Pensions cut = strikes

[Big Momma]

Robinhood - 2011-03-22 8:47 PM

 

 

Given that the calculations put forward by all above can only be described as "back of fag-packet" and are rdependent on so many trends and assumptions, our kids are going to need degrees to be able to work out if and when they will be able to retire.

 

Unfortunately, degrees are not worth what they used to be. My daughter got her BSc and not even this opened up too many doors so she got a personal loan and went back and did her Masters degree. Again, very little opened up to her until one day at a party with freinds she got in to conversation with someone who told her that their agency was about to look for someone. She got in there quick and succesfully got the job. She is not on the level of earnings that Graduates are led to believe they will be on due to their 'degree' status but hey, at least she has got a job and can now start repaying the huge loans she has amassed, with interest. Pension, she doesn't earn enough to repay her student loans and save for a pension.

[Guest pelmetman]

I reckon BM, in years to come the rush to get degrees will be seen as a folly perpetrated by the education industry *-)

 

Thats the trouble with academics they aint very bright (lol)

[CliveH]

I was invited to give a talk to 6th Formers on finance 3 years ago at our local school that has a 6th form college attached. Now as both my boys went to this school I was pleased to do it.

 

When we got onto the subject of student debt, the lack of knowledge re how a bank account works and what the then student loan situation was at that point in time (it is worse now!) made the students sit up and take notice.

 

I was amazed that when I made the point that if you are going to come out of college/university with a large debt, then you ought to take great care in making sure that the qualification you achieve is one that makes you wanted in the job market, the Teacher that organised the talk got very agitated indeed.

 

I realised after a while that the teachers did not want any talk of their students NOT going on to higher education or any idea of their future degree not being of any great value.

 

Which of course many are not. I feel sorry for students today that get told a degree is a must have for a good job only to be realise that the degree they get has saddled them with a huge debt and their "Media Studies" Desmond has done nothing to help their career or their financial wellbeing.

 

Latest figures indicate that current students will be saddled with accepting low salaries so they do not have to pay back the loan or an effective "tax rate of 29% for a BRTP (Tax plus 9% SL repayment) or 49% for a HRTP on a proportion of their income. Which coupled with increased NIC's means that going into Higher education is something that needs very very careful thought indeed

 

This could become clearer after today with the budget as it is expected that NIC and income tax will be combined. In which case, it could transpire that a graduate in the future could be taxed overall to circa 31% if a BRTP and the repayment of the student loan could take the total hit on earnings to very high levels indeed because on every £ over £15,000 the total hit could be - 31% NIC and Income Tax plus 9% Student loan repayment. And this is exactly what we have today, but the separation of Income tax and NIC clouds the picture somewhat.

 

This will make vocational based degrees obtained via day and block release far more attractive. What’s more employers will have a say in what degree courses they want to sponsor, so we might just get people with good degrees in a relevant discipline combined with good work experience.

 

That would be infinitely better than what we have now with some students getting a huge debt for a valueless degree. The current system seems to support those in education rather than the future graduate or indeed the future employer.

 

[Guest pelmetman]

CliveH - 2011-03-23 7:38 AM

The current system seems to support those in education rather than the future graduate or indeed the future employer.

 

Exactly Clive :-D ......................The Education industry has been run by academics for academics for years, with peanuts spent on the vocationaly gifted kids *-)

 

 

[CliveH]

Yes you are right Dave, we had one child that was good at academic subjects but lazy (and he was! even he admits it now!!) and one boy that tried so hard it made you weep but rarely got out of the middle grades.

 

The later was virtually ignored by the school and we had battles with certain teachers who clearly were only interested in those who found getting A's not a problem.

 

We do need to focus more on vocational courses. This is what they do in Germany and it seems to work for them.

 

This from Wiki on Vocational Training

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational_education

 

"German language areas Vocational education is an important part of the education systems in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland (including the French and the Italian speaking parts of the country) and one element of the German model.

 

For example, in Germany a law (the Berufsausbildungsgesetz) was passed in 1969 which regulated and unified the vocational training system and codified the shared responsibility of the state, the unions, associations and chambers of trade and industry. The system is very popular in modern Germany: in 2001, two thirds of young people aged under 22 began an apprenticeship, and 78% of them completed it, meaning that approximately 51% of all young people under 22 have completed an apprenticeship. One in three companies offered apprenticeships in 2003; in 2004 the government signed a pledge with industrial unions that all companies except very small ones must take on apprentices.

