'Vocation, vocation, vocation'

The bright stars of glittery universities will soon be out of sight for those who are financially in the gutter. 

The recession has inadvertently underlined in thick, red marker pen some of the mistakes within our education system. Now that the United Kingdom has been in the red for six consecutive terms, new questions must be brought to the table: are we returning to the elitist chapter of our academic history (albeit with an American business model), or can we turn a new leaf altogether?

Tony Blair’s New Labour mantra in 1996, “Education, education, education”, has correlated with the 21st century’s most notable increases in tuition costs: annual fees were introduced, doubled, and will soon top the £5-7,500 benchmark. There are two engines at work in ‘University factories’, and their cogs can sometimes be out of sync, which causes friction. Directors are in charge of ‘rust-prevention’ using liquid assets, while teaching staff check for quality control. So university bank accounts are happy to oblige Blair’s dream that half the population should 'buy' degrees, while lecturers  are bemoaning the levels of intellect as a result.

The turn of the decade has heralded ‘Change’ as its buzzword. World Skills, directed in London by Chris Humphreys, is humming the same innovative tune as it prepares for a panoply of skills across all sectors – including IT and hairdressing – to be represented in its 2011 fair. According to Mr Humphreys, the UK's leading expert on employment, unemployment and skills:

We put far too much emphasis on academic skills…every young person in the UK deserves the chance to smile at their own success, and our system doesn’t give them that.

Humphreys wants to give young entrepreneurs an opportunity to beam the shining torch of success that is potentially ablaze in all the hearts of Britain’s youth:

Because to be honest with you, we will get the change if the young people do first. Everyone else will follow because their power and their voice, their decision-making, actually will make the difference.

For cynics, this convention could be the UK’s way of showcasing itself as the second biggest 'change-monger' on the globe…after America. But pushing vocational education seems a reasonably pragmatic modification to strive for, especially if it took place alongside a well-implemented return to apprenticeships (not everyone can be an entrepreneur). Within university degrees, subjects could also be divided along ‘vocational’ (Business studies) and academic distinctions (Philosophy and English) and priced accordingly, rather than on the brand power of each institution.

‘Meritocracy’ is another concept very proudly appropriated as the foundation of all Western democratic societies. Our MPs enjoyed a free university education based on merit, since they enrolled at a time when the supply of courses on offer still outweighed demand. Now that education is such a valued commodity, seen as a means to an end, youngsters are willing to make sacrifices to one day ‘smile at their own success’. Worryingly, conservative policy seems to be hinting at the right course of action here: abolishing student fees and reducing the number of people who enter higher education. Of course the risk is hidden between the lines: ‘reducing the number’ would favour private school candidates over the 'bog standard' majority.

Meritocracy cannot realistically exist when bright children have to attend secondary schools that can't provide the learning environment required for success. You would need to have attended a school similar to the one featured in Kidulthood to understand how deep the intellectual vacuum in comprehensives can be, as hours of the curriculum are wasted (through necessity) on keeping the peace with A LOT of discipline. While we wait for a wider societal change to miraculously happen, why not let the poor bright children go to free grammar schools with an 11+ system? Why hold all children back in the name of equality, while those who have rich parents can get ahead?  The government wants to extend compulsory academic education until the age of 18 by 2013. This against a backdrop where bullying is out of control on the UK's playgrounds, and many pupils are simply not interested in traditional academic paths, which would at best take them to Southbank university if they were.

Class structures in the UK are set in stone, and the deeply ingrained delusion that degrees reinforce equal standards needs to be weeded out. The ‘G5’, or top five universities within the Russel group, are currently conversing in secret lobbies to pressure the abolition of the government’s capped fees. They claim to require more private funding to maintain their excellent teaching standards, which will render the gulf between elite and average universities even wider. Ivy envelops buildings with a protective layer so that redbrick universities don’t suffer any damage from bad weather; the reputations of Oxford and Cambridge are too big to fail in recessionary climates. The Imperial, LSE and UCL alumni flourish with roots that are built to last: they are the envy of those with no ivy. Students graduating from old polytechnics are being run into the mud, since the rest of society tarnishes the yellow-bricked walls of their institutions with contempt.

The financial crisis has given more transparency to people's understanding of the world: it is now clear that societal structures are built of air, founded on speculation, and sustained with empty promises. Universities, which are run like businesses, market slogans to promise futures that they cannot deliver. If respected universities impose astronomical fees as done in the USA, then those lower down the league tables will do the same to make their courses appear as desirable. Should these institutions not focus on teaching apprenticeships instead? The only skill that they rub off onto their 'customers' seems to be that of ‘selling oneself’: aggrandising one's achievements by turning one's curriculum vitae into embellishments of little veritas.

Young people need to be told a few truths, and given realistic goals instead of being promised glamorous careers in 'vague futures' that blot out the realistic ones available now - before the years of debts are accumulated. The screen of smoke and mirrors surrounding further education is ultimately counter-productive for the economy, since no one seems to know which skills to hone into for the benefit of society at large. Top unis should stay selective in their intellectual criteria for admittance, but not close their doors to candidates from lower socio-economic backgrounds: a fact concomitant with US-style fee impositions. State schools will require change from the bottom up if every pupil is to have an equal chance of access and consequent success in life. Pupils need to know that 'The University of Life' (developing skills outside of traditional academia) can make for a better and far cheaper CV to land them a job.

