www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/11...national-24-november

Fantastic. I hope all of us - especially those of us who have been given the gift of a degree by this country - can support the current young people of the UK on their day of action.

I have been very impressed by them in the media today. They are worth supporting in my view in whatever way we all can.

I believe in the principle of free education until 21 years old for all - and that is how I was educated in the Golden Days of the 60s - 70s - 80s. Why should the BANKSTERS deprive today's young of this ? They should not be in slavery for the rest of their lives. Put the tax on Income Tax or on the Banks. Not create millstones of debt to hang round their necks forever - that must cost more money to set up this latest loan system. The whole idea of charging people to be educated in a country that claims to be progressive is beyond me ? it is like going back to the medieval period.

CAMERON is wrong - totally wrong on this.

Thanks JK,

Can we expect JK and Prunella to be there, since they are such strong advocates of selfless commitment to the common good?



Best Wishes,
Jim

BR wrote:
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/11...national-24-november

Fantastic. I hope all of us - especially those of us who have been given the gift of a degree by this country - can support the current young people of the UK on their day of action.

You might have been given the gift of a degree. I earned mine.

BR wrote:

I have been very impressed by them in the media today

I wasn't.

Third level education is not a right and is overated; better to get out in the work place as soon as possible and learn skills first hand.

Every bar person and waitress I know has a degree - because they can't get a job related to their subjects. Should we just continue to pay for more of these people?

Free education for everyone - is not sustainable, however laudable.

Jim wrote:
Thanks JK,

Can we expect JK and Prunella to be there, since they are such strong advocates of selfless commitment to the common good?



Best Wishes,
Jim

Ah, the proud recipient of the gift of an MA in Emoticon Studies returns!

Education is important. However, where it is obtained is unimportant.

It can be on the shop floor/workplace and doesn't have to include a college or university.

Successful individuals - from H Nelson and W Churchill, to A Sugar and A Ferguson - are proof of that.

I'll be there in spirit.

I earnt my degree in the School of Hard Knocks but I believe a civilised society should have a free education.

Education should be free for all,otherwise only the rich will benefit as was the case until the 60s.
We can however be more selective about the courses on offer.

Trevor - there are jobs and if the BANKS would lend then people like myself would employ people with degrees.

The problem is not that there are people working in bars with degrees - the problem is that economy has been destroyed by New Labour.

I am "under employed" at the moment because there is no funding for any projects from any source at the moment.

Degrees cover all disciplines these days as well. So to stereotype students is harking back to the academic degrees of the the pre 1990s.

Part of the reason for the decline in education was when the (Thatcher) Government funding bodies placed greater emphasis on quantity of research over quality of teaching. Universities now push their staff into research and publishing while many students are left to be taught by post-grads (some of whom haven't even been through the relevant undergraduate lectures). Anyone who cares about teaching tends to be demoralised very quickly. So that's one attempt at so-called value for money that has produced the opposite. The whole system should be revised so that students are actually TAUGHT again instead of contained for three aimless years.

BR wrote:

I am "under employed" at the moment because there is no funding for any projects

But you still advocate free education - up to 21 - for the masses!!

Trevor wrote:
BR wrote:

I am "under employed" at the moment because there is no funding for any projects

But you still advocate free education - up to 21 - for the masses!!

BR, even though you and others have no work for graduates, do you still think its a good idea to keep creating them - for free (until 21) - and with no consideration for the fiscal affect on the economy?

In Ireland where over 50% of the 19 year old population is in third level education, they realised that the academic stock being created was useless (no jobs, you see) - and that the state was funding the skill levels of other countries, to which the graduates now emigrate.

If you were a farmer, would you keep growing a produce that would not sell?

Thanks Laura, you write:

"If you were a farmer, would you keep growing a produce that would not sell?"

Yes you would, if you believed it had intrinsic value, rather than mere use-value. Education has intrinsic value; it is about the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.

Do you believe knowledge and understanding can only be valued according to what they will fetch on the open market? If so, and if you generalise this belief as a maxim, you end up without any such thing as education because it would never have emerged historically under such a maxim.

Which of the following thinkers produced ideas that, in their day, had any market value: Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Newton, Darwin, Marx, Freud and Einstein. Do you really believe we would be better off without them?

The idea that education has anything to do with making money is quite recent. I believe the reason it's called a Bachelor's degree is that to pursue an education at a university required you to turn away from the world of money and hence made marriage impossible. Men could only marry if they had money.

Businesses only latterly latched on to education as something useful because they began to notice that persons who had turned away from making money and gone off to the wacky world of university were unexpectedly useful at making money. They quickly destroyed the goose which laid the golden egg, however, by turning much of what now passes for education into mere technical training.

If you conceive of education as having only use-value, as technical training does, then of course you would not continue to produce it if it didn't sell.

Best Wishes,
Jim

Jim wrote:

Yes you would, if you believed it had intrinsic value, rather than mere use-value

Good piece Jim but somewhat abstract; farm produce has no intrinsic value, obviously.

Also, education for all is clearly laudable; but at all costs? You make no mention of the pros/cons/need/cost of free and formal third level education for all in the current economic climate - up to 21, as suggested.

Is the fact that we can't afford it relevant?