Are poor pupils conned into taking ’soft’ subjects?
There is a major problem in this country that the government advocates that all A-Levels are equal, despite the fact that numerous universities don’t consider this to be the case, and poor pupils are being conned by state schools so says the governor of Chelsea Academy which is a state school in London, at the front line of education, and he’s right. There have been studies of the relative difficulty of different A-Levels using a variety of different methodologies, and they all came to the same conclusion that some A-Levels are harder than others. Universities favour some A-Levels over others, many are very explicit in stating this.
The result of the current situation is a disproportionate impact on students from lower socio-economic groups who are much less likely to know any graduates other than their teachers, a significant proportion of these students come from families without university experience and are completely unfamiliar with university applications (i.e. aren’t aware of the existence of prospectuses, etc.) and take their primary guidance in choosing A-Levels from their teachers and college/sixth-form prospectuses which predominantly carry the official viewpoint about the equality of A-Levels.
This has a horrendous impact on students. Many will find themselves unable to do the courses they wish to apply for at university. Even if a small minority of students realize that their teachers might not be giving them an accurate picture they often have no better source of information. Try googling to find advice on which A-Levels to take, you’re not going to find any official government source giving you good advice.
A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “These are pretty cheap and insulting comments. It’s easy to make sweeping, rhetorical flourishes about so-called ‘hard’ and ’soft’ subjects – but it is wrong to ignore the hard work of tens of thousands of teachers and pupils and misrepresent the state of education in this country.”
It is easy to make cheap platitudinous statements defending the government’s abysmal record in education (remember its slogan Education, education, education) but it is wrong to ignore the sensible argument that schools and universities are incentivised into giving pupils poor advice and to provide meaningless courses. The hard work of the pupils and teachers is irrelevant if it is directed (by the government) toward qualifications that mean so little and give them and the country so little benefit.
The question is, will that course be worth the student debt that’s been racked up and the time that could have been spent in vocational training with an employer? The current government wants to sell the delusion that a degree, any degree, is worthwhile. In fact, many graduates are unable to obtain what is traditionally seen as a graduate level job upon completing the course, and merely end up in clerical or administrative jobs that can be performed perfectly well by people with A levels or decent GCSEs.
The universities are not aiming to turn out people suitable for these jobs and this government is rapidly heading down the road of needing massive immigration in order to fill those jobs – which are essential, of course, but are likely to lead to the nationalism we’ve seen of late, and leave our economy in stagnation. The people to fill those jobs are highly unlikely to come from those doing media and business studies .
Here’s a thought though for those who want to they they aren’t soft subjects. Allow at least a pseudo market to set prices, and solve the question of ‘What is a good degree?’
A ‘good’ degree is one where the person doing it enjoys it. ‘Hardness’ to me, should not be the requirement of a ‘good’ degree. It is elitism promoting certain types of degrees as the ‘best’. You might not agree with their choice but it is wrong to deny people the agency in order to make their own decisions.
I totally agree.
Although you forgot to mention the effect of centralised targets have in the teachers suggesting A-levels. Pupils who would do better outside mainstream education are coerced into staying so a school can hit A-level targets.
The choice of what to study needs to be based on the best interests of the pupil – not the teachers or Whitehall. Much better support should be given to kids whose families dont know how to work the system. The current system currently wastes the time of some students by giving them worthless A-levels, and at the same time holds back the smartest.
It annoys me how many smart people there are, who didnt apply to the best universities (Oxbridge) because their schools didnt know how!
No wonder under Labour, inequality has fallen! (see channel 4’s factchecker on the issue)
of course – that should read “inequality has risen” ie people are less socially mobile than they were. Damn double negative style things
When entering the labour market following graduation, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve enjoyed doing your degree or not, what matters is how potential employers view your degree. In this respect, many poorer people who might have been deluded into reading for degrees not viewed as highly by employers could lose out on the ‘graduate premium’ that I remember being ingrained in my brain bout during my time in sixth form.
Education at Degree level should be about reading a subject you love, not necessarily one that will get you a job. The whole point of education is not to gear one up for a life of work, but about developing hte individual. Of course there are certain skills that are desired by employers such as communication, analysis etc. but to discredit degrees for being ’soft’ is the wrong attitude. There are some degrees that are more relevant than others, such as Chemistry in the petrochemical industry or Engineering in the construction industry. Some, in my opinion, are worthless like Business – business is not something you can learn in a class room, but is something that is either ingrained from birth or learnt on the job. That is my only jibe, otherwise there is no distinction between ‘hard’ or ’soft’ degrees.
