Next Gen News

The White Paper on the future of universities will lead to a new form of intergenerational injustice, does not lead to quality

is the season of cheers and cries of despair. The arrival of the results of a level leads to various forms of predictability, almost ritualistic behavior - and is not limited to 18. Each year, dyspeptic online commentators to explain how the results reflect the standards of increasingly low and high decline of civilization (mostly false), while the voice intones solemnly lined everything is due to hard work and good teaching (mostly true).

But this year there is a big difference. This is the last year in which the fate of English students entering English universities may consider themselves as being on the verge of developing their minds and their horizons so that the company believes it is valuable. Those who get their results next year, however, is - tell us - the consumers themselves narrowly focused, looking for "value for money" between different forms of employment-led training

They - also tells us - to examine the goods on the shelves (also known as college courses), calculate the return on investment in terms of price earnings ratio of the probable future, and complained to a consumer court if the layout of your chosen route deviates in every detail of what was promised in the sales catalog (sorry, college prospect). As a result - we are told this over and over - prospective students will be more effective and university students will be more effective "suppliers"

At least that's how it will be if you believe the White Paper on the government in recent higher education, students at the center of the system. These are the terms in which the government justifies the adoption of a very successful in much of higher education, he launches into the air, and we hope that the pieces fall into a pattern that can be considered a "market".

is true that if you go to a handful of "top" universities will do well out of this new system will not see much change, except that a greater proportion of their peers who come from environments comfortable with. But if you go to most universities, especially the last two decades have been the main vehicle for the emancipation of the educational value of these social groups that do not go to college, then they will see signs of reduction resources all around. In some cases, the "student experience" can very close to the real social experiment - put up apartments, buildings dilapidated, depressed mood, feelings of resentment that the cards are in favor of a few rather many