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Straight from youngtories.w@nk on to here.

Yawn.

Nothing to say on his master's idealogical and politically motivated attacks on the poor, the crippled or the desperate I see.

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

Edited by Rossy
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I don't really get that article.

I went to Glasgow uni for a year, and hated it, but you can't blame the uni for these stats (which seems to be the tone).

Anyone can go if they get the required results.

Improving some of the deep rooted socio-economic reasons for folk from these areas not aspiring to go to uni, and/or not achieving the grades to get in is probably quite a big job for someone!

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Not sure what the ranting Dutchman is on about.

I read an interesting article which I agree with as educational attainment depends very much on your postcode.

This highlights the fact.

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27 minutes ago, Alan said:

Not sure what the ranting Dutchman is on about.

I read an interesting article which I agree with as educational attainment depends very much on your postcode.

This highlights the fact.

Utter shite. I came from an area with a very poor "postcode"  yet managed to get a degree at Strathclyde Uni and have forged a reasonable career.

That was down to hard work and innate intelligence. Feck all to do with my background or postcode 

That's just an excuse for lazy bastards.

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I was also from a sh#te postcode (one of the ML ones (they're all sh#te)) and went to Glasgow Uni. There were 3 of us who went from my year. There were quite a few guys at school who were clearly quite intelligent (more than me) that just didn't have the support, be it either family or teaching, to get their heads down and work on their exams. They all did ok in the end anyway but uni wasn't on their list of options because of their crappy surroundings and schooling.

When I got to uni I was utterly appalled (would never have used that word before GU...) at the amount of mouth breathing private school types that somehow came out of school with their 5A's and a strong sense of entitlement.

Turns out the private school system is a bit corrupt and nearly all of the kids have extra paid tuition at home.

Edited by thewelk
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I went to Edinburgh and St Andrews and both were absolutely filled with middle class English students. St Andrews was far and away the worst of the two as it was around the time Prince Willie was there (walked past him once and didn't recognise him - someone told me later). Remember driving in on my first day and there was a 20ish guy leaning against a wall with a long curly pipe!

What really stuck out for me at Edinburgh was that those who clearly weren't rich were generally smarter students - not sure why, sticking in more? Obviously many exceptions, but generally. The private-school educated English students were also far better at bullshitting. I remember in one of my first tutorials listening to someone talk to the class and thinking they were way smarter than I was - they barely got 60% in their essays and I was hitting 70% every time. But they could bullshit.

Oh. and I was from a crappy postcode, although not aware of a single other person from my primary school year who went to any university.

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20 hours ago, Stapes said:

aI went to Edinburgh and St Andrews and both were absolutely filled with middle class English students. St Andrews was far and away the worst of the two as it was around the time Prince Willie was there (walked past him once and didn't recognise him - someone told me later). Remember driving in on my first day and there was a 20ish guy leaning against a wall with a long curly pipe!

What really stuck out for me at Edinburgh was that those who clearly weren't rich were generally smarter students - not sure why, sticking in more? Obviously many exceptions, but generally. The private-school educated English students were also far better at bullshitting. I remember in one of my first tutorials listening to someone talk to the class and thinking they were way smarter than I was - they barely got 60% in their essays and I was hitting 70% every time. But they could bullshit.

Oh. and I was from a crappy postcode, although not aware of a single other person from my primary school year who went to any university.

As we used to say in the Forces .........Bullshit baffles brains. 

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It's brilliant how the disappointing state of Scottish uni and the skewed funding on favour to a certain section of society can bring up mentions of English (boooo hiss) students and private schools.

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2 hours ago, Alan said:

It's brilliant how the disappointing state of Scottish uni and the skewed funding on favour to a certain section of society can bring up mentions of English (boooo hiss) students and private schools.

Of course you'd prefer this to happen in Scotland.

http://archive.is/wNGJC

Edited by antidote
wrong link
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3 hours ago, Alan said:

It's brilliant how the disappointing state of Scottish uni and the skewed funding on favour to a certain section of society can bring up mentions of English (boooo hiss) students and private schools.

And how you avoid responding to people who think you're wrong?  That's brilliant too.

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Avoid what? Stats show those from more affluent postcodes go to uni. Numbers are far more in their favour. It's a cycle that continues. Is it family, school, individual? Where you live is a big marker.

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1 hour ago, Alan said:

Avoid what? Stats show those from more affluent postcodes go to uni. Numbers are far more in their favour. It's a cycle that continues. Is it family, school, individual? Where you live is a big marker.

Of course it is. There will be exceptions but class mobility is a lot harder than it used to be. 

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What's your argument here, Alan? That we should introduce tuition fees and make university even more difficult to attain?

And in any case,  lower income students would be much more likely to attend Strathclyde or Caley anyway.

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When I left high school in inner city Glasgow 3 folk including myself went to university. 