Mr Thomas Byrne – Yes soft subjects are a hinderance, but personally if students havent been given the drive and amibition within a career path they will take subjects they like, and the advice given in schools are pretty shambolic if you ask me.
However, there is evidently a divide between our stance on Media Studies at A-Level. I currently take the course, I’m not sure if you have or had any insight but the sheer snobbery from Michael Gove and co towards this subject is abhorrent. FACT.
The sterotypical view is Media Studies is all about watching TV and Films and playing with a cheap old camera. That is not the case and the technology behind this in A-level and the skills needed for a student to develop and get at least a C grade is tough, very tough.
But let us not forget the media language you have to aquire:
Here are some easy ones – Mise-en-scene, establishing shot etc
Medium – Media convergence, diegesis etc
Hard – Semiotics, verisimilitude, intertextual
Ill would question the experiences of Gove on that matter.
God bless you
Thomas – you asked me via Twitter what I thought of this as a teacher. I’ll try to answer. Please bear in mind that I’m a teacher of children with severe learning difficulties – and none of my pupils are likely to attend university. I’ve been in the teaching business a good while though, I also act as a distance learning tutor on Post-Grad courses for a prominent red-brick university and can make a fair attempt at an answer.
First of all (since you’re asking me as a teacher) – you’re style of writing is very much one of making statements as if they are incontrovertible facts, when in fact they are debatable. I recognise that this may well be a deliberate political tactic on your part – it won’t get you top marks in a degree though, hard or soft.
In the London Borough in which I work, there have been sustained improvements in attainments at secondary level over several years. However there also seems to have been a plateau effect where improvements to match non-inner city areas, just seem to be elusive.
It looks as if the problem is around engaging pupil’s interests, and may be solved by creating imaginative curricula based on new and diverse ranges of subjects. Of course the problem with these is that Universities take some time to take them on board – and I suspect that some do indeed value these subjects less than other more traditional ones.
There is also the problem of encouraging less “traditionally academic” students to stay in education (not necessarily in school) – and this has fuelled the desire to provide vocational courses – and also the new Diploma. Again of course there is the problem of ‘take up’ by employers and Universities – the new qualifications have to reach a critical mass of acceptance before they become truly accepted – I’m not at all convinced that the Diploma will achieve this acceptance – and feel certain that it would be abandoned should a Conservative government be elected. I think this is a shame in one respect – people should be able to avail themselves of education even if they don’t fit the traditional academic science / arts profile – on the other hand if it’s not going to have currency, then it would be better if we don’t waste too much time burying it.
I think your observations that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to know people who’ve been to university are inaccurate – I was brought up in a council estate, have a first class honours degree, Masters degree, NPQH, and am a tutor on Post Graduate degree courses. Several of the people I went to school with went to University as well (I’d say about a third) and they had similar backgrounds to mine. What I think exists however is a different cultural expectation amongst certain sections of society (and it’s too easy to say lower socio-economic, or ‘poor’) – which make it less of an expectation that people will engage in further or higher education – and over emphasises peer conformity.
Having worked with many people who attended independent schools I’d say that the single advantage that independent schools give their pupils is a cultural and individual expectation in their students, that they will succeed at whatever they do – It has taken me many years to build that same confidence in myself, having had an otherwise excellent state education.
Which brings me to University participation. I feel – and I know this isn’t the Labour line – that to increase university participation to around 50%, actually devalues the degrees that are offered, and inevitably ultimately dilutes the quality – University degrees are for the most highly educated people – not for half of all of them. If we persist in that we will eventually find that degrees become the new A-levels, and Masters become the new Bachelors.
The second effect that increasing access has, is that it means that we can’t afford to give grants – and inevitably have to have loans. Whilst for the vast majority this is still affordable – there are some people in certain groups of society who will be dissuaded from going to University not so much by the reality of student debt – but by the perception of it – another straw to break the camel’s back loaded down by peer pressure, and low cultural expectation.
I would prefer a return to a lower percentage of university entrants – but to have them fully grant funded.
As to whether some degrees are worth more than others – It’s subjective – to me yes some are – but that’s because I’m a headteacher – I don’t want someone coming to me with Media Studies and asking to be a classroom assistant. In another line of work – perhaps if I were looking for a salesman, I wouldn’t be so worried about the degree – just use it as evidence that my candidate could achieve at a rigorous level.
