" I got from high school which employers didn't give a damn about. How about employers stop whining and decide which subjects they accept. If you want a programmer, then only interview people with computing degrees, don't bother with people with degrees in sociology.

here's a radical idea...

...instead of putting the blame on Universities and hiking up fees, take some responsibilty yourselves.

Don't advertise job as "Degree level" and take on some twat with a degree in French Media and Jazz recital" for a job in IT.

If there are people taking stupid degrees and employers stop employing them, they they will fade out.

One of our sales departments boasted that they took on degree applicants, most couldn't write their own f**king name let alone show any sort of sales skills.

Get the right people for the job, regardless of a bit of paper.

How many of them have degrees

Recruitment people are worse than estate agents, they cold call...

Degrees

I remember a joke that was doing the rounds when I was a student:

Q: What do arts students say after they graduate?

A: Do you want fries with that?

These day you can get degrees in things like "BA in nose picking" and "BSc in scratching own arse", so I'm not really surprised that they're considered "mickey mouse". It's because they're completely pointless and valueless!

Oh Great

Who's the leader of the club

That's made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

At last!

It was always a rediculous idea to have 50% of young people going to Uni.

The whole point in a University degree was to allow for the brightest students to prove their abilities - but over the years things have been dumbed down so much that 1 in 2 people are capable of doing them.

So then, the elite 10% end up spending another year doing a Masters, or even 3 doing a PhD just to separate themselves from the pile.

hmm

Some bits I agree some I don’t.

My Degree was abit watered down which is a terrible shame consider the amount of money I paid for it, It wasn't technical enough and thus left a lot of my fellow Graduates Frustrated at the lack of education compared to the costs! I agree too many people go to uni and do stupid degrees; one of my mates did "American Studies" which he admits is totally micky mouse. But ramping up costs isn’t really an answer is it. Its a recession people cant really afford things, expecting people to chuck money towards degree's isn’t going to happen. Maybe the answer is simply to make degrees more worth while by improving the value of the teaching, and/or make hybrid courses that allow you to study Industry certifications as part of the degree (eg. computing studies with an MCSA/E). Also for a lot of courses I ensure there are placements as It’s incredibly important to gain practical skills. However I wouldn’t charge 1/2the cost of a years tuition for this (as in my case my tutor came out twice for a total of 1 hour the university took 700quid, students the year after were meant to pay roughly 1500 for this which explains why 90% skipped the placement year

they are snobs nurtured in cotton beds.

"The recruiters also want an end to caps on tuition fees, but this should happen in stages and safeguards put in place for disadvantaged students. Parents and students should be encouraged to save for a university education"

first they bitched about mickeys degree ( i agree with most of their critics) and then that little gem appears out of no where.

actually degrees should be as hard as F''k and free of charge if you are targeting to transform them in undeniable proof of knowledge and skill and nothing else.

no, these (rich?)guys want to reduce the number of people with bad\"poor" degrees but at same time have the premium buy option for their sons and daughters.

Another crew of muppets

Hmm so too many graduates being produced but they are crying about not being able to bring in people from overseas.

So the truth of the matter is "we don't like you poor smelly Brits who actually want a living wage" instead they prefer to bring in staff from overseas with dodgy degrees who they can recruit for the minimum wage, despite their total lack of competence and total lack of English language abilities.

So the latest scheme seems to be "price Brits out of universities so we can then claim there is a shortage of graduates and make piles of cash bringing in Indian and Chinese grads on the cheap"

Sounds just like the CBI and certain Tory party members to be honest.........

How about instead no foreign graduate places, a requirement to train British candidates for the position before being allowed to apply to bring in Non EU workers (we have probably 4 million unemployed so plenty of people who could and would willingly do the work if given the opportunity.)

But again the government (of either shade) will cave to these special interest groups or simply tinker around the edges instead of properly dealing with the issue.

How about instead employers sponsoring candidates through university on a part time basis (similar to day release some construction companies use) in exchange for a bigger say on how the course is composed. Employers get properly trained candidates who understand the business and the role and the candidate gets the guarantee of a position and the work experience to back it up.

