Son dropping out of college-am I still entitled to tax credits

dktreesea

bestpud wrote: »

In my experience, we've turned out nurses who see themselves as graduates first and foremost.

Too many see themselves as above a 'carer' when, years ago, caring was what brought most people to the profession.

21 year olds with a degree but no life experience and an over inflated ego do not make good nurses.

In this area at least, you can tell who will get a job quickly long before they leave university.

There is some excellent nurses out there but overall I'd say the profession is in crisis.

Nursing may well be a skill that is better suited to the on the job apprenticeships/training of the old days rather than the non patient facing degree courses they do today. But even so, having educated them, surely it makes sense to offer them at least a couple of years of a guaranteed, paid, work placement so that they can at least learn how to apply their skills in a real environment.

What is the point of training people, (leaving aside whether we are training people in disciplines that the country currently needs), if we are also not also prepared to subsidise work placements for them so they can at least get the experience they need to compete in the real world?

Dunroamin

dktreesea wrote: »

T

Even if we didn't have open borders, is it really a valid defence of the current, relatively speaking, lack of education opportunities for young people (when I went to uni everyone who wanted a place could get one, and you got paid a grant to go. I certainly didn't come out with any tuition fees debt!) to say that we shouldn't offer someone the education they want because other people now working don't want the competition?

I don't know how old you are but it certainly wasn't true when I was young that there was a university place for everybody who wanted one. It's far easier nowadays to go to university which is why 40% of students go, compared to my generation when only 10% went.

In fact, there are far more educational opportunities nowadays than there has ever been, both vocational and academic; I really cannot understand why you keep saying that opportunities are limited.

Vocational education has to work hand in hand with local employers or the practical placements required to gain the relevant qualifications won't be available. If you ran a hairdressing salon, how happy would you be to offer work placements to several students each year, knowing that the more places you offered, the more competitors you would have?

Colleges have to keep local employers on board or they won't be able to offer any courses at all.

dktreesea

Dunroamin wrote: »

I don't know how old you are but it certainly wasn't true when I was young that there was a university place for everybody who wanted one. It's far easier nowadays to go to university which is why 40% of students go, compared to my generation when only 10% went.

In fact, there are far more educational opportunities nowadays than there has ever been, both vocational and academic; I really cannot understand why you keep saying that opportunities are limited.

If 40 people want to study something and have the entry qualifications to do so, but there are only 20 places, I would say that means opportunities to study that particular subject are limited. One year recently, on one of their courses, our local university offered people places conditional on them getting 4 Bs at Higher level. That suggests that people achieving those qualifications would be good enough to do the course. The eventual minimum qualification they took in that year's intake was 3 As and a B. So, given how oversubscribed this course was, one of the sciences, I would have said there were plenty of opeople who had the prerequisites but opportunities to actually get onto the course were very limited.

Dunroamin wrote: »

Vocational education has to work hand in hand with local employers or the practical placements required to gain the relevant qualifications won't be available. If you ran a hairdressing salon, how happy would you be to offer work placements to several students each year, knowing that the more places you offered, the more competitors you would have?

Colleges have to keep local employers on board or they won't be able to offer any courses at all.

That goes for just about anything. Should we train young accountants, knowing that at some point they may be competing against us for jobs? Or engineers, child care assistants, bus drivers? Should we stop offering children courses to become chefs, just because there are already too many restaurants?

Not wanting to pass on knowledge to young people coming through our professions is an incredibly scarcity conscious attitude to have. Just because you have a job and don't want too much competition doesn't give you the right to deprive others of also gaining that knowledge if that's what they want to do.

Dunroamin

dktreesea wrote: »

If 40 people want to study something and have the entry qualifications to do so, but there are only 20 places, I would say that means opportunities to study that particular subject are limited. One year recently, on one of their courses, our local university offered people places conditional on them getting 4 Bs at Higher level. That suggests that people achieving those qualifications would be good enough to do the course. The eventual minimum qualification they took in that year's intake was 3 As and a B. So, given how oversubscribed this course was, one of the sciences, I would have said there were plenty of opeople who had the prerequisites but opportunities to actually get onto the course were very limited.



That goes for just about anything. Should we train young accountants, knowing that at some point they may be competing against us for jobs? Or engineers, child care assistants, bus drivers? Should we stop offering children courses to become chefs, just because there are already too many restaurants?