So many subjects are apparently meaningless to others – Latin anyone ? Yet if no one studies these subjects they will simply die – and mankind will be the poorer for it.
Hope that answers your question !
I think you start from an assumption that ‘’state” = ”poor”, I think it detracts from the argument. I think you’re also making assumptions about access to information to inform decisions, although there are some pressures from the schooling system.
I think you raise several issues: is the emphasis on degree education useful, is the degree subject significant, do schools and sixth form colleges adequately inform candidates of the best preparation for their aspirations.
Looking at it from the perspective of one who interviews candidates on a fairly regular basis I would agree that there are too many degrees of limited value on the market, I do particularly object to the rebranding of the HND as a degree. It’s not, it never has been and it never should be. That is not to say that an HND isn’t very valuable, but it trains the candidate for something very different. A degree of itself no longer offers a differentiation, so there is a selection based on subject, essentially in my field languages, hard science, medicine, law, engineering and accountancy are about it. It needs to come from at least a red-brick.
I’d agree about pressures from schools and colleges affecting decision making. Performance targets in the education market tend towards the simplistic, and as ever they drive metric focussed behaviour. That will tend to encourage the pupil towards subjects that are statistically more likely to deliver ”good results”, As you reasonably identify that does tend to exclude many from some, particularly Russell Group. Clearly there is a risk that schools and colleges don’t offer the subjects that some would want to study, we’re seeing this particularly in Chemistry as departments are closed down, although there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that’s as much driven by demand as educator behaviour. I’m not convinced that causality is clear, are the ‘’soft” subjects being selected because students are more likely to get high grades, or because there is encouragement to study them?
I would prefer to see a rationalisation in the higher education market, contginual escalation is neither useful nor more broadly beneficial.
I agree with you Jane on a person should do what they enjoy most.
However every other point I disagree with. Hardness is a requirement for a good degree. Why? Because it shows that the degree is challenging and doesn’t just give out awards willy nilly. If anybody goes to university and comes away with a 2:1 or an A in A level, without getting so stressed that it generates some sort of annoyance (unless they are literally a prodigy (think Stephen Hawking) doesn’t happen often) then that degree or a-level is quite frankly too easy to actually judge whether you are as good as your level of education suggests.
Seeing as the point of different levels of education and grades is 1) to educate obviously but 2) to differentiate the skilled to the not so skilled. It becomes quite apparent why people start differentiating between graduates with different degrees and the same grade. Eg a maths 2:1 equals better than a media studies 2:1.
The amount of grade inflation means that in my course (pharmacology, think a halfway point between physiology and medicine) I have to aim for a first to differentiate myself from the massive amounts of people now getting 2:1s in quite frankly easier subjects. I had to laugh earlier when two economists were sat next to me saying things like “What caused the recession” “Oh they raised interest rates and it happened” “What is CPI?”. But it scares me knowing that they will probably walk away with a 2:1 when in reality even I know the answer to those questions and I’m not even an economist.
On top of that the number of degrees available should reflect economical and social needs for certain types of graduates. Why do we need more media graduates (not to belittle media studies as a soft subject, but is it necessary for society/economy to function?)? What we do need is more medicine graduates, scientific researchers, teachers, nurses (even though this should be vocation based not uni based), linguists, engineers and architects.
Personally, I feel the issue of ‘hard’ versus ’soft’ subjects can be a distraction from the larger problem of young people having very little idea about what the job market is like and what employers are looking for. I say this as someone who graduated university last year (Philosophy & Politics at York) and has spent much of the last year job-hunting and thinking about my long-term career plans.
Young people are expected to make decisions from as young as 14, about what subjects they want to study, without always having a clear idea of where their decisions might lead, what they really want to do when they grow up, and what employers for different kinds of jobs are looking for. Young people may not be aware, for example, of how highly employers and universities value modern foreign languages, or how many interesting degrees and rewarding careers require A-level maths.
Perhaps a good example of this problem is your dismissive attitude towards the employment prospects of Business Studies graduates. I suspect the same is not the case at A-level, but graduates of Business Studies and related disciplines such as Management are actually in high demand from employers. This is particularly the case where their degrees have significant vocational content, or even a year in industry. Business Studies graduates are certainly in higher demand than Politics graduates – trust me!
