The Cuts. Is YOUR arse twitchin?

[llcoolphil]

If the better Universities are going to make it easier for kids from poorer backgrounds, will they be dropping their grade requirements too?

[eFestivals]

There is nothing new in the news today.

I know - I said it's a situation that's been reported for years - but which you said you didn't know about only yesterday.

Universities have had targets on attracting pupils from state schools and poorer backgrounds for years. They have been missing their targets for years. The office for fair access came into being in 2004. Do you know how many times it has taken action on missed targets in that time? Not once, not one single time. Now all of a sudden Im expected to believe it is going to discover a new robust approach?

WHY have they had these targets?

Is it because the govt is trying to make our universities worse? Only yesterday you said that for Unis to take students who were not the best would lower their academic standards.

Or is that the govt are trying to get them to remove the bias they operate in favour of private schools?

Now go away and have a look at what The Russell Group are saying about the targets and how they should be interpreted. Then have a look at what the 1994 Group are saying (and you haven't even heard of them let alone know what they say)and just for once stop taking the news at face value. Then have a look at what the targets are and see that they very much dont mean taking people into university on lower academic standards.

100% correct - and exactly what I said yesterday, which you said I was wrong about.

If they'd be taking people of equal standard but from poorer backgrounds, that means that currently those people MUST BE being discriminated against, because otherwise there'd be nothing to change.

Do you know how much people laugh at you behind your back?

don't you think that your now-agreement with all I said yesterday - after telling me I was wrong yesterday - isn't laughable too?

Anyway, you've now admitted you got it wrong yesterday. Job done!

[worm]

The privately educated dominate the best universities because they are the ones that are most suited to it.

[llcoolphil]

I know - I said it's a situation that's been reported for years - but which you said you didn't know about only yesterday.

WHY have they had these targets?

Is it because the govt is trying to make our universities worse? Only yesterday you said that for Unis to take students who were not the best would lower their academic standards.

Or is that the govt are trying to get them to remove the bias they operate in favour of private schools?

100% correct - and exactly what I said yesterday, which you said I was wrong about.

If they'd be taking people of equal standard but from poorer backgrounds, that means that currently those people MUST BE being discriminated against, because otherwise there'd be nothing to change.

don't you think that your now-agreement with all I said yesterday - after telling me I was wrong yesterday - isn't laughable too?

Anyway, you've now admitted you got it wrong yesterday. Job done!

[llcoolphil]

??

they are a product of a priveleged upbringing

[eFestivals]

This is it.

If it is, then the govt MUST be telling those unis to lower their standards, because they would be taking less suitable and so lower quality students.

Yet Phil has said they're not taking lower quality students.

So which is it? Do you have a view that makes sense, or are you just a trolling moron?

And how will such a system sustain itself? After all, how can they remain the best unis if they're going to take lower standard students, and how can they keep demanding the highest fees if their standards will drop to a similar level as other unis because of taking those lower standard students?

If your take on things is true, then the whole set-up is designed by anti-intelligent morons and approved of by anti-intelligent morons - like you.

[worm]

so what positive difference will the higher fees make?

[worm]

If it is, then the govt MUST be telling those unis to lower their standards, because they would be taking less suitable and so lower quality students.

Edited February 10, 2011 by worm

[eFestivals]

Are you on meds today?

the deluded one is you.

I've just pointed out that they are taking on the best suited students, not the lower quality ones.

Private schools are better equipped than state schools to educate people for research-intensive universities. It's simple maths.

The govt is telling them that they MUST take more students from poorer backgrounds if they want to charge the highest fees.

Is that going to lower those uni's standards, or not?

If it's going to lower their standards, then how will they justify having the highest fees in the future when they'll be of the same level as other Unis because they'll be made to take those lower standard students ... and why would any uni agree to going along with such a counter-productive and stupid system for themselves?

If it's not going to lower their standards, then it MUST mean that currently they're operating a discriminatory system - otherwise they'd be taking those students now.

[llcoolphil]

Neil one last time - will you go away and look at the proposals. They are about universities actively intervening in state education to highlight individuals and raise standards. They are not about lowering standards to increase access. Your lack of knowledge is how you come to cite today's news as changing something whilst at the same time telling me there is nothing new in the news today

[5co77ie]

What?

I've just pointed out that they are taking on the best suited students, not the lower quality ones. Are you on meds today?

Private schools are better equipped than state schools to educate people for research-intensive universities. It's simple maths.

[eFestivals]

Your lack of knowledge is how you come to cite today's news as changing something whilst at the same time telling me there is nothing new in the news today

Oh FFS - why don't you actually try reading what I've posted instead of reverting to the same idiocy you've done often recently, of throwing idiot and spurious comments contrary to things I've specifically said?

