I read the news today oh boy! Page 1,112

Harridan, seriously?

It's hush money.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ December 11 2012, 10:21 PM GMT

No, it's a compromise and just because it's not an all encompassing gay marriage mardi gras, doesn't mean it's useless.

Homosexuality was only legalised in the 1960s, now gay marriages are recognised by both church and state.

People convert to different religions all the time, especially when marriage is involved. I can't imagine that the Quaker church is that much different to the C of E.

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It was only invented in 1959 in the East Havering industrial bakery.

Quote: sootyj @ December 12 2012, 9:12 PM GMT

Harridan, seriously?

It's hush money.

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It can't always be hush money, surely?

How much shit could Brooks drop if she felt like it?

Besides at that level people get paid truly surreal amounts of money.

Not to mention theres probably alsorts of conditions like not writing a
"once a sinner now reformed" column for the Grauniad.

You do not want to sack anyone who can afford a good lawyer, particularly not if you have embarrassing linen you do not want washed in public. So once these people become an embarrassment they are paid to leave. Then someone else pays through the nose to employ them because of their valuable experience.

At least with Brooks it is only Murdoch's grubby money; Entwhistle on the other hand I am very, very cross about, because some of that is my money.

It can be surprisingly difficult to sack some one who wasn't caught blatantly doing something really naughty. And if they can afford a lawyer it gets really difficult.

So in lots of jobs if you really want rid you pay someone to go.

As a feminist, I am so chuffed to learn that a high earning top female executive like Rebekah Brookes has been given a decent pension. So often, it's the men who receive the huge salaries for being two faced, evil, law breakers, guilty of bribery and corruption.

Go sisters!

And she beat up Ross Kempthat's gotta be worth a few quid.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ December 12 2012, 9:52 PM GMT

As a feminist, I am so chuffed to learn that a high earning top female executive like Rebekah Brookes has been given a decent pension. So often, it's the men who receive the huge salaries for being two faced, evil, law breakers, guilty of bribery and corruption.

Go sisters!

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Preparing to argue with yourself again?

Quote: Harridan @ December 12 2012, 9:55 PM GMT

Preparing to argue with yourself again?

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The only reason I argue with myself is because the make up sex with myself is so goooood.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20700696

"Nearly 54,000 fewer people started courses this autumn than did so last year, the admissions body Ucas says.

The Ucas figures show the fullest picture yet of students who were the first to apply to study in the UK under new tuition fee policies.

I'd like to think that this means that only people who have an interest in further education are applying, as opposed to those who just go to uni because they don't know what else to do. But I have a sinking feeling that it means people from poorer backgrounds are deciding that the debt will be too much for pursuing their interests to be worthwhile.

Quote: Harridan @ December 13 2012, 8:18 AM GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20700696

But I have a sinking feeling that it means people from poorer backgrounds are deciding that the debt will be too much for pursuing their interests to be worthwhile.

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I think young people are more likely to take up apprenticeships and effectively work for four years then 'waste their time' at Uni. Aside from racking up debts, there just aren't enough graduate jobs with decent wages and all the recent University leavers working in Morrisons for £6 an hour feel totally betrayed.

As for your point that only those who really want to pursue further education are going for places, it's made me ponder a bigger subject. I have lots of friends who have never used their degree for anything, ever. Their eventual choice of careers is in no way related to the fields of study they undertook at University.

Similarly, thanks to shows like CSI, there are 1500 forensic scientists being churned out every year by the current system, even though there are only about 400 jobs for this type of work in the UK.

Are people basically wasting four years of their lives? Are previous graduates who are not working in a related field a waste of tax payers money? Should there be some sort of basic control or limit over the subjects on offer?

EDIT: Found out recently that a friend of mine who became a 'professional academic' - Bachelor, Masters, PHD, Post Grad, Teaching, etc. has to give it all up because his wife is pregnant. Is this purely academic route also a waste of time, just going around the system like an intellectual spin cycle? What do professional academics actually acheive?

Controverse away.

I'm a great believer in adult education some times its only later in like the urge to increase ones e wisdom becomes urgent

Certainly the case with me sitting in a classroom because I want to be there is a great experience

And sausage machined degrees have degraded education

Quote: sootyj @ December 13 2012, 12:21 PM GMT

And sausage machined degrees have degraded education

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It does make me wonder about the true value of a degree. People always throw out the uselessness of Media Studies as a prime example, but I'd also like to add Latin, Philosophy and Art History to that list. Not that the degrees shouldn't exist, but the number of people studying such degrees should be extremely limited.

If given a magic wishing time machine, would you go back in time and change what you originally studied at Uni? I think a lot of people would.

There should be some central co-ordination to ensure that the number of places on occupational degrees reflects anticipated demand, but what do about non-occupational degrees, where frankly there is no demand? Do I consider three years studying medieval history at a provincial university wasted? Pretty much if I am honest. I was too young and twatish to take full advantage of the opportunities for personal development provided by full-time education; and even if I had studied properly the career opportunities related to my degree were vanishingly small (and almost entirely taken by Oxbridge graduates), while a 2.2 did nothing much to help me in the real world (in my organisation there are contemporaries without degrees who long ago outstripped me on the career ladder, and good luck to them.) I am only thankful that I did not have to pay for any of it. (Being a peasant I qualified for a full grant and it was long before the days of tuition fees.)

We should maintain our academic institutions as centres of excellence, but they should be for the brightest and best (and by that I do no necessarily mean those whose parents could afford to send them to public school exam factories.) Where educational spending should be concentrated is at the criminally underfunded primary level, to ensure that we bring all our children up to a certain level, and on further education, to provide learning opportunities through life for those with a genuine interest in pursuing them.