Are degrees in the UK value for money?

Jackieboy

bugslet wrote: »

There are degrees in transport management. Wouldn't touch a graduate with a bargepole unless they had actual driving experience. Far better getting someone that has come up through the ranks.

My admittedly limited experience of transport management grads is that they are useless in a reald world situation, though they know some really fancy phrases:(

I think you have to remember that TM degees in the UK cover far more than lorry driving, including transport by air and sea. It would be virtually impossible to have practical skills and experience in all these areas.

bugslet

I know what you mean Jackieboy, but when you get some twerp doing some planning and it all goes pete tong because in the real world, it doesn't behave as it does in theory, and your the one trying to pick up the pieces....

Or when you bid for a contract constructed by a TM degree holder, lose it and then find out three months later that the rates have been put up by 10% because the contractor actually couldn't make it pay, which frankly was obvious, you wonder what on earth they learned.

I lost part of a contract to a major player last year. People are that frustrated that they end up coming to me to get freight delivered; I now charge more because as far as I'm concerned I'm an ad hoc supplier. That should make me happy, but it doesn't because it shouldn't have come to awarding a contract to someone that doesn't have the ability. Makes me grumpy.:(

SingleSue

Jackieboy wrote: »

I think you have to remember that TM degees in the UK cover far more than lorry driving, including transport by air and sea. It would be virtually impossible to have practical skills and experience in all these areas.

We pretty much came through the ranks (I worked for a shipping line), I started for a haulage company in accounts as an office junior, moved to a freight forwarder, then a clearance agent and then finally made my move into the shipping lines which brought all the knowledge gained from all the different companies I worked for together (I didn't stay in accounts).

Ok, I was never able to drive a lorry (tried it once, scared the life out of me but made me more appreciative of the difficulties of parking/cornering/vision etc) but all of us had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done over the graduates that were brought in on the graduate programme plus we had had years to get used to the drivers, their quirks and the realities of life that cannot be predicted by a computer programme.

That said, those same companies that you used to be able to work your way up in are now insisting on degrees or paying a pittance on an apprencticeship that is not really needed just to get a start in the company, those not insisting on a degree are now becoming the minority so what are the young people supposed to do really.

Cakeguts

Back to the degrees that are the standard of A levels taken by people who feel as if they are 200. If you get a good grade in a degree from a low ranked university you can train as a teacher. So it is now quite possible to have teachers whose education level is the roughly the same as someone who got 3 A levels 50 years ago. This means that in some schools there are teachers who are less well educated that those that went to the old teacher training colleges. So much for saying that all teachers have to have degrees?

How many parents check where the degrees of their children's teachers have come from?

kabayiri

Cakeguts wrote: »

...
How many parents check where the degrees of their children's teachers have come from?

It would be considered an insult. There is instead an air of untouchability about the education profession.

I set 2 Math's teachers a test actually.

Okay, it was tongue in cheek during an open evening.

One got it right .... one got it wrong !

(the question, btw, was on an 11+ some years ago!)

SingleSue

Cakeguts wrote: »

Back to the degrees that are the standard of A levels taken by people who feel as if they are 200. If you get a good grade in a degree from a low ranked university you can train as a teacher. So it is now quite possible to have teachers whose education level is the roughly the same as someone who got 3 A levels 50 years ago. This means that in some schools there are teachers who are less well educated that those that went to the old teacher training colleges. So much for saying that all teachers have to have degrees?

How many parents check where the degrees of their children's teachers have come from?

Not quite on topic but related....youngest son had to correct his English teacher for her use of their, there and they're.

Mind you, she thought I had made up the word bombastic, I had to explain the meaning of it to her.

She was head of English at his high school and he was the grand age of 15 at the time, to say I was concerned at her educational standard is an understatement!

kabayiri

SingleSue wrote: »

Not quite on topic but related....youngest son had to correct his English teacher for her use of their, there and they're.

Mind you, she thought I had made up the word bombastic, I had to explain the meaning of it to her.

She was head of English at his high school and he was the grand age of 15 at the time, to say I was concerned at her educational standard is an understatement!

I'm conflicted on this point.

I can absolutely agree with the desire to maintain a set of standards. It is how we differentiate the quality of our educational product, after all.

However....if English (or new language "B") were being invented today, it would dispense with many meaningless words and simplify things like tense.

Maybe the visionary is the educationalist who seeks a new format capable of being achieved by all who study?

Jackieboy

Cakeguts wrote: »

Back to the degrees that are the standard of A levels taken by people who feel as if they are 200. If you get a good grade in a degree from a low ranked university you can train as a teacher. So it is now quite possible to have teachers whose education level is the roughly the same as someone who got 3 A levels 50 years ago. This means that in some schools there are teachers who are less well educated that those that went to the old teacher training colleges. So much for saying that all teachers have to have degrees?

How many parents check where the degrees of their children's teachers have come from?

I agree, but feel that I ought to point out that you didn't need A levels to train as a teacher 50 years ago.

Jackieboy

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm conflicted on this point.

I can absolutely agree with the desire to maintain a set of standards. It is how we differentiate the quality of our educational product, after all.

However....if English (or new language "B") were being invented today, it would dispense with many meaningless words and simplify things like tense.

Maybe the visionary is the educationalist who seeks a new format capable of being achieved by all who study?

Sounds pretty much like "all shall have prizes" to me!

happyandcontented

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm conflicted on this point.

I can absolutely agree with the desire to maintain a set of standards. It is how we differentiate the quality of our educational product, after all.

However....if English (or new language "B") were being invented today, it would dispense with many meaningless words and simplify things like tense.

Maybe the visionary is the educationalist who seeks a new format capable of being achieved by all who study?

However, whilst we have what we have, anyone teaching English should certainly have a good vocabulary and be able to use homophones correctly.