Universalty

Yesterday evening at around 6pm I was getting ready, and excited, about watching my first Cheerleader Competition. Yes, it is exactly as you think.. I really do not have any cultural or other reason to be excited other than to look at girls dancing around. I went with my mate here in Shanghai and arrived at the stadium just before the show was about to start.

Once we arrived, we realized the mistake we had made. We were in the wrong stadium. You see there are two stadiums in exactly the same area in Shanghai. We got unlucky. So instead of a myriad of girls shaking their asses and spelling out various words, we got a song and dance ensemble. We were comfortably sat in the VIP section of some Chinese song and dance performance that had a version of 'Riverdance', an operatic recital of 'Memories' by Andrew Lloyd Webber and a bunch of Chinese men dressed up as black people performing a tribal dance (complete with spears!).

Admittedly it was hilarious, a complete contrast of what we were expecting. It was also very entertaining, but since I was meant to be watching a new friend performing U-G-L-Y (the only cheerleading thing I can give as an example) I kinda felt bad!


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I don't know how it happened but my friend and I got to talking about university in the UK and the education system. We're like sophisticated and shit, n'am sayin? That and solo singing performances are real boring to watch. The theme is dominant in all of my friends' lives, and my own, because we are the forgotten ones. We are 'Gordon's Graduates'. For anyone not familiar with the term, it does not mean we are the Scottish and uncharismatic version of Charlie's Angels. No, we are the generation which got bitchslapped by New Labour policies and the credit crunch. Hundreds of thousands of students who cannot find work after graduating.

There are two aspects to 'unemployment' among the graduate community. There are the government stats which say "One in five graduates is unemployed!". Yes, one in every five graduates does not have a job whatsoever. The problem with this reading of unemployment is that it is deliberately missing the point. It classes graduates as 'any old member of the population'. This is the other aspect I talk about when I'm discussing graduate employment, that having a part-time, minimum wage job in McDonalds is NOT employment! Ok it technically is, but it's not suitable employment.

You do not go to university so you can flip burgers. You do not invest 3-4 years of your life, and an average of £25,000 (280,000 RMB) to perform something a monkey could do with an hour's training. So this 1/5 unemployed stat is grossly misleading, it's not like unemployed graduates are going to just sit at home and wait for a graduate scheme. They're going to find any employment so they can pay the bills.

My conclusion to everything so far is that the situation for graduates is much, much worse than many people think. One strong reason in my mind is that the education system has failed our generation.


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When we were in 'the golden age' (the period before the crunch), it seemed like the education system in the UK was really good. Everyone was getting into university and getting degrees. The whole workforce was classed as 'highly skilled' and Britain's youth was turning into a cosmopolitan and tolerant generation. It was universal university education. I'm gonna call it 'Universalty'.

"What's wrong with that?" you might ask. Well there is a lot wrong with it. Firstly, there is nothing wrong with a workforce that is highly educated. Education is a necessity and I think if everyone in the UK was super smart it would be a great thing for us and future generations. However, a university degree is not just an education. Why do people go to university? To gain a skill, define a career and to use university training to impress employers at job interviews. The only way you can get a job is to be better than the other applicants. Therefore the government must be careful when improving the education of its people. It's great to have an increasingly intelligent population, but university is also a way for companies to distinguish between the hundreds of thousands of graduates that finish every year. When everyone can overcome the 'hurdle' of university, then the system fails.

This is what has happened in my graduate year. Now the economy sucks, firms are not just employing tons of graduates every year. They cannot afford it. Now they have to pick and choose. But the problem is that universalty has forced firms to find other means to distinguish between candidates. Back in the day a degree meant you were pretty awesome. Everyone has one now, and what this does is create another level of 'education'

In the UK you have primary school, secondary school, college and university. Each level of education requires a certain level of intelligence or skill in order to advance. But now university education is so universal, that the 'cream of the crop' are surrounded by less creamy competition. Firms find it hard to find the cream. The cream finds it hard to stand out. This means that there is now another level of education on top of university;

Primary school > Secondary school > College > University > Masters/Internship

In order to prove yourself to companies, you have to pass your degree and then invest more time and more money in completing a masters or getting work experience. This is a problem, especially in this economic climate.

The more time you spend in the education system, the less time you spend working

People who leave college and start working at 18 are therefore earning and contributing to GDP 3/4 more years than university graduates. If another level is added, that time increases. The argument for university is that you are 'reimbursed' for your initial investment by a more lucrative salary when you finally enter the job market. If you take longer to enter the job market, you have less time to be earning that high salary (and the non-university students have more time to be earning their low salary).

The more time you spend in the education system, the more money you spend

This is the big one. Internships are usually unpaid. The recession means people have less money. How are poorer people who just managed to pay for university going to be able to afford unpaid internship expenditure and masters courses? They can't. This breeds inequality in the education system.

The more levels added to education, the quicker previous generations become obsolete

The generations prior to ours often find it hard to stay competitive with the youth who enter the job market. 20 years ago, people mostly finished school with O-Levels. Now if someone who has O-Levels looks for a job, they are often told they are under-skilled because they don't have degrees. People who graduated in the last 10 years might have undergraduate degrees, but they might find themselves needing to re-enter education in order to earn a masters and stay 'up-to-date'.


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How did we get to this point in our society? It's very simple. Things were great, so why change them? When the economy is strong and graduates are employed then people are all for Universalty. The university system in the UK has been diluted by the popularity of degrees in (frankly) retarded subjects, by low quality institutions and the relative ease of entrance into aforementioned institutions. Degrees have turned from a highly desirable and challenging goal into the minimum requirements to become employed. Every student is just a faceless, grey clone of every other. Thousands of graduates with sociology, media and sports degrees which they've been lead to believe are substantially beneficial for their career prospects.

What is to be done? Well the government sure as hell can't put "We want to exclude kids from university" as their election pledge. Of course they can window dress it, but no-one will vote for what looks like a step back from where we are now. It's a shame because if you look at the system now, it's completely broken. There are so many universities that resources are spread wafer thin. Top-up fees are crippling families and for what? So that the 'University' of Milton Keynes can add a few more professors to teach David Beckham studies?

And the ultimate result of more students in higher education? Huge debt, cash-strapped universities and delayed employment.

It's definitely not increasing their career prospects. Just look at the stats.