A lot of “soft” degrees have significant vocational content, and employers do value this. A lot of “hard” degrees (English Literature; Politics) don’t. They have the advantage over purely vocational training of combining hands-on experience with academic standards and university accreditation.
Nils Boray (@northernheckler) makes the point that as a headteacher he doesn’t want someone “coming to [him] with Media Studies and asking to be a classroom assistant”, and it’s this kind of attitude that students may not be aware of when choosing what they study. Qualifications in national curriculum subjects (i.e. the traditional ones) are useful if you want a job in the education sector. Someone with a degree in law or anthropology might be at a disadvantage when applying for Primary PGCEs, yet neither of these subjects can be considered soft. Young people may not be aware of this when choosing what to study, and even if they are aware of it, it is unreasonable to expect everyone to know at 17 whether or not they will one-day want to go into teaching.
This sort of thing should be made a lot clearer which is the point I’m trying to make (And which the girl who went into autopilot doesn’t get). Of course, some pupils may still want to study these “soft” subjects – that’s perfectly credible, – but they should at least realise what the situation is.
Most parents are too far removed from the educational system to be able to advise on matters like this – if the schools don’t, who the hell will?
I don’t just mean people mislead into making the wrong subject choices. I’m talking about people that were conned by the system and government, partly on the basis of the widespread availability of subjects they felt interested in and able to study, into going to study university courses that won’t be worth anything to them. Seconded by schools that now have a mechanism for improving their ranking position (by encouraging pupils to take such worthless A levels), and supported by inferior universities that accept students onto largely worthless courses on the basis of those useless A level subjects.
Thomas
To follow up on a couple of points.
Parents should be engaged in the education system, although in a practical sense that can be very difficult given other demands on time. There is quite a lot of work going on at the moment to establish how to do that. That said I recall sitting with a teacher three years ago now and being stunned by how simplistic the advice was, The man shouldn’t have been teaching, although I suspect he regretted stimulating the transmission he ended up on the receiving end of. If parents aren’t engaged, then why not?
I think you’re being a bit too strong suggesting that pupils are ”conned”, that implies some malevolent intelligence sitting in Sanctuary House directing everyone like chess pieces. In practice I see systemic failure in the education system, part of which is down to a lack of responsiveness to the demands of the employment market. That’s understandable, it takes six years from choices to graduation, and the relentless drive to get people to University doesn’t help.
I’d also question whose responsibility it is to ”make these things clearer”? What needs to be made clearer and why? Should the state have any responsibility in that? In practice the employment market needs a very wide range of skills, which I think has been obfuscated by devaluing degrees and diminishing the value of trades as an option.
I would also turn part of the debate round and say that some of the ‘’soft” degree subjects do have a place, we could just do with rebranding them as something else, they’re not degrees. Someone defended media studies to me by talking about all the practical industry skills that they picked up, many of which were trade skills. He described an HND to me. That’s fine, the media industry does need people with these skills, but lets be honest with ourselves about what the training is. Clearly in that particular subject supply far exceeds demand, one of the reasons why it gets such a high profile, a huge surplus of ”degree educated” people who have training that’s not really what a professional employer would describe as a degree.
Really interesting post. I think that a lot of schools in the state sector do fail to properly prepare you for your choices, yes you do get some guidance but when you’re choosing a-levels how many people think about what degree courses they need to do.
I personally know 2 people who weren’t aware that you’d need a maths a-level to get onto a halfway decent computer science degree (or in some cases any computer science degree) so had to doa hurried AS in maths or wait an extra year so they could do the whole thing.
From my personal point of view I was tipped by my school as an oxbridge potential but being a new sixth form at the time there was little real experience of the application process etc, and no one knew that the oxford physics entrance exam really required you to have studied double maths not maths. When this was found out I did get extra tuition but by then really it was a bit late.
The other thing is that of course not all a-levels can be equal and equally neither are all degrees. The problem is that we are moving from a world where university is for the absolute best to one where it is for everyone. If we do that then some courses (be they a-levels or degrees) simply can’t be of the same standard as others and universities and then employers will see them as such. Otherwise there would be no league table of universities and every degree would be worth the same regardless of where you got it from. As more and more people obtain degrees and a-levels then the number of students obtaining A’s and 1sts / 2:1s increases and the only way to choose between people is based on subjects and institutions.