Is this the end of meritocracy in the UK

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The problem with higher education is the tuition loans that are £9250 a year. If we lower it like the olden days to around £3000-4000 then I’d pay it myself out of my own money and that would be the first thing I would pay off after I start to work. But £9250? No one wants to look at that and worry about some number that they’ll probably never pay back. If uni costed lower then you’d find more students paying their own fees, that means less uni debt and so on. Students can focus more on getting a mortgage when they start to work.

Students need to pay a fair value for the education. For years, the fees have been artificially suppressed to avoid backlash.

To me, it is ridiculous for most people to pay £3,000 for their education. Imagine getting a medical, technology or engineering degree for £3,000 per year which is about about £75 per week (for a 40-week academic year). This is probably the reason unis are making international students to pay multiple times more for the same piece of paper.

There should be a comprehensive review of the fee structures with lower value courses paying lower fees than the higher value degrees.

Reply 21

username5995364

Original post by PQ

When, exactly, do you think the UK “was” a meritocracy?

My thought exactly. You’ve always needed the right name, the right family, the right school tie to get on in this country. Where’s the meritocracy in that?

Reply 22

gjd800

Original post by Crazed cat lady

This is a false statement. His target was for 50% of young people to go to university.

Yes, he never intend for 50% to complete, it was about 'having had some participation', viz. to have had the opportunity to succeed.

Reply 23

Muttly

Original post by Wired_1800

The current education system is not fit for purpose and many employers are beginning to understand that fact, hence they are evolving their recruitment process. For example, PwC (one of the top finance firms) in the City has decided to get rid of their 2:1 requirement and depend more on their own processes.

+ PRSOM

Reply 24

lucyyy12

Original post by Muttly

If the state education system has been so devalued by continual lowering of grade boundaries and the Oxbridge group make a deliberate effort to skew the entrance criteria to take more State students with lower grades - How does that affect the quality and calibre of students leaving Uni? Are final Uni grades now being dumbed down too? Whose idea was this to dumb down the final University entrance grades? It seems like levelling down not levelling up? Where has meritocracy gone for selection? Why hasn't the teaching of foundation skills at primary school and the subjects at GCSE level been reviewed to check that standards are not going down? Who cares if they are? What has gone wrong with UK schooling after the introduction of the 'curriculum for excellence?' Has social engineering taken over facts? Somebody somewhere knows this and has put social integration and social cohesion before geography and history? Politicians and educationalists don't care but teachers do. Is this why it is too hard to retain teachers because teaching is now so prescriptive?

where is the evidence of students with lower grades going to oxbridge??
this post seems extremely classist.
my parents and grandparents didn’t go to uni because there just wasn’t the money and we live in one of the most deprived areas of the north east. me going to uni is a privilege that I’m sure they wish that had.

in one way it’s good more students can go to uni not based on social class, in another way it’s a massive con. unis are a money making scheme that leave students in thousands of debt.

teachers are hard to keep because the pay isn’t great and the workload and stress is insane.

Reply 25

Muttly

Original post by ROTL94 3

My thought exactly. You’ve always needed the right name, the right family, the right school tie to get on in this country. Where’s the meritocracy in that?

I happen to still hope that exams are rigorous, understandable to all and a true credible measure of knowledge of that individual. If there is a lack of confidence in the calibre and knowledge levels of the individual holding that exam grade then I would suggest that meritocracy has no value either.

The inability of HE students to be able to spell and formulate a coherent logical argument should be first under the spotlight. This was a significant degradation landmark in examination board assessment standards, where a conscious decision was made to implement policy to ignore poorly written answers.

The right name, the right family, the right school tie have much to do with networking connections particularly in business, but also significant are the professional contacts made within masonic lodges.

Reply 26

looloo2134

Original post by Thisismyunitsr

- It’s hard to retain teachers because the pay is ****.
- Grade boundaries at GCSE/ A - Level have been declining for years
- Grade inflation has also been going on for the last 20 years, ever since Tony Blair wanted 50% of young people to attend HE. The grades needed to be inflated as the total amount of students attending HE can’t go from 5% in the 1970s to 50% in the 2000s without the grades being inflated.

Or children work harder at school than in other generations also the 1970s if you did not pass an exam at 11 or 13 you forced to go to a school which did not have O levels but CSEs.

Also grades inflation always come from people who have never sat a GCSE A level exams in the past 10 years and are upset that people are doing better or getting the same grades as them.

This generation is called the sensible generation for a reason they are under pressure to perform academically than their parents they are also less likely to drink have sex take drugs or be arrested.