 

The vocational education systems in the other German speaking countries are very similar to the German system and a vocational qualification from one country is generally also recognized in the other states within this area."

...............................

 

And its entry for the UK reads:-

 

 

The first "Trades School" in the UK was Stanley Technical Trades School (now Harris Academy South Norwood) which was designed, built and set up by William Stanley. The initial idea was thought of in 1901, and the school opened in 1907.[16]

 

The system of vocational education in the UK initially developed independently of the state, with bodies such as the RSA and City & Guilds setting examinations for technical subjects. The Education Act 1944 made provision for a Tripartite System of grammar schools, secondary technical schools and secondary modern schools, but by 1975 only 0.5% of British senior pupils were in technical schools, compared to two-thirds of the equivalent German age group.[17]

 

Successive recent British Governments have made attempts to promote and expand vocational education. In the 1970s, the Business And Technology Education Council was founded to confer further and higher education awards, particularly to further education colleges in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Conservative Government promoted the Youth Training Scheme, National Vocational Qualifications and General National Vocational Qualifications. However, youth training was marginalised as the proportion of young people staying on in full-time education increased.[17]

 

In 1994, publicly-funded Modern Apprenticeships were introduced to provide "quality training on a work-based (educational) route".[18] Numbers of apprentices have grown in recent years and the Department for Children, Schools and Families has stated its intention to make apprenticeships a "mainstream" part of England's education system.[19]

.................................

 

Now this is an amazing statistic!

 

"...........by 1975 only 0.5% of British senior pupils were in technical schools, compared to two-thirds of the equivalent German age group.[17]"

 

I really hope that that statistic has improved!

 

But sadly I think this is why the Germans can produce the likes of BMW and Audi and we tried and failed to produce a Rover/BL etc.

 

Mind you get the politics wrong and even the Germans can get it VERY wrong (lol) - just look at the Trabant 8-) (lol) (lol) (lol)

 

[Brian Kirby]

As a country we have, for years, focused only on the academic routes.  My cynical side says this is because the academically gifted are easy, and cheap, to educate.

On the other hand, the problem with apprenticeships, IMO, is that they are too narrow, liable to produce people trained and skilled to perform only one task.

What we need are proper technical colleges that broaden as far as possible the skill, and educational, base of the students, so that they are knowledgeable and adaptable, rather than merely capable of doing this, or that, job. 

This will not be possible for all, but it will be for the great majority, and that is what, IMO, is presently missing.  Economic change, and the jobs market pressures it brings, is increasing in rapidity and breadth.  It is no longer worth training people to do a single job, because the route for the individual to progress is into management, and that makes demands on numeracy, literacy, and interpersonal, skills that an individual trained "on the tools" is likely to lack, and because it is likely any one individual will have to change their area of work during their working lifetime, probably more than once.

Even within my own field, in construction, it is usual for the bricklayers, and the carpenters, to become the managers.  Why?  Because they are the more numerate trades.  Not all bricklayers, not all carpenters, but those with the naus to use their abilities to greater effect, and the ambition to do so.

To coin a phrase, give them the tools, and they will do the job.

However, this was about pensions, not education, though I think the two are linked - in two ways.  First, without the education, the individual's development is likely to be limited, so their prospect of comfort in old age will be diminished.  Second, with education, the individual should be equipped to cope with career change, and the varying demands of differing employers, far better than his less educated peers.  This does not imply an academic education, nor that it should be pursued to the exclusion of other ends, but just that for each individual to make the best of their life chances, they need the breadth of view, and insights, into what is going on around them to be able to make sound judgements about where, and when, they should head.

Too often people launch into anti-academic, or anti intellectual, postures, without considering how much of the structures that they, themselves, rely upon, have been provided by those they at times appear to despise.  If it is correct for an academic to admire and respect the work of a craftsmen, why is it wrong for the craftsman to admire and respect the work of the academic?  Do we want academics fixing cars, or building walls?  Do we want car mechanics, or bricklayers, designing nuclear power stations, or conducting research into new drugs?  Can the man who sweeps the factory floor design his own pension?  If not, then who?

[BGD]

"Can the man who sweeps the factory floor design his own pension? If not, then who?"

 

 

 

 

 

Damn that's some mighty fine sh1t you're smokin' there Brian.