I would say the reason that less got the required grades were low expectations at home and their parents not encouraging/forcing people to study and making it clear how important it was.

There is also the issue that if the only university educated folk you meet in your life are teachers then you are not shown what benefits there would be in sticking in and doing all the boring school work when you could be out with your mates.

It's a hard cycle to break

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17 minutes ago, joe545 said:

What's your argument here, Alan? That we should introduce tuition fees and make university even more difficult to attain?

And in any case,  lower income students would be much more likely to attend Strathclyde or Caley anyway.

The first article said Strathclyde had a ratio similar to Glasgow.

My argument is education in Scotland needs changed. There is a myth that our education system is admired worldwide.

We have to many people going to university. This puts a strain on finances and as a result further education places gave been cut by hundreds of thousands. So we have uni protected over college. College is used by kids from lower income backgrounds to progress and to get into uni from there so in this example the suburbs win again. The gap increases while graduates have degrees which are weakened competing in a crowded market.

Then we have funding. You can see yesterday the SNP will not raise taxes. We would be in the same tax and spend difficulty if independent or not. They are trying to please all which results in a turgid conservative policy. There are no backbench rebellions in Holyrood, there is limited debate in party and conference. I don't even see any think tanks within SNP. Everything is centralised and controlled by a small group of people. New Labour to the max. They know the more affluent will punish them in the polls while less well off are less prone to vote on matters like this. So we have funding going into the factory like machine of higher education as face time and interaction with tutors decreases and standards slip. Grants are gone. Loans are the king. An extra year in Scotland puts further strain with what outcome? Maybe a tax like in England is the answer? Grants are available and people pay back depending on their income, some don't pay anything back others only partial. Gives funding a boost without impacting income tax for all.

Lastly the stats of people getting into uni shows that schooling is heavily laden to people from better postcodes with a particular academic skill set. That means the school system of "one size fits all" controlled by politicians in Scottish and local government and not teachers is failing a sizeable if not majority of the population. In Glasgow City Council only Jordanhill and Gaelic school have really good higher results. One is outside local authority control through a quirk in history the other is essentially a middle class "free school" with small class sizes and the "right people" sending their kids there. That's only 2 schools in our largest city in decent neighbourhoods.

From the above numbers, structure, funding, lack of any real change with obsession on spin over progress and the schools being a postcode lottery are the points I am trying to make.

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So Alan what result would you consider correct?

Should every postcode have the exact same number of people going to each university - is that your idea of 'fair'?

Yes let's decide who gets into a particular school using postcode quotas... christ only a real shallow minded moron would go down this road of thinking.

There is a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of results.

As the posts above show people from 'rough' postcodes have the opportunity to apply and do get accepted when they are good enough. But you seem to think we should take equal numbers from affluent neighbourhoods as we take from poor neighbourhoods just to satisfy some idiotic belief that this is more fair.

 As soon as you start limiting one person's access to a university in favour of another just because of their home address you have removed equality of opportunity in favour of equality of results. And this is more fair?

No it is bullshit that appeals to morons.

The problem is the underlying socioeconomic factors that produce the inequality of results not the admissions policies of Scotland's universities.

 

 

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Very high level as my commute is coming to an end.

Give schools more autonomy to cater for different skills and move away from concentrating on academic skills as the only skill to have. Kids go to schools that appeal to them. Jim McColl the entrepreneur is funding "Newlands College" which is b an interesting development.

Bring in a graduate tax so those who benefit pay back a bit more when they can afford to give system a boost.

Reduce numbers at uni and promote technical and vocational skills at colleges.

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That's an appalling idea, kids from poor area go to local school and get educated to go straight into local factory with no academic options??

You want to mix things up? Any kid can apply for any school and places are allocated via a ballot. Takes postcodes out of the equation and you would then have pushy parents at every school kicking up hell to ensure standards are maintained.

Or bring back streaming at an earlier age and let academically skilled kids go study academic skills. People that want to do trades get taught how to do that.

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5 hours ago, Alan said:

Very high level as my commute is coming to an end.

Give schools more autonomy to cater for different skills and move away from concentrating on academic skills as the only skill to have. Kids go to schools that appeal to them. Jim McColl the entrepreneur is funding "Newlands College" which is b an interesting development.

Bring in a graduate tax so those who benefit pay back a bit more when they can afford to give system a boost.

Reduce numbers at uni and promote technical and vocational skills at colleges.

FE is shrinking because it was built upon large scale apprenticeship schemes which on the whole no longer exist (mainly thanks to the fooking Tories).

 

Edited by Larky Masher
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8 minutes ago, kumnio said:

Keeps the unemployment figures down though. 

Good point.

I certainly don't think I've got anything out of going for four years. I've certainly never been in a job where a degree would actually be required to be in it either.

Definitely again hitting the stage where I need a change (either of role or direction), but things are absolutely brutal right now. I was finding it difficult enough before the shit hit the fan.

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