http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/26/medical-students-debt-low-income I don't think I buy this. A recent Sutton trust report found that of those school students who said they were unlikely to go onto higher education only 13% mentioned debt as a factor in that decision, even when they were allowed to choose multiple causes. Given that only 10% of students said they were very unlikely or fairly unlikely to go to university then I calculate only around 1 in 100 students said that finance was even a factor when deciding that it was unlikely they would go onto university. We know that many students, once they are in higher education, worry about finances but I have yet to see any evidence that potential undergraduates are actually being dissuaded from applying or going to university because of debt fears. The naïveté and optimism of youth perhaps, but they are simply not reporting debt as a major causal factor in this decision making process. For medical students there is also the knowledge that they will earn very good salaries when they qualify. Could it be that the BMA are exaggerating a problem, surely not?
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Debt too high, the end of Widening Participation?
Get Carter
In an article in the Guardian Lord Carter took issue with his many critics http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/22/lord-carter-digital-britain
I too was disappointed by this report, however, not because of its recommendations, but because of the way the problem of broadband access was analysed. Typically for this government, a complex social problem was seen as primarily a technological and managerial problem. This was achieved by 'disappearing' what I regard as the most important social fact that should have dominated the project; that 35% of homes with children, have no internet access. Or looked at in another dimension, around a quarter of households earning £11,500, (the government's threshold for a low income) have broadband at home compared with 77% of homes with incomes of £30,000 or more. In Lord Carter's report, this was addressed in a short paragraph "Affordability is addressed in part through the roll-out of the Government's £300m Home Access scheme for low income families. In part the market will increasingly address this issue through the wide availability of new lower cost devices, new schemes for recycling PCs to low-income households or new prepay mobile broadband." Having dismissed the problem, the way was open to concentrate on how to extend geographically the hardware infrastructure of the internet to all parts of the UK, so that all can have access: a technical/managerial exercise.
I think this was a major mistake: as it caused the inquiry to address the wrong problems in the wrong way. I think they should have begun by asking why the vast majority of those 17 million non-users, or 40% of all households, who don't have internet access and could be connected through the existing cable offers do not. That is the real problem here, those who could connect but don't, not those who want to connect but cannot. This is particularly important for families with children, as we are potentially on the cusp of a major new addition to our divided society; in the very near future, parents will be able to interrogate their children's school's computer networks and see in great detail how their child is performing and then on the basis of that detailed information communicate with the teaching staff. In many schools, including primary schools, it is already possible to check homework assignments and download reports. Among children with home access it is already commonplace to use Wikipedia to cut and paste into homework or to 'enrich' extended projects.
In my opinion, it is this social divide, between the connected and the unconnected within cabled Britain that is of much greater importance than getting cable to distant hamlets. Indeed, for that group of non-users who are of particular interest to The Brightside Trust, disadvantaged families with children who are not connected to the internet, I think that their already low percentage of connectivity may well begin to fall even further. I don't have any connection figures on which to base my view, just an observation – that disadvantaged families are increasingly getting rid of their fixed line telephones. Pay-as-you-go mobile phones are becoming the replacement of choice for the whole family, for payment, fashion and independence reasons. Payment, because you can buy credit when you have a little cash, it's not a fixed cost. Fashion, because your mobile is an important accessory to your outfit and image. Independence, especially for children, as they can receive and make calls privately. Perhaps most important for adolescents, they can text. As fixed line phones are abandoned then the cost of a BT or Virgin cable connection just for a broadband connection looks expensive. Hence, I expect the numbers of disadvantaged families with a home internet connection will fall over the coming period, which seems to be the opposite of the government's aspiration. Yes, I know that you can connect to the internet with a mobile phone but that is expensive without a monthly contract and it is complex to transcribe data unless you pay a further premium to use your phone as a modem. For students with a pay-as-you-go mobile and little money, this is not practical for routine homework activity, nor is it practical for a not very interested parent to closely monitor school work. What's worse is that if I'm right, then the government's threat to levy a fixed line surcharge will accelerate the process of dumping fixed line telephones and the government's plan to extend the reach of digital Britain will have had the opposite effect.
Job Done?
According to a recent Sutton Trust survey, 77% of young people now aspire to go to university, full report at http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/Mori080609.pdf Only 10% said they were unlikely or very unlikely to go. As the research points out, this far exceeds the numbers actually entering higher education and I would add, this far exceeds the numbers who will gain 5 GCSE's A to C grade.
This is an amazingly high percentage and might suggest that widening participation into higher education initiatives in schools have nearly achieved their purpose. However, I think I can see how this research might have overstated the true level of commitment to higher education. First, in my experience, even when a teacher is absent from the classroom most students of these age groups will try to give the 'correct' answer when interrogated by an important adult.
Second, I wondered if this work was reflecting the confused aspirations of low achieving students, which often have little relationship to real life. I first came across this phenomenon when, as an education social worker, I ran a group for 14 year old, non-exam entry, boys who had all been excluded for bad behaviour on more than one occasion from their failing north London secondary school. Like at least 1 in 10 of their contemporaries, these were students who would not obtain any worthwhile qualifications during their entire educational career. One day, I asked them about their plans for the future and was surprised when they all spontaneously asserted that they were going to live the wealthiest of affluent life styles: a celebrity life style. The most pedestrian of these boys was going to achieve this by being an airline pilot. For the rest, they were extremely vague; their aspirations seemed to be about faith, emotion and hope rather than rational plan, 'I just know I'm going to…'. As an aside, these high aspirations were combined with a refusal to consider anything less glittering, such as an apprenticeship, which was rejected out of hand, albeit that such an aspiration would have been quite a stretch for them to achieve.
That said, I think this is a fascinating research report and congratulations to the Sutton Trust for producing it. For me, it suggests that there is a widespread positive sentiment among school students towards higher education that can be tapped to both widen participation into higher education and I would hope to encourage some students to pursue other educational goals. This is especially important as it comes at a time when there is an apparent lack of take up of apprenticeships http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8119483.stm I'd like to know what it is about the university narrative that has apparently captured student's imagination and can this be mobilised in other ways.
Ain’t it all a Blooming Shame
Inflation for the poor is twice the official rate http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jul/01/essentials-food-transport-recession
Dickensian London
Even though London has economically prospered for the last decade, child poverty remains endemic, with around one in four children living in poverty http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/24/children-deprivation-regional-trends-uk If ten years of economic boom was not enough to lift this sizable section of the population out of poverty I wonder what would.
Some Aiming Higher
The government was pleased to report that more young people from lower socio-economic groups are going into higher education than ever http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/F/fypsec_paper_2009 the BBC and other commentators were less delighted, pointing out that the improvement was very slight http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8129069.stm However, I thought the most incongruous aspect to this news was that it was publicised at the same time as the government announced a squeeze on higher education (HE) numbers http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/30/recession-university-places It seems odd to me that government are not funding this bulge, especially as I'm sure any shortage of places will disproportionately hit hard to reach groups. Such as here where mature students are identified as being at risk http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jul/09/university-places-shortage-recession If one didn't know better one might think the government was developing higher education policy in a disjointed fashion and making it up as they went along.
HE at FE
The benefits of pursuing higher education courses (HE) at further education colleges (FE) are increasingly being debated, with some arguing that HE study at an FE can be better for some students than going to a university http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/further/degrees-of-comfort-where-to-find-smaller-classes-and-caring-lecturers-1727051.html I think that FE colleges and other non-university suppliers are going to play an increasing role in the delivery of higher education over the next 10 years and although it does not figure in this linked article I think they will soon be competing with universities on price.