[Brian Kirby]

Keeps one mellow, Bruce, keeps one mellow!  :-)

[Guest pelmetman]

I suspect you did well at school Brian and had the approval and backing of your teachers :D

 

Unfortunatly those of us with out an academic inclination receive a second rate service from the Education Industry *-) ...........That was my experience and I expect its just as bad now :-S

 

It would be nice if the education budget was spread fairly ie between the Academic/vocational, and the "propaganda" that you will only suceed if you pass exams ceases............................ as it is rubbish.

 

The only thing that stops a lot of the non academic from suceeding is that they leave school believing they are useless and stupid............... I indeed was left in no doubt by my teachers that I was a waste of space (lol)

[CliveH]

Whatever one smokes - I think even the person who sweeps the floor could come up with the idea that if you want to save for retirement:-

 

a) Whatever section of society you exist in, the rules should be fair and apply equally to all.

 

b) The rule makers should not be able to make rules that apply to just one section of society and not them.

 

c) This would mean that the rule makers with their tax payer funded pensions should not introduce a tax that targets funded pensions only.

 

d) Similarly, legislation to enhance the type of pension enjoyed by the rule makers but which places an unmanageable burden on pensions that actually have to accrue the funds to pay for these enhancements rather than just take more out of taxes as the rule makers pension provision does, should be disallowed.

 

e) If the above proves to be impossible and a fair "level playing field" cannot be created, then the sector that enjoys the unfair benefits must be drastically reduced so that the budget can be balanced.

 

I am sure even a sweeper could come up with those ideals because fairness to all is hardly rocket science is it? - and lets face it - it is only common sense, but common sense goes out the window when personal gain by the rule makers seems to be the main thrust behind the legislation that has been set down in the past.

 

Thank goodness we seem to have a more sensible approach in this parliament. I have not managed to find the exact quote from yesterday, but I am sure Osborne said that the State accounted nearly half of all the UK's income!

 

I think even a sweeper can work out that if the state accounts for 50% of all income then the other 50% that produces the income is going to get more than a bit pi$$ed if what the state spends is badly managed and used to line the rule makers pension pocket.

 

It aint rocket science >:-(

 

[CliveH]

Actually I was well pleased with the movement towards technical education as announced yesterday - a very positive move indeed.

[Guest pelmetman]

CliveH - 2011-03-24 9:24 AM

 

Actually I was well pleased with the movement towards technical education as announced yesterday - a very positive move indeed.

 

Indeed a move in the right direction :-D ...............but the money involved is just pence when compared to the overal education budget *-)

[Brian Kirby]

pelmetman - 2011-03-24 8:39 AM I suspect you did well at school Brian and had the approval and backing of your teachers :D

Hmmmmmmmm!  Not by any means the way it felt at the time!  :-)

Unfortunately those of us with out an academic inclination receive a second rate service from the Education Industry *-) ...........That was my experience and I expect its just as bad now :-S It would be nice if the education budget was spread fairly ie between the Academic/vocational, and the "propaganda" that you will only suceed if you pass exams ceases............................ as it is rubbish. The only thing that stops a lot of the non academic from suceeding is that they leave school believing they are useless and stupid...............

When our (more or less) generation was at school selection via the 11+ was commonplace, and those who didn't pass generally got a very raw deal.  That was what I was referring to when I said above that I thought the focus on the academically gifted was in part because they were easy, and cheap, to educate.  The original intention (1944 Education Act) was that there shuld be three grades of schools, Grammar, Technical, and Secondary Modern (or similar terminology).  I think all education authorities got the grammar bit (with widely varying standards for an 11 + pass, to suit the number of available places), and very few indeed did the other two, with most opting for a single school for everyone else.  How good that school was inevitably depended on how well it was funded, and how good the teachers were.  It was assumed the best qualified teachers (not the same as the best teachers, few then had specific teacher training: if you had a degree it was assumed you could teach - many couldn't) should go the the grammar schools, leaving the rest of the school intake with the rest of the teachers.  So yes, the deal for those who couldn't get a grammar school place could be very bad indeed.  I think it is generally better now, with comprehensives, but I still think the money goes to the academically gifted kids, for the same reasons as above, and we have never faced up to the true societal cost of leaving the less academic kids so badly under-served.

