So Brexit now needs parliamentary approval?

[Perthbum]

No that was the statistical analysis by the report referred to, not an individual opinion but based on facts.

 

Most of the younger students that my wife is working with astound her with their maturity and level of understanding of how the real world works, they know exactly what they have to achieve in order to be successful, but for a significant number withdrawal from the EU limits their opportunities to further their careers, in the same way that Trumps refusal to allow citizens from some Muslim countries does also.

 

Where does this prejudice against education come from, getting a degree was my passport out of a dead end job into a profession and into a world of appreciating new experiences .

I find the majority of younger people are very ignorant of the world compared to older generations, the majority do not have a clue where countries actually are on the planet believe it or not. I blame social media computer games and the ease they can access information without having to engage their brains...Most of the Students on protest marches these days do not even knoe what they are protesting against unlike student marches 30 years ago...

p.s degrees are worthless these days, almost anyone can get one as the exam questions are almost given them.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Perthbum

[Perthbum]

No prejudice from me regarding education , I have worked in construction all my life , working my way up the management ladder and now running my own company and have expirenced these so called " Degree educated builders" first hand haven't got a clue how things are done but can tell you that it's got to be done in 3 days as the programs says so regardless of what is actually involved to do the job ,agree not all as I discribed but there's a hell of a lot out there.

Also ran 2 night clubs in major uk city for 8 years as well as working as a contracts manager half the staff who were working to pay their way through uni couldn't add up or do mental arithmetic to save their lives and lacked common sense beyond belief

This 100%, I manage students all the time and to be honest most of them are lacking in common sense and knowledge. Edited February 7, 2017 by Perthbum

[BacktoDemocracy]

I find the majority of younger people are very ignorant of the world compared to older generations, the majority do not have a clue where countries actually are on the planet believe it or not. I blame social media computer games and the ease they can access information without having to engage their brains...Most of the Students on protest marches these days do not even knoe what they are protesting against unlike student marches 30 years ago...

p.s degrees are worthless these days, almost anyone can get one as the exam questions are almost given them.

 

So now you're an expert on academic education, achievement and the abilities of the younger generation.

I'll tell you one thing for sure, any bright youngster rubbing up against you as their boss would be immediately looking on their iphone for another job and skiving off down the cellars to do it.

[VERYSTORMY]

Minimum wage has raised the wages of waiters and waitresses, fact.....wages for these people was shocking before minimum wage and greedy restaurant owners were paying shocking levels of pay and the only way they survived was on tips...fact

 

Minimum wage may have risen, but a fair few were not on minimum wage or even close. But are now.

[Ken]

This 100%, I manage students all the time and to be honest most of them are lacking in common sense and knowledge.

 

I work with an RTO (registered training organisation). The way government funding now works they are penalised if they fail anyone. A 100% pass rate is to be expected.

[Perthbum]

So now you're an expert on academic education, achievement and the abilities of the younger generation.

I'll tell you one thing for sure, any bright youngster rubbing up against you as their boss would be immediately looking on their iphone for another job and skiving off down the cellars to do it.

If any student on a break from UNI shows that they want to work we give them more than the the minimum national wage, those who are on their phones a lot and have multiple "fag breaks" do not get the hours, to be honest I am disappointed at the common sense and intelligence of some of these students when it comes to thinking for themselves. You can tell the ones who will get on in life.

[newjez]

No prejudice from me regarding education , I have worked in construction all my life , working my way up the management ladder and now running my own company and have expirenced these so called " Degree educated builders" first hand haven't got a clue how things are done but can tell you that it's got to be done in 3 days as the programs says so regardless of what is actually involved to do the job ,agree not all as I discribed but there's a hell of a lot out there.

Also ran 2 night clubs in major uk city for 8 years as well as working as a contracts manager half the staff who were working to pay their way through uni couldn't add up or do mental arithmetic to save their lives and lacked common sense beyond belief

there is no substitute for experience. Fact! But I also know I was helping my year 10 son with his maths last night, and they are doing in year 10 what I was doing in year 12.

[srg73]

So the Commons has voted by a significant majority to proceed with Brexit in its current form. Labour Party falling apart, SNP exploiting the situation etc.

 

Oh well, fingers crossed something can good from the current mess. One day I put my face in my hands and wonder what has been done, next day in im full of excitement with the opportunity Brexit gives.

[newjez]

So the Commons has voted by a significant majority to proceed with Brexit in its current form. Labour Party falling apart, SNP exploiting the situation etc.

 

Oh well, fingers crossed something can good from the current mess. One day I put my face in my hands and wonder what has been done, next day in im full of excitement with the opportunity Brexit gives.

maybe

 

http://news.ladbrokes.com/politics/british-politics/jeremy-corbyn-just-64-to-stand-down-in-2017-clive-lewis-odds-cut.html

[Gbye grey sky]

So the Commons has voted by a significant majority to proceed with Brexit in its current form. Labour Party falling apart, SNP exploiting the situation etc.

 

Oh well, fingers crossed something can good from the current mess. One day I put my face in my hands and wonder what has been done, next day in im full of excitement with the opportunity Brexit gives.

 

I haven't changed my view that the decision to break with the EU is a wrong one. Nevertheless, the pragmatist in me says that it is important to make the best of the situation you are in.

 

Brexit is just part of a groundswell of nationalism taking hold throughout the western world. The older generation, mainly, are pushing back hard on political elites, globalisation and progressive liberalism.