Nah won't happen though, too much common sense and not enough commission for the "ruperts " of the recruitment world.

Partially agree...

I agree in getting rid of the 50% target, that was always a stupid idea.

I do not agree with increasing the prices and removing the budget caps! University is already far too expensive for the average person. However, I suppose i would be willing to agree to an increase in the cost of university degrees when all of those members of parliament who obtained there degrees back in the day when they were FREE, pay the current full fee for the degrees they obtained (plus interest naturally). Yeah not going to happen is it...

Lets face facts, the government in the UK wants to dumb down the entire population to the level of the daily fail reader so that there easier to maintain, so what do you expect - of course many UK degrees are effectively worthless. We cant have enlightened prollies can we?

Think of the children...

There was me thinking that a good education was the main thing in to strive for, with 'business' getting the benefits of a well-educated populace. Now I see I must simply bring up my children to be nothing more than corporate drones that are required to study to the 'business' standards, and not to create well-rounded human beings that are a benefit to our species.

Feels like the tail is wagging the dog here - I got an education to make me a better person - employability was a side-effect. There was a secondary school in South Wales that actually set up a mock call centre for their pupils - 'Aim for the stars kids!'

Knowledgeable human beings == benefit to society.

Trained drones == benefit to business.

Compromise?

Surely there must be some sort of compromise here - you go to University for free/at a drastically reduced cost IF you're doing a worthwhile degree to fulfill a shortage in the country (ie, Nursing) AND you take a job in this country for a period of no less than xx number of years (ie, you work for the NHS for 5 years after graduation).

That way we get people not doing Mickey Mouse degrees, and working at their trained job in this country. They get a Uni education of high quality and it doesn't cost them much. Admittedly, needs fine-tuning to ensure people aren't pissing off just as they finish the on-the-job training....

Even just some sort of scale of fees, where the %age subsidy increases as the usefulness of the course increases. Anyone doing a pure science, engineering, medical or teacher training degree pays next to nothing... anyone doing politics, art history or sociology pays the full price plus a fee for wasting the Universities time!

I wonder....

who do I need to talk to about getting funding to do an MA on the animations of Walt Disney?

Mines the one with the Mouse ears on the hood.

Lack of vocational training

It's time to stop pretending that degrees are the same as vocational training - or more precisely that the purpose of a university is to train workers for their specific requirements.

What is sorely lacking in the UK is credible alternatives to degrees for vocational subjects. This is the real reason we get pseudo intellectualized degrees such as Golf Course Management, yet can't find a highly skilled building contractor that hasn't come from Eastern Europe.

Keep the university system for theoretical, academic subjects, and use vocational options, such as modern apprenticeships to drive up participation.

Too right!

It p*sses me off no end, as a thirty-something who decided to get straight into work after school, that employers & recruitment agencies now virtually demand a degree before even considering you as a candidate.

Never mind years & years of 'industry experience' and a proven track record - as you didn't waste three years ar$ing about pretending to study they you're deemed underqualified and of no use.

W@nkers.

Agree with Daniel Garcia 2

I was in the penultimate year of the grant i.e.: before Liebour made a U-turn on their pledge to keep the grant - and looking back on it, I realise I should not have even made it into university, nevermind getting a degree! Some of the places I applied to wanted two E grades at A level - and these places are supposed to be the cream of the accademic crop!

The politicians seem to have it in whatever they have instead of brains that there should be "equality" - but we are all different, so a one-size-fits-all system is never going to work! Abolish tuition fees and bring back grants, and raise the entry requirements levels, so we end up with universities whose students are smart, want to study and are not burdened with having to cram in extra jobs or facing years of debt after graduating, rather than the free-for-all we have at the moment which has left degrees all but worthless and many in with debts that make the idea of work almost not worth their while, assuming they can actually get a job.

Fail. Because it's what the system has done. And, had the system been working, what I should have done.

Degrees seem to be worthless.

