Should ex-polytechnics be renamed or abolished?

What is amazing is that many subjects studied in polytechnics had nationalised standards monitored through professional bodies. All of which was pretty much abolished through successive Tory education reforms.

An example I know of well was the Royal Institute of Chemistry (now part of the RSC) graduateship exams. Anyone studying chemistry at a polytechnic would have to sit these exams to get their degree (actually a graduateship of the RIC) and they were renowned throughout the world for their rigour and difficulty ensuring a very high standard of vocationally trained chemists for industry. Of course this all came to an end in the early 90's as polytechnics no longer required the external validation and were allowed to apply their own standards. The same is true across many fields.

tl;dr: We used to have all this for vocational education and it was abolished by previous governments.

Just to point out, the university of Hull was never a polytechnic - it was established in 1927. You may be confusing it with Humberside polytechnic which used to occupy the site next to Hull University but was actually part of what is now Lincoln University.

What is amazing is that many subjects studied in polytechnics had nationalised standards monitored through professional bodies. All of which was pretty much abolished through successive Tory education reforms.

An example I know of well was the Royal Institute of Chemistry (now part of the RSC) graduateship exams. Anyone studying chemistry at a polytechnic would have to sit these exams to get their degree (actually a graduateship of the RIC) and they were renowned throughout the world for their rigour and difficulty ensuring a very high standard of vocationally trained chemists for industry. Of course this all came to an end in the early 90's as polytechnics no longer required the external validation and were allowed to apply their own standards. The same is true across many fields.

tl;dr: We used to have all this for vocational education and it was abolished by previous governments.

Your point? My "bull**** worthless ex-poly degree" helped me bag a job with arguably the top company in my industry.

What uni and what job?

Yeah, but for vocational subjects there is still external bodies that award accreditation. So to say that universities can put in whatever they want isn't exactly true. They usually strive towards getting the course accredited which requires them to include and therefore exclude certain things.

are you quite sure chemistry degrees were the exception to the pre '92 system where polytechnic student's degrees were awarded by the external cnaa?

Before you assume i'm saying "lets close them all down" - i'm not.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/sep/03/polytechnics-became-universities-1992-differentiation

In modern day Britain, the value of a degree is becoming ever more meaningless. People simply don't respect them anymore and view them as an easy-ride to avoid working for 3 years. At least that's what shelfstackers I currently work with view them as.

And who can blame them? There's people I know who've worked 0% of the time at A-level, yet go off to the University of Easy Access to get a degree. They don't care about their subject, and how can they when these universities offer a degree in flipping Carpet Studies?

I liked the pre-1992 system. Too many institutions now have the label 'university' which degrades the image of real, productive universities. By real, productive universities, I mean (for the majority) the Russell Group. They contribute in research.

So, should ex-polytechnics and newer institutes be renamed, and not be able to award 'degrees'? Is it fair that they should award diplomas or something like that? Because at the rate we're going a boy called Dudley will be able to tell everyone "I went to university and got a degree!!" despite getting UUU at A-level.

Discuss.

My uni is an ex-poly and it does courses such as teaching and nursing, occupational therapy, radiography, etc. these are all professional courses which you do need a degree to do. Are you saying these professions are not needed in todays society?

These courses are far more useful than, for example, an English or History degree which you might get at a 'traditional' university.

To get into my uni you needed at least 280 ucas points which meant that you needed to get at least Cs and Bs in order to get this. No uni would let you in if you got a U grade.

why dont you do some actual research before you start mouthing off about something you clearly know nothing about?
still you and your fellow 'shelf-stackers' carry on insulting the people who will one day be treating you in hospital or teaching your children.

Tell that to major political parties, journalists etc..

You are wrong. The easy unis (Edge Hill for example) have let people in with Us to do courses such as law.

Sounds like you no nothing and so just throw angry tense comments at people who know what they're talking about.

wtf? you think LAW is an easy degree?

how is that an easy uni?

edge hill is mainly a teacher training university, if it wasnt for teachers, you would never have got to uni.

He/she didn't say law is an easy degree. In fact, the suggestion was that it should have higher entry requirements.



Because of (according to him) the low entry standards. It's clearly stated in the post.

The offers are made using a points based system, so it is possible to get a U in one subject but still get 280 UCAS points overall. It's unlikely but not impossible.



I'm not saying I agree with the member you quoted, or that I don't recognise former polytechincs offer professional degrees (a number with high employability rates), but I don't follow your argument here.