Useless degrees

I do agree with you in lots of ways, asm. The expansion of the universities post-92 has meant that degrees have become a production line, and that these universities now have to pursue fairly aggressive recruitment policies – which inevitably result in less able students being taught completely inappropriate subjects. I've taught people who shouldn't be doing English degrees, for sure. But I've also taught people who shouldn't be doing English degrees at one of the 'best' universities in the country – privileged kids who have been tutored to within an inch of their lives but who display absolutely no original thought or enthusiasm for the subject.

The ideal university experience which I believe in is completely unmoored from economic factors. Education should be an end in itself. There is a necessary elitism involved: but it should be of intelligence and aptitude, not class.

The problem is that this is impossible to achieve with the inequality in society. The education system cannot correct that. I've taught at universities, good ones, where the percentage of students that come from private school backgrounds is shocking. We had more equality of opportunity in the sixties. Interviews help, in the selecion process, as hopefully academics can spot potential more easily – but they are being phased out rapidly. And how do we get those bright kids to the interview at all? Widening access has probably not helped this basic problem, but narrowing it now would certainly exacerbate it.

Having talked to the dude I can't help but agree with him, because at ground zero, from inside higher education, much of what he says is painfully true. That guardian article stank of left wing journalism attacking a right wing figure. I don't care about what chris woodhouse says about genes or any of that nonsense, I care about what he says about education, because I can tell that, aside from his context (which is one that, on many levels, I am opposed to), he genuinely cares about education, and he can see that it is suffering, above all else.

The article didn't really attack him, though – it was a news piece, not comment. It just reported his words, which were, and remain, pretty controversial. The problem here is when you say that his argument about genes and that about education are somehow separable: they are not, unfortunately. His argument is that 'middle-classness', the thing that undoubtedly makes you more likely to get to a good university to study a good degree regardless of raw potential, is somehow inherent. He doesn't believe that it is poverty that dictates this; he thinks that being working-class is some sort of original sin. It is a terrible, ludicrous thing to say.