According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:
We believe that every person who could benefit from a university education should have the opportunity to do so if they wish. But the proportion of young people going to university has scarcely changed in eight years. At the current rate, it would take Labour over a century to meet their 50% target.
A Conservative Government will:
* Give universities greater freedom from detailed bureaucratic intervention
* Offer a fairer deal for part-time and mature students
* Create a clearer pathway from vocational routes into further and higher education
We recognise that higher fees have brought benefits to universities, but we need to ensure that they are providing a better student experience in return. We have called on the Government to start a full review of the higher education sector now.
SKILLS
Labour have failed on skills: the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) has risen, and the numbers of real apprenticeships, FE enrolments and Adult Learners are down. A Conservative Government will transform skills and training, with:
* A massive expansion in the provision of real apprenticeships, creating 100,000 additional apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship training places every year and making it easier for companies to run apprenticeships
Find out more by downloading our skills policy paper
* More community learning to improve skills and employability, including a NEETs Fund aimed at youngsters not in any kind of education, training or employment, and a Community Learning Fund
* Supply-side reform to set further education free by creating a streamlined funding model where government support for training follows the learner
* Better careers advice by creating a new all-age careers service and providing a careers adviser in every secondary school and college
Conservative Party Universities and Skills Policy :http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Universities_and_Skills.aspx
I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Conservative’s Universities and Skills policies in the comments below?
I am a party member, I also work for the HEFCE.
I would be interested to receive brief answers to the following:
How can we reduce beaurocratic intervention futher and ensure we secure accountability for public expenditure? Currently our formal intervention is once annually, and we also have periodic reviews of teaching quality, student data and governance. It is hard to see what can be dropped.
What would the conservatives do to replace Train to Gain, Employer engagement and the Higher level Pathfinder projects? What is its view of the HEFCE/UUK/CBI ‘Stepping Higher’ report published last year?
What is the Conservatives’ model for administration of Futher Education, how would it differ from Labour’s proposed Skills Funding Agency, and how would it link with the administration of funding to HE?
David Willetts indicated, in response to the CBI report on HE this week, that the Conservatives are assisting in the development of a Website to assist students in making informed choices. We currently fund such a website, and I am interested to receive more detail.
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Laurie Haynes
You ask some valid questions, can these not be answered in conservative policy?
I fear your questions will go unanswered on this website.
Good luck
I am in my 4th year of an BSC(HONS) degree(part-time) to become a secondary schoolteacher and am on benefits. I have been told conflicting advice consistently from the DSS regarding being allowed to continue my degree? This is my only option, as having worked all my life and brought a property in 2001 (as opposed to a council property)on my City wage, now that I’m a lone parent and only able to work locally, I lose approx £12’000 in my salary and am unable to afford to work locally, hence my degree. Once i have my degree ( and hopefully a job that allows me to pay my mortgage and bills) I do not want to have to ever grace the doors of the DSS ever again. Why then, am I being lumped into the catorgery of those who are TOO LAZY too work? I also do 2 days in a charity for work experience to prepare myself fo the routine of working, I do wonder at times whether I should just be sitting on my backside instead, like other people I know, as I get tarred with the same brush at my ‘work-focused’ interviews, even though I am doing at least in excess of 40 hrs per week of work and study! I am in the catorgery of someone who DOES WANT TO WORK but cannot sadly afford to, but there appears to be NO HELP AT ALL for our minority??
Regards
Ms L M Yule
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L M Yule
A touching story, but unfortunatly this is echoed by many british people these days.
Could I ask the question, who will you vote for in the 2010 election?
The “cons” will do little or nothing to help Lara, once again our education system, which used to be good, has become so politicised by the marxists it fails our children long before they get to university! I have said on other posts that because of the preponderance of immigrant children in most of our inner city schools, too much time is being devoted to trying to teach them english. With ever increasing changes to the curricula, stopping the teaching of BRITISH history etc and promoting subjects such as “citizenship” (whatever that is), many of our children are leaving school WITHOUT the necessary skills in basics such as maths & english. As for degrees, what the hell is the use of a degree in media studies or social science, teach real science, qualfications that are relevant in the REAL world!
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I don’t believe that teaching history has gone away from the teachings of British history, I should know I do GCSE history. We learn about prisons, suffragettes, Tollpuddle Martyrs and WW1 and WW2. If this isn’t British history then what is?. Citizenship is and isn’t important because at GCSE its equivalent to half therefore no one really takes any interest in it however citizenship teaches a lot about the economy, environmental issues, communities ect. It builds on team work and tolerance of different ethnic backgrounds therefore an important subject and a significant subject in teaching us about what goes on in our society today. If you don’t know what social science is then why comment on it? because if you take away social science then what would you have to teach at schools. Social science is subjects like Law, History, Geography, Psychology, politics ect. Basically the theory subjects and I don’t think teaching goes away from the real science because its a core subject and one heavily concentrated on. To understand what really goes on in the education system its’s not enough to be a parent you have to be the student, teacher, governor ect. Finally I believe teachers should have the power to discipline students effectively and fairly so the disruptions don’t effect the learning of others because I have to say as a student we have a lot of power.
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K Williams
You complain about children in schools taking up the teachers time teaching them English leaving “British” kids to flounder.
However I attended a school where none of the children in my classes were immigrants and yet a great number of those “poor old forgotten Brits” left school with no qualifications and in general made their teachers lives a misery when they bothered to turn up. You cannot blame immigrants for children screwing up there education. Quite frankly I have known far more immigrants with better English and ambition than the British.
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“How can we reduce beaurocratic intervention futher and ensure we secure —— accountability for public expenditure—–”
The government is accountable for public expenditure, period.
Why don’t you ask sensible questions?
“But the proportion of young people going to university has scarcely changed in eight years. At the current rate, it would take Labour over a century to meet their 50% target.”
That’s not an accurate quote of Labour’s goals. The 50% figure is not just for young people attending University, it’s 50% in further education.
Not every young person would benefit from University, but most would benefit from training and/or further education.
That being said the Labour government has failed to achieve it’s 50% goal: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/labour-concedes-that-it-wont-deliver-its-50-target-on-time/401455.article?storyCode=401455§ioncode=26
I understand Labour are moving away from the 50% in education goal and aiming for more in training: I’m assuming apprenticeships would have never fell under the 50% figure?
A good goal would be as many of our young people in education or training as possible as it improves Britain in the world economy where a well trained/educated workforce moves to where the work is.
I can say from personal experience trying to get a decent education under a Labour government is far easier than it was under the last Conservative government. It was a real struggle to survive when I went to University under the Conservatives, my eldest son started University this year and he’s not having half the troubles I had financially.
As a poor person wanting a University education I felt like the Conservatives didn’t want me to do well.
David
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Have the Conservative party actually looked at the standard of careers advice “in the old days”?! I am sure that most people can barely remember their careers adviser (if at all), and hardly found the advice inspirational. I completed A-levels in 1995, and believe that going back to the system of careers advice that was in place when I was at school would be a terrible mistake.
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I am currently 16 years old and nearly a the end of my GCSE’s. I have to say careers advice never made a difference to me because I’ve always known which paths I was going to take and I actually hated the advice I got so therefore went against it and did better by doing this.
I’ve always wanted to study Law and my careers adviser instead of encouraging me tried discouraging me by saying it’s too competitive and a very difficult course to do.They didn’t really tell me what I needed to do to achieve a career in the law profession instead I had to do my own research and I decided to take Law, psychology, economics and English literature at A level because I think I can really benefit from these subjects.
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