Fiona Millar says something that rather blows my mind. OK, she\’s talking about Boy Dave\’s silliness about teacher qualifications but this does still shock at tad:
With its explicit condemnation of non-academic courses taken in non-Russell Group universities,
What in buggery is any university, that epitome of academia, doing teaching non-academic subjects?
That\’s the whole point of a university: academic study. Non-academic study is indeed valuable, interesting, desirable and socially useful. It\’s just that it shouldn\’t be taking place in a university.
Nor getting a degree.
Many of the 50% of school leavers Labour envisaged getting into HE would be incapable of academic study, in any traditional sense. So you just re-label yer HNDs and NVQs as degrees. The external examiners have similar courses at their own institutions, it’s an easy fantasy to indulge in.
Are Engineering, Medicine or even Economics academic or vocational studies?
Or Law, which (like Medicine) has been a university subject for a very long time? Surely it is, in large measure, just a matter of tradition which subjects are considered “academic”. That said, I do feel uneasy about some subjects that attract students for “vocational” reasons. Does Accountancy really fit in a university?