Video of the London World Skills convention to take place in 2011:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgJoccFiqKE

TWO FRUSTRATED GIRLS IN LONDON

Should you further your education? These girls have degrees, experience, and a can-do attitude. Yet the 'real world' seems to hold mixed views over their academic achievements.

Redundancies keep mounting as unemployment escalates to heights of 7.9% in the UK. The recession may have reached its peek, but companies traditionally still shed workers after they have returned to growth. Sectors most affected have been business, finance, and construction: mostly male-lead industries. As a result, many women have become the sole breadwinners in their households (whether willingly or not, they have always been a favourite for short-term, part-time contracts). The two girls I spoke to represented yet another group: young people. For them it was hard to even get their foot in the door.

There are now 946,000 young people out of work in the UK, and their prospects do not look promising. With the budget deficit going through the roof, a pension crisis looming ahead, and an extra £40 billion of taxpayers’ money going to RBS and Lloyds this November, a whole generation will have to foot the bill for decades to come. Yet at the moment, one in five graduates cannot even find work: the first rung on the employment ladder is slippery, since companies are stepping up the competition in every recruitment round.

Charlotte Edwins* just completed her MA in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London. (Having obtained a 1st in her BA.) She is looking for work to fund her future studies, with her CV boasting extensive experience in finance, retail, as a student ambassador, and even in the police force. She told me about how the recession has tripped her up: 

It was my impression that you did a degree to get up on the career ladder. Unfortunately I have done four years and two qualifications but I am having to start at the very bottom.

Charlotte is understandably frustrated: she has applied to at least 15 jobs since September, been contacted for only one interview, and the job that was earmarked for an internal candidate!

Young people have always been among the most vulnerable groups in times of economic hardship. Their lack of training, skills and references make them less attractive to prospective employers, especially when waves of more experienced workers are flooding the reserve labour pool. Charlotte’s future plans hardly seem surprising therefore: she now wants to stay in education for good, and become an English lecturer. Statistics indicate that BAs are no longer a passport into well-paid employment, even outside the realm of academic careers. Among those who graduated in 2005 with postgraduate qualifications, 85% had been in graduate level jobs since leaving university compared with 56% of those with just a bachelor’s degree.

Unpicking which sectors will value further education can be a thorny business however. Post-grad student Victoria Chan* graduated from Oxford University with a 2:2 in Engineering, then went on to Imperial to do an MA in Engineering in Medicine, before completing a PhD in Biomechanics/Bioengineering. When she started the PhD she expected to be head-hunted for a job. She explains what actually happened:

A lot of the time, PhDs are competing with fresh grads for places and companies do not consider the PhD to be an advantage. In fact I was told outright by Deloitte that they would hire someone with a 2.1 over me, regardless of the institution that I went to or the 2 further degrees that I held. I was gutted!

She had been looking for work since October 2008, and was finally hired by Detica in September 2009.

The shortfall of entry-level jobs is making competition for vacancies more fierce, and young people increasingly frustrated with the arduous application process. On top of that, and as with most women in the labour market, Charlotte has found herself applying for jobs that offer little protection and no long-term prospects:

The applications are horrendously long and boring, about eight pages for a simple admin role. They take around one to two full days to finish. Employers expect ridiculous things, like extensive experience in administration (usually over five years), which immediately cuts out all graduates. They offer no benefits, no pensions. They want more and more for less money and on a short contract. The world of work is becoming more like a one-night stand and less like a marriage if you know what I mean!

Constant rejections from jobs and prolonged unemployment is likely to impact on morale. Afterall,  a GDP deficit in six consecutive terms might easily change the definition 'recession' into 'depression'. Research carried out at Bristol University on ‘The Wage Scar from Youth Unemployment’ revealed that youth unemployment increases a person’s chances of future unemployment up to 10 years later, and guarantees a ‘wage scar’ of between 10%-15% by age 42. It would seem that the best predictor of an individual's future risk of unemployment is their past history of unemployment.

Charlotte reflected on the psychological impacts of this worrying trend:

I had a mini break-down, which basically involves feelings of hopelessness and a general lack of self-worth. The only thing that stopped me from leaving the country was seeing a lecturer yesterday about doing a PhD. It's embarrassing to go from heading towards a career path to doing nothing all day. I have a few friends on the dole but to be honest it's not something I can face doing right now. Going to a seedy office to sign a piece of paper and say I am completely unemployable for £50 a week is beyond my pride level.

Both Charlotte and Victoria now have debts of over £20,000 to pay back to student loans, overdraft facilities and other sources of funding. Their situations represent a discrepancy between what people are promised before they start their BAs, and what they are faced with after they graduate. Ultimately, these girls have benefited from their degrees in getting one step closer toward their final goals. But countless other graduates in the UK have found themselves in dead-end cul de sacs, with  crippling debts and no graduate-level salaries to steer themselves out with. It's inevitable that many regret having taken the path into university. The long-lasting consequences of a recession that has pushed so many into the margins should urge schools, sixth-form colleges and the media to engage in a more honest discourse with young people before they start, with regards to the value of a good institution and the weight that subjects can hold. Nobody told 'Generation Y' that the subjects they picked would pigeon-hole them so stringently when faced with the realities of an increasingly competitive labour market.

*names were changed as interviewees wished to remain anonymous