On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:28:41 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

IMM wrote:

snip/

John Prescott is attempting to force the UK construction industry into a
similar type of design and efficiency. He will need to use that left hook a
lot to even get the cowboys to look.


He won't succeed until the education system scraps 90% of the so called
'unis' and starts reintroducing technical and vocational colleges that
teach something of some use, and make the actual qualification reflect
some real acquisition of skill and experience and even knowledge and
understanding, rather than a certificate of having wasted public money
for three years...

Well said that man ... its not even necessary to scrap the
institutions (although many of their staff would have to go). The
resulting qualification can be called a "degree" if that satisfies the
need of the PTB to have meaningless statistics about the number of
graduates in the working population.

However, it should be evident to all but the most dogmatic of
politcally motivated social-engineers that it would be of immense
benefit to all (students, tax payers, consumers, ...) to restore the
distinction between tertiary *education* (academic, oriented towards
research, maximizing the potential of intellectual capability, etc.)
and tertiary *training* (vocational, job- and skills-oriented).

Of course, *accessiblity* would have to be universal -- children from
low income families should be able to benefit from academic education
if they have the ability to do so, just as those from higher income
families, without the ability to benefit from academia, should be
routed towards vocational training and prevented from taking academic
university places from those more deserving of them.

Julian

--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk