MSE News: George Osborne to make £10bn welfare cuts

krisskross

Morlock wrote: »

Okay, that explains your semi-literacy, I am multi-lingual so perhaps we could converse in your mother tongue. What is your first language?

I do hope it is Mandarin or Swahili. Japanese would be good as well.

Dunroamin

Morlock wrote: »

That doesn't answer the question of why you consider 'us' to be highly educated. Do you consider a BA/BSc to be highly educated, a Masters, a PhD? What qualifications do you have?

Well, I cant speak for you but I have a BA and two post graduate professional qualifications, my husband has an MA.

Not brilliant, but better than average

clemmatis

krisskross wrote: »

Ed and David Milliband do not have particularly well off parents.

I knew Ralph Miliband. He was not rich, however, he was when I knew him a Reader, and later, he was a Professor; and his books sold very well. (University pay doesn't always rise and fall together with other professional salaries; and when he was a Professor, there were no "pay top Professors more" deals... so I can't really give a figure.)

So, it depends on what you mean. Ed and David weren't perhaps "very well off" in the way Morlock means (I'm not sure), but they'd have been sent to a comprehensive school for principled reasons, not simply financial. And they had massive middle-class cultural capital. Their merit is that they know it.

Anny_2

Those born into the privileged class and wealth have much more opportunities to gain academic qualifications, it does not mean, however. that someone is intelligent because they can 'retain information and cite others' which are really the only skills needed to achieve a first degree - in my opinion.

'Tertiary education is the means by which the notes of the teacher become the notes of the pupil...without passing through the brains of either.' (author unknown)

An example of the above quote is - at university in the second year of my first degree I wrote a paper on Anthony Giddens 'Duality of Nature' I had one or two 'glimpses' of what it actually meant, but I really could not retain my understanding of it, but with notes taken in lectures and semesters and plenty of quotes I passed the paper with high marks, that to me is not intelligence - it was more like 'smoke and mirrors'.

There is now wide disquiet about the value of academic study.

Some people studying for a first degree become arrogant and derogatory to others they do not consider on an ' intellectual level' with them, I have witnessed this quite a few times and find it both immature and quite frankly ridiculous.

That Oxford graduates are somehow 'elite' is a matter of debate, yet still many will say 'he/she got a first at Oxford' in order to try to confer an higher ranking to that individual than say someone who studied and gained a first at Sunderland University or through the Open University...and because of the urban myths regarding Oxford University many unenlightened people will accept that it is indeed an higher ranking degree.

At Oxford University it is only the honours classes that are applied differently, also Cambridge University and all Scottish Universities award honours classes differently...otherwise, a degree is a degree.

Clemmatis - my first degree was a 2.1 from Hull, who knows - maybe I could one day be the second woman to run the country.

krissKross - 'Game, set and match to FBaby I think' - is there really any need?

Morlock

Dunroamin wrote: »

Well, I cant speak for you but I have a BA and two post graduate professional qualifications, my husband has an MA.

Not brilliant, but better than average

So, you are not highly educated at all, but are a post graduate.

Mara69

Clemmatis - I think we will have to agree to disagree.

Glad we both agree, however, that Mumz has demonstrated her racism, xenophobia and ignorance.

MissMoneypenny

Anny wrote: »

Those born into the privileged class and wealth have much more opportunities to gain academic qualifications,

Every child in the UK has the chance to get an eductaion; this is not a 3rd world country. 'Born poor, stay poor' is something that just exists in some peoples minds and it isn't true.

MissMoneypenny

krisskross wrote: »

This country needs to have a stronger welfare system in which a person has a certain amount of welfare support dependent on what they have paid in to the UK.... when that is used up they have to find some other way of supporting themselves.

This is exactly what the country needs.

clemmatis

Anny wrote: »

Clemmatis - my first degree was a 2.1 from Hull, who knows - maybe I could one day be the second woman to run the country.

Anny, I chose Hull because Tom Watson went there (NB, so did Anthony Giddens!) but also, of course, because it simply isn't posh.

I said 2.2 to be annoying, however, there certainly have been people with 2.2s who could have run the country, and run it better than many Oxbridge Firsts.

but I really could not retain my understanding of it, but with notes taken in lectures and semesters and plenty of quotes I passed the paper with high marks, that to me is not intelligence - it was more like 'smoke and mirrors'.

Yes. Not that I know, I wasn't there..., but yes. And it will get worse. I believe the teachers who complain their best students have to dumb down to get A* (because of the way the marking's done). It's a shame.

clemmatis

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Every child in the UK has the chance to get an eductaion; this is not a 3rd world country. 'Born poor, stay poor' is something that just exists in some peoples minds and it isn't true.

I think perhaps you misread Anny's

have much more opportunities to gain academic qualifications,

which is quite simply true.

And I think you don't understand that the argument is not that all people born poor stay poor, but rather that they are far more likely to remain poor than those born rich are likely to become poor.

And in Britain and the USA, that's getting worse.