Agreed, PeterG - The acedemics spout the need for all to go to university when a considerable number are not suited for acedemia and should be taking on a trade where they'd rarely be unemployed. Many of those who go to university to do Arts degrees drop out after a short period and then are totally at sea or feel useless whereas what they needed was less of the acedemia.

It is my belief that this drive to get the majority to university has led to a generation of youngsters being badly let down. The huge increase in the volume of courses has diluted quality to the extent that someone with a poor degree in an arty subject from an indifferent university is almost unemployable and ends up drudging through life in a call centre or similar on minimum wage. A resurgence in good quality apprenticeships in a range of skills would have served many of them far better.

Many companies have been doing similar. My former employers (EDS/HP/DXC Technology - whatever they are called this week) were a case in point...

I'm with Robbie and Paul on the apprenticeships, too...

I think the rot started when we got rid of the old tripartite education system - there had become a great deal of snobbery associated with a good academic education over and above more vocational skills. This was driven by Governments (both Labour and Conservative) who desired a population with good academic qualifications to the detriment of a proper skill set.

This in turn, led to the drive to then get everyone in higher education - 'a degree for all' - two man reasons - on paper, a highly educatied population improves the UK's world standing, and it also removes a great swath of the population from the unemployment statistics. We've now got the situation where education is now complusory to 18.

Fear not - the tide is turning. We are encouraging more and more students to take vocational courses, rather than A levels, where appropriate, and promoting Apprenticeship schemes where we consider University is not suitable (for the reasons mentioned by others).

Academics share your frustration. Friends of mine who are University research fellows/lecturers are very frustrated with the quality of their cohorts year on year, and the pressure from management to pass those students who traditionally would not have made the grade. Again, goes hand in hand with the dramatic reduction in central government funding. Remember those halcyon days when a University education was free, and you got given a grant to study!

I certainly do. Thank god for it to.

I was very fortunate. I got a grant that covered tuition fees and some of my living expenses when I did my BSc.
Then, when I did a Masters, Plessey paid the tuition fees and kept me on full pay. This was 1984 - 1986 (2 year course comprising 6 months academic work and a 6 month project completed in the workplace so only 6 months off work on full pay but nevertheless I don't think many get that opportunity today. At the time, Plessey's communications business would fund 2-3 people a year.

Same with me. First degree in Social Psychology and Sociology funded by the state with a living expenses grant thrown in. Second degree in Computing funded by my employer who also gave me time off to study and maintained my full salary.

I would guess that would be completely unthinkable today. It's so easy to forget just how privileged we were, and yet we just saw it as natural.

Had a couple of emails from the Head over the weekend. Emergency meet with PHE today as we've had another big spike in cases, and a lot of staff Track and Trace isolation requests, putting us in severe staff shortages (even with the measures we've already taken to combine classes and send two year groups home).

As the majority of teachers are following lockdown rules, these seem to be coming from school contacts. What they don't take account of is that teachers will leave their phones in workrooms during the working day - the phones will be in proximity for 8 hrs, but potentially the staff won't even see each other!.Also doesn't take into account the perspex screens between each workstation. There also appears to be a case where it has measured distance vertically, and has triggered people working on different floors, but directly above each other....

We have had a similar incident at work, colleague was notified on a Sunday via track and trace to isolate, so he did and had a test on Monday, 4 days for the result which was negative. He has no idea whom he'd been in contact with in the previous 2 weeks as he had only been to work and M&S food shop, noone else tested or contacted that he knows. Best one is my cousins son, hadn't left his flat for three weeks but the neighbour above had tested positive, yep track and trace message told him to isolate and get a test. Not sure what the floors of that building are made of

Kind of validates my decision not to use it until 100% confident it works properly!