I indeed was left in no doubt by my teachers that I was a waste of space (lol)

So was I, but I didn't believe them!  Cleverness is not an exclusively academic attribute, and does not equate simply with usefulness.  It's all about horses for courses, and the about horses being to choose the right courses for them.  If only life were simple, eh?  :-)

[Gwendolyn]

Brian Kirby - 2011-03-24 6:27 PM

 

but I still think the money goes to the academically gifted kids,

 

Have you tried teaching lately??? The money spent on the children with ADHD [!] and other "problems"; the attention given to them; the assistants employed to "care" for them; the "enrichment centres" built and equipped for them, would disprove your assertion. And maybe the academically gifted are catered for [but they have, usually, the support of parents and are naturally gifted]. It's the quiet children in the middle - the ones without the "problems"; the ones not "gifted" - who get overlooked. And I write from recent experience of "Supply Teaching".

And believe me, teaching the academically gifted is NOT easy, as someone has said, ..... it is very challenging.

But spare your concern for the "average" pupils in the middle.

[BGD]

Gwendolyn - 2011-03-24 11:35 PM

 

Brian Kirby - 2011-03-24 6:27 PM

 

but I still think the money goes to the academically gifted kids,

 

Have you tried teaching lately??? The money spent on the children with ADHD [!] and other "problems"; the attention given to them; the assistants employed to "care" for them; the "enrichment centres" built and equipped for them, would disprove your assertion. And maybe the academically gifted are catered for [but they have, usually, the support of parents and are naturally gifted]. It's the quiet children in the middle - the ones without the "problems"; the ones not "gifted" - who get overlooked. And I write from recent experience of "Supply Teaching".

And believe me, teaching the academically gifted is NOT easy, as someone has said, ..... it is very challenging.

But spare your concern for the "average" pupils in the middle.

 

 

 

 

Sorry but I don't spare a thought for any of them.

 

The bottom line is that the amount of taxpayers money that goes on Education is rising exponentially. Yet the product of that industry is getting poorer and poorer.

 

The education system is broke.

 

It ain't fit for purpose.

It is churning out vast numbers of young people who cannot read, cannot write, are incapable of basic maths, have not been taught social skills, listening skills, discipline, respect.

 

It has devalued the old O and A level systems with GCSE's and modern AS and A levels that everyone passes so they are politically correct but utterly worthless as a comparative measure of academic achievement.

 

The system is hopeless. Part time teachers on 40K per year plus gold plated pension schemes, funded by taxpayers, churning out failure after failure....products which are utterly useless in the labour market.

 

Does anyone know how many teachers were fired for incompetence in the past decade?

Throughout the whole of England and Wales?

I'll tell you.

6.

Yes. Six.

 

The entire system is rotten and is failing children, parents and employers. Woefully. Whilst the rest of the world forges ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CliveH]

Certainly those that we get to interview for jobs are woefully short of what is loosely termed a "work ethic" as well as basic skills.

 

and by basic I mean letter writing, punctuation, etc.

 

the number of times I have heard "I want to get into marketing" from people who sadly seem to be incapable of marketing themselves.

 

Some do shine with natural ability, but many just seem to be turned out of a system that has no idea as to what is needed. Unless of course the goal of the system is further education rather than earning ability or employability? :-S

 

So yes, on top of everything else!! :-D, the education system needs an overhaul as well.

 

In the meantime - we have taken to employing two part time "mature" individuals as administrators for each single job on a job-share basis because they can actually do the job. This is more expensive than taking on a younger person for the role, but we feel, for our business, it is far better value.

 

 

 

[Brian Kirby]

Gwendolyn - 2011-03-24 11:35 PM

Brian Kirby - 2011-03-24 6:27 PM but I still think the money goes to the academically gifted kids,

Have you tried teaching lately??? The money spent on the children with ADHD [!] and other "problems"; the attention given to them; the assistants employed to "care" for them; the "enrichment centres" built and equipped for them, would disprove your assertion. And maybe the academically gifted are catered for [but they have, usually, the support of parents and are naturally gifted]. It's the quiet children in the middle - the ones without the "problems"; the ones not "gifted" - who get overlooked. And I write from recent experience of "Supply Teaching". And believe me, teaching the academically gifted is NOT easy, as someone has said, ..... it is very challenging. But spare your concern for the "average" pupils in the middle.

The problem of trying to over simplify what is, in reality more complex, I'm afraid Gwendolyn. 

