Edjoocayshun. What’s the point of it all?

[Thankyou4calling]

I understand we can’t all be powerfully built company directors such as us but our education system seems to be geared towards making everyone stay at school, university, college as long as possible.

Now I know we all want our youngsters to become scientists, doctors, captains of industry and more but the reality appears to be that most will be in shops, restaurants, driving, call centres and such.

Now it got me thinking are we actually preparing youngsters for this at school or making them study to pass exams that take time and money only to end up behind a till 7 or 8 years later than they could’ve and saddled with debt.

I’m interested in others thoughts and I don’t have children so may be completely out of touch

[s1962a]

Do you have older kids in your family? In my extended family and friends group that have older teenage kids, there is talk of going to university, doing a vocational course, learn a trade, or do whatever they want to do. There are plenty of options these days, and i'm not sure how out of date the idea is that we are forcing all our kids to go through the study route.

One thing I do notice though, hardly any of them want to be farm labourers or similar. Wonder what we'll do about that shortage.

[QJumper]

Thankyou4calling said:

I understand we can’t all be powerfully built company directors such as us but our education system seems to be geared towards making everyone stay at school, university, college as long as possible.

Now I know we all want our youngsters to become scientists, doctors, captains of industry and more but the reality appears to be that most will be in shops, restaurants, driving, call centres and such.

Now it got me thinking are we actually preparing youngsters for this at school or making them study to pass exams that take time and money only to end up behind a till 7 or 8 years later than they could’ve and saddled with debt.

I’m interested in others thoughts and I don’t have children so may be completely out of touch

Originally, keeping kids at school and onto university was a useful means of keeping young people from going from school to the dole. It not only reduced benefits cost, but the doing away with grants also got rid of the education costs by putting it into loans.

Now it just means that people start their workinng life in debt, competing with more people with a degree, for the relatively few jobs that need one.

Seems pointless over educating people, when many need to be able to say little more than "do you want fries with that?", but what's a government to do? They can hardly say we need a lot of uneducated people, who'll be grateful for whatever job they can get.

[Panamax]

It was Tony Blair's government that decided every educational establishment should be called a "university" and that everyone should have a chance to go to one. All commendable stuff.

Later governments decided everyone should pay to go to university. I don't agree.

So universities responded by upping their intake of overseas students who pay much higher fees than UK students. They've filled themselves with Chinese and everyone else from around the world.

UK now has a world-class education system that isn't educating British people.

At the same time our government claims to be turning UK into a hot-bed of technology with a world leading NHS. NHS can't get enough trained Brits so is constantly recruiting from overseas. We've got students who'd like to study medicine if they could and at the same time we're draining doctors and nurses from countries who need them.

In my opinion,

• University should be free for those who study courses of immediate economic benefit to the nation, especially for jobs where recruitment from overseas is currently taking place.
• There should be more investment in making more places available on courses for the jobs needed right now.
• There should be a graduated scale of fees depending what course people want to study.

Meanwhile schools should be teaching kids stuff they need to know in order to understand the basics of the world before trying to get fancy with exotic subjects. The fundamental lack of financial knowledge is pitiful, leading to excessive debt and ignorance about the inevitability of losing at gambling.

[phil-sti]

I've got 5 kids, 4 of which are over 18.

1 took an apprenticeship to become an account instead of Uni
1 is studying English at Uni
1 is about to start a Midwifery course
1 is about to start a Paramedics course

1 is 11 and wants to be a tik tok star

There is no push for for Uni anymore, I do think A-levels are valuable though and would push for those as a minimum.

The 2 health courses have no option but to go to Uni due to that being the minimum needed.

[LimaDelta]

The education system exists to condition the next generation of drones, and school exams are just a sorting mechanism for unremarkable children.

[DaveH23]

Interesting topic, everyone I know that left school early and started working are now in well paid jobs or self employed doing well.

Of everyone I know that went to University only 1 I know of actually works in the field they studied (nurse) the rest are in Call Centres, or jobs they got whilst at University.

[768]

Does a good job of making unemployment figures look good.

University is becoming seriously expensive for the return in most cases in my view. There are a lot of kids I can't see the point in educating past 16 either when they could be earning a wage.

[Fusion777]

Look at future growth sectors: Genetics/biotechnology, AI, robotics, automation, software, additive manufacturing etc. Do you think it helps to be smart and well educated to succeed in these sectors, or not?

[grumbledoak]

Fusion777 said:

Look at future growth sectors: Genetics/biotechnology, AI, robotics, automation, software, additive manufacturing etc. Do you think it helps to be smart and well educated to succeed in these sectors, or not?

You can't teach smart. And the smart ones tend to do well at whatever they choose.

The problem is, as it was under Blair, what do you do with the rest of them in a country where unskilled labour won't buy you a roof over your head?

For a while now we have given them increasingly meaningless degrees, alongside ever bigger debts, and we are the point now where the degrees don't look worth the cost.

Thus, I guess, the question is being asked again. What was the point of it?

[Countdown]

Fusion777 said:

Look at future growth sectors: Genetics/biotechnology, AI, robotics, automation, software, additive manufacturing etc. Do you think it helps to be smart and well educated to succeed in these sectors, or not?

That's pretty much what I've heard. Most of the manual labour jobs that used to exist have disappeared (mostly outsourced to low labour cost countries). Our education system is one area in which we are still leaders, internationally. We can use this to train up kids for the jobs of tomorrow and make sure our economy remains strong or we can just wither on the vine.

[Fusion777]

grumbledoak said:

You can't teach smart. And the smart ones tend to do well at whatever they choose.

The problem is, as it was under Blair, what do you do with the rest of them in a country where unskilled labour won't buy you a roof over your head?

