I'm not quite sure if Universities use taxpayers money or are privately funded, but l'm just watching a nature programme on meerkats, great to watch for most people, & there's lots of videos & footage on these fascinating animals. Here's my quandry..............Why have Cambridge University had students/professors studying these creatures for 25yrs & by their own admission know nothing about their private lives!!! So WTF are they doing to justify however much it costs for them to sit somewhere in Africa & fly back & forth to the UK to write up a thesis on these animals????
Don’t start me about universities as well No Boll***s here goes 9000 fees for a handful of hours lectures, overpaid lecturers, student debt that will never be recovered, mass money making accomadation, false degrees to keep far Eastern customers happy, obsessive governments making out that every one should go to Uni no matter how worthless the degree,complete failure to fund and support skills for trades that are useful and actually contribute to manufacturing and the like and thus earn money for the country and a set of organisations wealthy beyond belief, unaccountable and basically a secret society ! There that’s better
Don’t get me wrong many degrees are really useful and worthwhile, some just effectively say (as Alan Sugar once said ironically at a presentation about skills and apprenticeships and I don’t like the guy btw) that you are clever ( like my daughter who got a great degree in English literature and is now a financial advisor!)but some are truly worthless. A friend of mine who became a part time lecturer and marker in such subjects was effectively told not to fail students,particularly from abroad, because they bring in so much money and the Uni didn’t want to get a bad name. It’s great that many more can get into unis it’s just it’s not and never should be the only way and it’s the way it’s run that really grates on me not the students who go.
Eeeeeeeey, when l wur a lad............Seriously though, when you left school in my day (mid 60's) you either went to Grammar school if you were a clever git (which l wasn't, well, not academically anyway!) or you got an apprenticeship, (which I did) & worked for 3 pounds & ten shillings for the 1st year, then it gradually rose as the years went by. For me it was worth the sacrifices of low wages to begin with & being treated like a feckin gofer by the time served engineers! The liberals brigade have lost the plot as far as educating people for real jobs that they can walk into straight from school & make a career out of it rather than attend college for 4 or 5 yrs with a degree in how to observe meerkats FFS!
Universities have become self licking lollipops for the benefit of their staff rather than students; professors ‘chairs’ with commensurate salaries and lecturers. Most research especially anything with a climate change tag is publicly funded. Too many offer 6 month courses crammed into 3 years. Hurrumph!
Like many on the fourm I grew up in the 50 & 60's and never had the opportunity to go to university or higher education. It has not stopped me building a successful career, perhaps I was a lucky one. One of my son's is a lecturer in the North West and I know how hard he works. I have been working with Manchester University on contract for the passed 10 months and can honestly say that the lecturers and staff that I have encountered are dedicated to learning. I just wanted to offer a different opinion on those who work in education. Wessa