It was exactly those you describe as being in the middle I had in mind as the losers.  It is the academic "stars" who seem to me to get the attention, and much of the focus, and those with behavioural problems (I get the impression rather more than with an actual intellectual disability), who seem to have larger sums spent on them. 

The academically gifted I refer to are, indeed, those with natural abilities.  Those who readily absorb, and can repeat back, facts, and need little to no repetition to hold them.  Learning progresses faster, so more is learnt.  On the odd occasion we had lessons from a maths teacher normally taught the top stream.  He would scrawl formulae across the blackboard, while explaining how they worked; always facing the blackboard.  He then erased them, putting up different formulae, and so on, usually while we were still trying to copy them down and understand what they did.  So, at the end of the lesson, we had a lot of half written formulae, and no understanding of what they did or why.  Emerging, and comparing notes, it was clear none of us had the first idea what he'd been on about.  Yet - those who were regularly taught by him did keep up, and understood, despite his eccentricities.  So two hard, and very valuable, lessons learnt.  First, that I wasn't so gifted, second that others were. 

But, for those who are not so gifted, the need to demonstrate why something is useful to know, or the need to repeat, or explain differently, until all the little lights go on, slows the pace, and restricts what is acquired.  This imposes costs.  Teaching practical skills, like woodwork, metalwork, home economics, cookery, art, pottery, music, etc, require that schools have workshops, kitchens, studios, kilns, instruments etc, and the specialist teachers to go with them, all of which are far more expensive to provide than is required for the study of Greek history, or English literature. 

Those are the costs that I have in mind, that I think make the academically gifted easier and cheaper to teach, and so give a bigger bang for the buck when a school, an education authority, or a government, wishes to extol the virtues of its education programmes. 

We all get told about the A* passes, and the numbers entering "Oxbridge", but not about the far less spectacular attainments gained by others who may have had to work far harder, and been far more challenging to teach, just to come third.  That focus drives the funding, and the perception is gained that the stars were not just more gifted, but that they are correspondingly more worthy, so becoming the idealised model for what education should achieve, while those with a broader range of skills, who perhaps have good academic abilities in a limited range of subject areas, but greater natural abilities in the more practical subjects, seem to me to get passed by. 

So with higher education.  The polytechnics and technical colleges that used to cater for this group - the awkward squad, the natural crossbenchers - lost out to universities where even the practical has to be graced with academic trappings.  So art becomes the skill of describing in words what the art requires be described in two, or three, dimensions.

I'm glad to see Osborne emphasising the need for technical colleges.  We need our research chemists, our physicists and mathematicians, and our philosophers, but we also need our structural and mechanical engineers, our builders and bakers - and even our pouffe makers :-) - in far greater numbers, and it seems to me we have been neglecting their education, relative to those with the academic gifts, ever since I was first aware of education.  It was true for me, and even more true for Carole (my other half).  It was true for our children.  And it still seems to be true now our grand-daughter is at school.  Better, but still short of good.  7/10, but could do so much better.

It is, for me, the consequence of successive governments allowing their own brands of political dogma to dictate the outcomes, instead of looking at what works in the real world, and evolving an evidence based educational structure to serve the interests of the widest possible group of its users, in agreement with all political parties, and then adopting it as the settled, long term, national educational compact with the population at large.  Fat chance, I think!  :-D

And no, I have never taught, only being a consumer of education, personally and vicariously, from primary to higher, over what is now just beginning to enter its third generation.  So what I say is not the view of the provider, but it is how it has felt to me as the recipient: pupil, student, parent and grand parent.  Oh yes, and I went to a Poly!  :-)

[Guest pelmetman]

Brian Kirby - 2011-03-25 11:31 AM

and even our pouffe makers :-) - in far greater numbers,

 

Eh? 8-) ............Steady on Brian................We dont want to flood the market :D (lol)

 

I have to agree with everthing you say in your post, and as you say its a complicated subject, but my overal impression is that the education system has been hyjacked by the academics, who in the main look down on vocational training *-)

 

I thinks Clives post about how they do things in Germany very revealing, it demonstrates how our education system has lost its way!

 

Gwendolyn,

 

I would not do your job for all the tea in China :D

 

As for ADHD I blame computer games ;-) As this problem has only reared its head since the advent of such things, not that the companies that make them would ever admit such things *-) ............To much money involved :D