University Challenge - do we need more Uni's

[Amon Andrews]

Well, I've noted that the new Burnley MP "Kitty (oh what a pity) Usher" has given her wholehearted backing to fund a feasability study into a campaign for a new University called East Lancs University?

But why I hear you ask do we need another University?

www.accringtonobserver.co.uk/news/s/200/200296_university_plan_given_mp_backing_.html

The reason according to the link above is because there isn't one close enough to enable students to take their washing home or for students to travel to and from each day?

The link says we need an east lancs Uni cos east lancs has a population of 25,000? well a bit of a balls up there one feels since an arab can cram more than that number on the back of a 3 humped camel (humphrey)

Of course the colleges franchise with the Uni's, apart from siting the Uni's next door to the colleges how else could it be done?

The Manchester Met used to be a polytechnic but hey remember when the poly's were given University status, and more importantly why?

Building MORE educational establishments that dish out degrees in "Simon Beckham" (or whatever he's called) does not solve any problems. In fact, I can't even see a problem with the existing Uni's. The more Uni's there are the more they seem to be belittled. Eventually, they'll have College status, init.

With the existing 'A' level and other grading systems in a state of lets say upheaval, it won't be long before the same arises with league tables and first class honours for every Tom, Rick, and Rashid.

If an employer looks at a CV from someone who graduated from UMIST then from another CV from someone who studied at the "Padiham Riviera Metropolitan University" who do you think they'd choose?

Once again it's a hairbrained scheme and It's all about money, after all, the MP's who are backing it clearly indicate that it will be used by students from all over the UK and the world, and that my chums is bums on seats which means money.

what's wrong with that University of Central Lancashire in Preston (UCLIP)? maybe its fallen down the league table or somet?

Cental Lancashire, East Lancashire, North Lancashire.... whenever will this nonsense end..


tara

[Derrick Acornhead]

I can see your point Amon, but what you fail to understand is the pressures put upon todays uni students. You must realise that things today differ wildly from when we where honest hard working student beer swillers. All we had to worry about was the cost of a pint in the student bar going up to 25p (and we only had a tenner note that we didnt want to break into).
Todays little scroungers need a Uni closer to home because when you add up the cost of downloading 30 crazy frog video ringtones, the cost of 50 alcopops per night to the price of silly haircuts and young lads dressing and smelling like a tarts handbag, then you're only a third of the way to estimating the cost of todays degree course. (and may I point out that some1 somewhere feels daniel beckham, secret sex rites of the lower mayan pygmy ant eating puritan and ancient antient greek/indo european sub continent culture degrees are a vital part of our multicultural heritage that should be learned by all).
So don't forget...the students of these up and coming Uni's are the future of this great country of ours.

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....pass me the prozac and the vodka

[michele cryer]

LOL...and I, as a mature student thought I had it bad paying for me bus fares and dinners!!!

[Mitch]

Isn't Burnley College in dire straights at the moment financially, and about to close various sections. Could this sudden push for an East Lancs uni be connected to this in any way?

I smell a rat - the question of a university in Burnley was an old idea that never happened in the past. Why suddenly now? Who knows of any details of why a university never came to Burnley in the past?

Universities, like local governments, seem to me to be increasingly operating like businesses, functioning with private money and more and more money creamed off the public (we are heading towards an American model are we not - with the elite few universities/and a whole lower tier of perceived duffer universities and courses.

The sham of reintroducing the apprenticeship scheme in the last few years - an opportunity missed to push for real value and weight onto craft skills/what instead we got was (as befits the momentum) responsibility for the payment of training apprentices in the hands of employers - employers didn't give a s h i t about developing people's skills - they are now focused on cost reduction and cutting corners, plus the bureaucratic non-entity of tick box crazy NVQs - anyone ever done an NVQ. I tried to do one once, and got bored with the paperwork after 2 weeks! The momentum seems to me to be deskilling, and pushing a large numbers of people towards casual work, jobs in supermarkets, homebases, call centres, Macdonalds and all the rest.

A university like UMIST is currently in businesslike merger momentum with Manchester University, if it hasn't happened already - they charge enormous fees to foreign students particularly coming in to study from outside the UK. Universities are businesses now.

But has it ever been any different as regards different chances dependent on what class you're in? Ever read Paul Willis' 'Learning to Labour'?

As more and more people have been going to university, (many more since the 1960s) the restructuring of upper and lower tier universities is a modern way of keeping the working class in their place.

On the local situation, Jesus H, the New Labour posse are tightening their grip on this area, all falling into line behind each other's suggestions. Will Kitty be sending her daughter to East Lancs Uni then?

The fact that Burnley College is currently struggling and this idea is coming in on top of that makes all this highly suspicious, with hidden agendas to do with money as usual and the diminishing funding by the state of local services and education - into private hands.

But, they are keeping a handle on the control, alongside pulling away from the responsibility.

Here's an interesting extract from Willis' 1977 book:

“It is, of course, an absolute requirement for the existing social system that the same standards, ideologies and aspirations are not really passed on to all. The success of the official ideology, or what amounts to the same thing the demise of its oppositional cultural reproduction, in many institutions would be catastrophic for social reproduction in general. The ‘transition’ from school to work, for instance, of working class kids who had really absorbed the rubric of self-development, satisfaction and interest in work, would be a terrifying battle”. (Willis, 1977, p.177)