Not wanting to pass on knowledge to young people coming through our professions is an incredibly scarcity conscious attitude to have. Just because you have a job and don't want too much competition doesn't give you the right to deprive others of also gaining that knowledge if that's what they want to do.

Employers have the right not to offer work placements if they don't want to and nothing's going to change that. Are you expecting the government to legislate to force them to do so?

Not sure why you include bus drivers in your list as, to the best of my knowledge, there aren't courses for that but we do young people a great disservice if we encourage them to train for non existent jobs. This is the reason that city centre colleges don't tend to offer courses in agriculture and colleges in the Midlands don't offer boat building courses.

Universities have to make increased grade offers because of falling educational standards and not all universities accept the same levels. For a science degree, there will have been places available at other universities with different entry qualifications ond often conversion courses for those with qualifications in different subjects.

I'm afraid that you have a rather narrow view of vocational education/training at FE colleges whose purpose in life (as I've said before) is to meet the needs of local business and industry just as much as it is to offer courses to students who just fancy doing a particular subject. Responsible colleges take their students' futures seriously and try to avoid churning out students who won't be able to gain the full qualification because of the lack of work placements, never mind encouraging them to face a future of unemployment in an overstocked market.

dktreesea

Dunroamin wrote: »

Employers have the right not to offer work placements if they don't want to and nothing's going to change that. Are you expecting the government to legislate to force them to do so?

Not sure why you include bus drivers in your list as, to the best of my knowledge, there aren't courses for that but we do young people a great disservice if we encourage them to train for non existent jobs. This is the reason that city centre colleges don't tend to offer courses in agriculture and colleges in the Midlands don't offer boat building courses.

Universities have to make increased grade offers because of falling educational standards and not all universities accept the same levels. For a science degree, there will have been places available at other universities with different entry qualifications ond often conversion courses for those with qualifications in different subjects.

I'm afraid that you have a rather narrow view of vocational education/training at FE colleges whose purpose in life (as I've said before) is to meet the needs of local business and industry just as much as it is to offer courses to students who just fancy doing a particular subject. Responsible colleges take their students' futures seriously and try to avoid churning out students who won't be able to gain the full qualification because of the lack of work placements, never mind encouraging them to face a future of unemployment in an overstocked market.

My first thought was I expect employers to be responsible members of their community, including providing suitably paid work to people in their local communities. But I can see this could work against their other imperative, to maximise shareholders returns. This latter objective usually involves trying to do the work with as few a people as possible. People in situations where their own workload has increased, when people have left but not been replaced, could attest to this as being a policy widely practised, particularly during the recession.

Just because bus driving - and truck driving for that matter - isn't a skill one acquires at college, it is a skill, and requires considerable training.

People who do get through college often face difficulty getting work because they don't have experience. Why can't the government partner with local businesses to provide paid work once the qualification is completed for a certain amount of time? This could be partly funded by the government, but, from the participant's point of view, they would have a properly paid job and would be paid by the employer.

The garage across from us would be happy to take on an apprentice if it were funded like that and if he could be sure of the apprentice's commitment for a couple of years, because it is part of their qualifications, say. He just can't afford it if he has to pay the full whack.

Wicked_witch

Each time I read a dsk post I agree with that- then ONW posts and I agree with that! Guess dsk chimes with my idealistic side and onw with my realistic, make- the- best- of- it side.

I just hope neither of you goes into politics.

poet123

Another issue with work placements is the huge amount of red tape required to get one up and running. The H&S risk assessments and requirements on an employer taking a college student are now very onerous. So many just won't bother. Add into that the students who go out on placement and either don't turn up, are late, won't take instruction etc, etc, and so eventually lose us that placement and you can see why it is such a hard job.

That is the reality of vocational courses, and all that is added into the mix when looking at the viability and numbers for courses.

dktreesea

I was thinking more of once they graduate, so they get interviewed as part of that year's graduate intake, but the government funds part of their salaries for the first couple of years or so, just so they can get experience and the employer can afford to give them some. While the minimum wage is only just over £6 an hour, by the time employers have included NI contributions, the cost of managing the payroll, of covering the staff when they are away on paid leave like holidays and various other compliance costs like public liability, it comes to a lot more than £6 an hour. No wonder so many employers these days subcotract out the work rather than taking on permanent employees. it's a pity though, for the new graduates, who desperately need on the job experience.