For a while now we have given them increasingly meaningless degrees, alongside ever bigger debts, and we are the point now where the degrees don't look worth the cost.

Thus, I guess, the question is being asked again. What was the point of it?

I think we have trouble as a society accepting that people aren't equal in their innate abilities and/or potential. IQ isn't talked about a lot nowadays, and is even somewhat controversial, but it shouldn't be really. As you say, there are only so many people with IQs over, say 120, which is possibly a reasonable threshold for doing a numerate/analytic degree. That would have only about 10% of people going to university, which is how things were in the 1950s or so.

I guess, what happens to those between 100 and 120- do they do vocational qualifications, on the job training, stop qualifications at 18?

I can see it being troublesome to say the least politically and socially to acknowledge and base policy on IQ, even though it might have technical basis.

Maybe we'll even reach the stage where the number of low-skilled jobs decrease due to automation and AI, so we might even have lots of people we can't employ. This is where universal income arguments come in, I guess.

[GetCarter]

DaveH23 said:

Interesting topic, everyone I know that left school early and started working are now in well paid jobs or self employed doing well.

Of everyone I know that went to University only 1 I know of actually works in the field they studied (nurse) the rest are in Call Centres, or jobs they got whilst at University.

..and pretty much everyone I knew that left school early is either unemployed, in st jobs or are in prison.

The few of us that escaped and got degrees are in well paid jobs or self employed making a good living.

Of my friends in degree courses, almost all are in the same industry, including me.

Strange how none of us are in all centres!

[grumbledoak]

Fusion777 said:

Maybe we'll even reach the stage where the number of low-skilled jobs decrease due to automation and AI, so we might even have lots of people we can't employ. This is where universal income arguments come in, I guess.

Automation has already destroyed or offshored low skilled jobs. AI is going to do the same to the "professionals" - doctors, lawyers, etc.

I think the vast majority are going to be fighting over a small number of jobs. We will retain jobs that have to be done in person. I don't think it will be highly skilled work for the most part. Think of the NHS' massive thirst for cheap immigrant labour. I don't think further education or degrees will be a consideration for most.

[Ivan stewart]

Seems to be more fit for purpose and we are largely over the damage Blair caused ..

[bearman68]

Blair essentially privatised University. One has to pay to go to it, so the universities have responded by providing a course that gives youngsters a degree, while making money for the Uni. So courses like machining, and engineering, and vets, and medicine are all massively over subscribed, partly because they are a) So expensive to teach, and b) Underfunded.
Law, and art, and languages, and social science and business are all cheap and easy to teach, so we teach it, because it makes more money for the Uni.
It's a mixed up system.

Meanwhile, trying to get someone to fit a stairs, or skirting board, or wires, or pipes, or operating a machine tool, or a welder, or any other of the semi skilled jobs that used to be the preserve of less academic kids is a nightmare.
How many aircraft inspectors have apprentices for example? Virtually none. A machine shop on the local industrial estate is closing down a viable business because he can't find suitably qualified apprentice machinist.

So not only do our grads come out of uni uneducated (or at least educated in the wrong things), they come out with massive debt, which causes further issues with buying a house. And when it all goes wrong, the government are left with the bill to pay for the student loans.

So now we have a mixed up system that prioritises cheap to teach subjects, while ignoring the obvious need for practical training for both industry and our youngsters, while costing a fortune that is usually saddled on Government and the tax payer, and allowing businesses to develop, that perpetuate the system for profit, and not for genuine teaching.

Great, that went well then.

[Crumpet]

GetCarter said:

DaveH23 said:

Interesting topic, everyone I know that left school early and started working are now in well paid jobs or self employed doing well.

Of everyone I know that went to University only 1 I know of actually works in the field they studied (nurse) the rest are in Call Centres, or jobs they got whilst at University.

..and pretty much everyone I knew that left school early is either unemployed, in st jobs or are in prison.

The few of us that escaped and got degrees are in well paid jobs or self employed making a good living.

Of my friends in degree courses, almost all are in the same industry, including me.

Strange how none of us are in all centres!

That sounds like a generational thing and nicely sums up how in the 60s a university degree meant a world of opportunity and a healthy career. Whereas a degree from the 2010s is, more often than not, a waste of everyone’s time and leaves people working in call centres.

To me it would make sense for the government to fully fund bright people going into STEM, Medicine etc…. and leave the Sociology students to fund their own waste of time. Fund the stuff that’s going to benefit the country, or at least poach the international students who’ve paid their own way!

[768]

Fusion777 said:

Look at future growth sectors: Genetics/biotechnology, AI, robotics, automation, software, additive manufacturing etc. Do you think it helps to be smart and well educated to succeed in these sectors, or not?

I'm not sure AI itself is going to continue to be a future growth sector in terms of number of employees, maybe it is, or maybe the owner of the largest model wins leaving little room for anyone else to compete.

I can't see someone toying with whether to leave education at 16/18 getting into that just because they spend a bit more time in education. They may be perfectly capable of leaving school at 16 and doing the work of two people by using AI though.

[Panamax]

Crumpet said:

To me it would make sense for the government to fully fund bright people going into STEM, Medicine etc…. and leave the Sociology students to fund their own waste of time. Fund the stuff that’s going to benefit the country, or at least poach the international students who’ve paid their own way!

^^^ This, this and this. It seems so obvious.

[Drawweight]

Get a self employed plumber, electrician or joiner in. Or even a small company and they won’t have an apprentice tagging along being shown the ropes.

Why bother, it’s expensive with additional red tape and when they qualify they’ll probably bugger off and start on their own anyway.

How you stop that is over my pay grade but it needs looked at. Government apprentice systems don’t seem to be having the desired results.