Education
The present government decided that 50% of all school leaving pupils should go to university. It also decided that Polytechnics could re-rate themselves and call themselves universities. This policy immediately took out of the education process the colleges who were providing plumbing, carpentry and other important trades such as typing and office skills.
In the first few years of the labour government universities were full with pupils doing all sorts of courses, which would be of very little use, when they started working. Many of the new pupils attending university couldn’t really afford to go, so the government invented student loans. This enabled pupils to attend university, however many of these new recruits would leave university with degrees, which were unlikely to help with employment but with huge debts. £25,000.00 is not unusual.
Many of the pupils who attended university couldn’t cope and should have been there. Many left after the first year, many tried to change course, but without any real success.
The NDP believes that while university should be available to all, providing they get the correct grades at “A” level, there should be a filtering system introduced. All students studying to become doctors, nurses, teachers all sciences should be able to qualify for some sort of grant. There would need to be a repayment of these grants, however the debt would dissipate with time and depend on the length of public service.
Pupils who wish to study subjects outside of the “necessary” occupations would have to fund part of the process themselves.
The universities, which transformed themselves from polytechnics should revert back to polytechnics and start to offer courses in trades, which are desperately needed. Hopefully this will mean that we don’t need to import plumbers from Poland for much longer.
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