As an employer, I've found many people who apply for a job do not have the skills that their degrees actually say they have. "I have a pass with honours at English". OK, fill this form in and do a simple spelling test. Result? Most of them can't spell, many can't write in a legible manner, and some of them can't even read properly.

"I have a degree in maths". Try this (basic) maths test. Result? Half of them can't do simple maths or calculate how much change they would have to give someone unless they have a calculator to work it out on. Almost all are absolutely useless at mental arithmetic. Everything has to be written down, and the answer has to be worked out on a calculator!

So, stop all the mickey mouse degrees, and bring back a decent standard of teaching so these kids can read, write, and do sums. Oh, thinking about it, perhaps we should replace some of the teachers as well. A lot of them don't seem to be able to spell, or write in a legible manner, judging from various letters I've had from the schools my kids went to.

In short, education in general has taken a huge leap backwards over the last 30 years years.

Degree or common sense

Working at the same company now for 11 years, I've seen my fair share of students waiving their degrees saying "look at me, look how clever I am!"

It's a shame that most of them have no common sense at all after doing a Mickey Mouse degree in Fruit Flies. They may well have spent the past 3 years in University, but they're pretty dim with everyday office based tasks, or throw a hissy fit when the Magic Box doesn't work as it should.

Several issues here

1) Who kept telling the government "we need more graduates"? Was it maybe the CBI (employers), and did they perhaps figure, with the supply increased, they could pick the best, pay them less and chuck the rest on the scrap heap?

2) "Parents and students should be encouraged to save ..." for education, retirement, long term care ... etc etc. Makes you wonder what disposable income most people would have left to spend now. Who benefits? The financial services industry, selling investment schemes, that mostly fail to deliver what they promise.

3) The promise was that increased takeup of higher education would enable us to take advantage of the "knowledge economy". Where have those jobs gone? To eastern Europe, India and the Far East, not because those people are cleverer or better educated, but because they're cheaper.

Plus ca change ...

What a good idea - restricting the number of degree places. But instead of selecting candidates based on wealth, why not select them based on ability? And if you only have 10% of people going to Uni instead of 50%, maybe the government could afford to pay their tuition fees for them (after all, they're going to be the high earners who will return it all in tax), and perhaps even give them some cash to live on. Then maybe we should make A-levels and GCSEs much harder so that we can tell who the good kids are.

Ah - I seem to have accidentally re-invented the system we had 30 years ago when I was doing my funded, grant-laden degree. It worked OK then ... the system wasn't broken, and didn't need fixing.

It's called Grade Inflation

time was when they adjusted the bell curve to let a certain proportion of students get a certain level. But no that's not fair.

Result. More people, higher *apparent* grades but uncertain performance.

One *large* UK employer I was aware of did it this way in IT.

Interview 1) IT person + HR. Ensure candidate has adequate personal hygiene, doesn't drag knuckles on ground, attack random strangers etc.

Interview 2) Candidate placed in room with language manual, logged in PC, program spec and 2 hour clock. Program runs, they get job.

UK has traditionally had something of the "Gentlemen and players" environment. Like the City of London the gentlemen have degrees, the players tend to be more self taught. Emphasizing bits of papers looks to make measuring the "Success" in changing the system easier, but I doubt it will improve the outcomes.

Note employers *like* bits of paper, especially if it says "Microsoft" at the top. My experience of such things has been they might know everything there is to know about Business Server 5 (or whatever) as long as it is set up *exactly* how it reads in the training manual.

Move things about a bit and it's a case of "but that's not how the manual shows it."

Welcome to the real world. You may have been top dog in training, but in the Korean restaurant of life, you're just an ingredient.

Bon a petit.

Then stop demanding degrees!

I agree with the earlier AC about degrees being demanded. Employers only have themselves to blame here, they don't even consider you as an applicant unless you have a "degree".

So they make it so people have to do a Micky Mouse degree because otherwise they don't even get considered as an applicant for a job.

The best one I was was when I saw an advertised role for a "junior ICT Technician", labelled as earning only 14k PA, "good for school leaver" and "degree required".

Please give me a hit of the crack you are taking it must be really good stuff.