I'm not citing today's news as changing anything - it's nothing I don't know already. I'm citing it as bringing to your attention what you said only yesterday you didn't know about.

Neil one last time - will you go away and look at the proposals.

I have done. Have you, really???

They are about universities actively intervening in state education to highlight individuals and raise standards.

Correct - in part. They are not about 'raising standards', they are about encouraging those of enough ability who chose not to apply to the top unis currently to apply to them, via which the proportion of poorer students in those unis is likely to grow.

They are not about lowering standards to increase access.

correct!

Now, (putting aside the lowish number of applications from poorer students for a moment, and addressing those who do apply) because those students are of good enough standard for those top unis already, why haven't they been getting the same proportion of places at those unis as the proportion of applications, while private school kids have been getting a higher proportion of places than from their applications?

The students from poor backgrounds are good enough, but they are being discriminated against because of their background - the proportion of applicants to places offered proves this is the case.

[llcoolphil]

Now, (putting aside the lowish number of applications from poorer students for a moment

[llcoolphil]

Having lived in the middle of Exeter's University unofficial campus for the past few years I can absolutely say that 'the best suited students' are not the brightest, they are the ones with the richest mummies and daddies..

Mummies and daddies who can buy them a new car (not repair the old one, buy them a new VW) each time (three so far) they put diesel in the tank.

These are kids who forinstance don't know that fuse boxes exist, don't realise washing machines need to be plumbed in, don't have the common sense to put the handbrake on a car on a hill.

Who shout at the woman in the corner shop that they shouldn't have to pay the odd amount of change over what they have in notes because, "I have £100,000 job waiting for me next year when I leave school, that's more than you'll ever earn you stupid old cow."

and take so much coke night after night in their back garden even they complain about it. But as they say "it's all good, I have a job waiting for me with daddy's firm in the city."

[worm]

Having lived in the middle of Exeter's University unofficial campus for the past few years I can absolutely say that 'the best suited students' are not the brightest

[eFestivals]

So in order to examine why there are a low number of poorer students, you want me to put aside the fact that there are a low number of applicants. Brilliant.

oh look, you've done the idiot thing again. FFS.

Is there any point trying to hold a reasonable discussion with you? Or will you just continue ignoring what I've clearly said to revert to bullshit so that you can appear right but very very stupid with it?

fair access and why it is unbalanced.

I have - which is why I know that it's unbalanced by more than just the low number of applicants.

It's proportionally imbalanced on the applicants it gets currently. The applications get to prove that those from a private school background are accepted above those who aren't when everything else is equal.

What part of that are you failing to understand?

[worm]

The govt is telling them that they MUST take more students from poorer backgrounds if they want to charge the highest fees.

[eFestivals]

Have you any idea what this complex process entails?

Yes. Mostly how to pronounce words without a northern or other accent, and how to smile nicely and accept those who are not your betters as your betters.

Cos at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. They're saying that the prejudice operated by those top unis is best addressed by sucking up to their prejudices.

[worm]

The applications get to prove that those from a private school background are better suited when everything else is equal.

[eFestivals]

I've wronged it for you to show me as the moron I am.

And I've corrected it for you to save time.

[llcoolphil]

It's proportionally imbalanced on the applicants it gets currently. The applications get to prove that those from a private school background are accepted above those who aren't when everything else is equal.

What part of that are you failing to understand?

[llcoolphil]

Yes. Mostly how to pronounce words without a northern or other accent, and how to smile nicely and accept those who are not your betters as your betters.

Cos at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. They're saying that the prejudice operated by those top unis is best addressed by sucking up to their prejudices.

[worm]

Yes. Mostly how to pronounce words without a northern or other accent, and how to smile nicely and accept those who are not your betters as your betters.

[eFestivals]

Now then, do you have a link to some independent evidence that supports your claims or not?

I do not have a link to hand. i tried googling briefly yesterday and couldn't find anything in the time i could allow for that searching - largely because its a consequence of just how much very current stuff there is about unis from all angles.

None of that proves that the evidence i've read does not exist. Either take my word that it does, find it yourself so that you've read all of the available evidence and not just some, or choose not to believe me.

[worm]

Neil, do you know how education works? Have you perhaps come across Vygotsky or Bruner or Chomsky or maybe Klien?

There are several different ways of learning and the learning that we get in state schools generally suits social functioning rather than research functioning. Private schooling is a very different form of learning that fits the nuances of the academically focused. It's not even as simple as seperating schooling and education into these two categories as there are a number of other types and an equal number of befitting universities and HE courses.

The problem we have is priviledge and lack of identification of intellectual needs at the lower level.