 

It will be a matter for future historians to assess what all the ramifications of this were.

[Rallyman]

I haven't changed my view that the decision to break with the EU is a wrong one. Nevertheless, the pragmatist in me says that it is important to make the best of the situation you are in.

 

Brexit is just part of a groundswell of nationalism taking hold throughout the western world. The older generation, mainly, are pushing back hard on political elites, globalisation and progressive liberalism.

 

It will be a matter for future historians to assess what all the ramifications of this were.

 

Will your view change when other members decide enough is enough and leave

[Keith and Linda]

Will your view change when other members decide enough is enough and leave

 

I do wonder at the claims/blames it is mainly the "older" generation, what is the actual age of this so called older generation? and surely this older generation do not make up the 51% or so that voted out,

[Gbye grey sky]

Will your view change when other members decide enough is enough and leave

 

No. Quite the reverse. It was one of my major concerns about Brexit all along.

 

If others do leave and the EU breaks up it will be as a consequence of electoral victories for the far right, and Brexit itself will have increased the chances of this coming about.

 

Would you change your mind if France, Germany, The Neterlands etc have far-right nationalist agendas that place them in direct conflict with neighbouring countries including Britain?

 

Where a divided Western Europe turns its back on the Baltic countries and the former eastern bloc countries like Ukraine so that Russia can reassert its sphere of influence supported by Trump.

 

How things go from here is anyone's guess but a Europe tied by common economic, social and political goals seemed like a safe, secure continent with potential threats only from the outside.

 

This is quite apart from the economic and trading arguments in favour of the EU which I still feel are valid.

[Gbye grey sky]

I do wonder at the claims/blames it is mainly the "older" generation, what is the actual age of this so called older generation? and surely this older generation do not make up the 51% or so that voted out,

 

Actually there are over 46 million registered voters in the UK. 52% of them did not vote leave. People aged over 50 are actually much more likely to turn up and vote than younger people.

 

Anyway, not all over 50s voted Leave but as every politician knows, you ignore the grey voters at your peril.

[newjez]

I have to confess to a major error of judgement. All this time I have been opposed to brexit and I have closed my eyes to the opportunity. I'm in a secure job. My wife is in a secure job. My computing skills will be needed during brexit, so if anything it should be a Bonanza. My boys won't enter the workforce for another six years. I have two properties owned outright, and cash in the bank. I've been looking at this all wrong.

 

The GFC was a time of opportunity. Sure there was a lot of pain for a lot of people. But there was also opportunity. The house next to me sold for pennies, and doubled in value almost immediately. I figure I'm in a strong position to pick up a couple of cheap houses for a song during the recession. Hopefully they will be off brexit voters, although I guess that isn't compulsory.

 

Bring it on! The harder the better!

 

Brexit happy days here we come!

[Perthbum]

Will your view change when other members decide enough is enough and leave

And when Le Pen Wins in May?

[Perthbum]

I have to confess to a major error of judgement. All this time I have been opposed to brexit and I have closed my eyes to the opportunity. I'm in a secure job. My wife is in a secure job. My computing skills will be needed during brexit, so if anything it should be a Bonanza. My boys won't enter the workforce for another six years. I have two properties owned outright, and cash in the bank. I've been looking at this all wrong.

 

The GFC was a time of opportunity. Sure there was a lot of pain for a lot of people. But there was also opportunity. The house next to me sold for pennies, and doubled in value almost immediately. I figure I'm in a strong position to pick up a couple of cheap houses for a song during the recession. Hopefully they will be off brexit voters, although I guess that isn't compulsory.

 

Bring it on! The harder the better!

 

Brexit happy days here we come!

, if you think you will pick iup cheap houses in the UK for a song you are in cloud cuckoo land....house prices will rise and slow but will always go up and up and up. Edited February 9, 2017 by calNgary
removed personal comments

[BacktoDemocracy]

I have to confess to a major error of judgement. All this time I have been opposed to brexit and I have closed my eyes to the opportunity. I'm in a secure job. My wife is in a secure job. My computing skills will be needed during brexit, so if anything it should be a Bonanza. My boys won't enter the workforce for another six years. I have two properties owned outright, and cash in the bank. I've been looking at this all wrong.

 

The GFC was a time of opportunity. Sure there was a lot of pain for a lot of people. But there was also opportunity. The house next to me sold for pennies, and doubled in value almost immediately. I figure I'm in a strong position to pick up a couple of cheap houses for a song during the recession. Hopefully they will be off brexit voters, although I guess that isn't compulsory.

 

Bring it on! The harder the better!

 

Brexit happy days here we come!

 

Just hope that is 2018's problem because I will have bought and sold by then, otherwise another disaster visited on me by brexit.

 

My view is that brexit was supported by people who were seduced by the nonsense about all the savings that could go into the NHS and who thought that they could give the well off, predominantly southerners, a good kicking without it costing them anything and they would be shut of all these immigrants who were freeloading on the welfare state.

 

And you know what Theresa May is going to give them all of that in spades because she can see UKIP getting a lot more support if she doesn't, so to save her party she is quite willing to sell the country out, how she is going to bridge the gaps in skills and unskilled workers without immigration as we have a low birthrate and a rapidly ageing population, we also have a population which is in relative poor health, with obesity and consequent knock on health problems. These are known problems, not conjecture about whether big business will leave or not, so where will the skills, the researchers, the health care workers, doctors and nurses, the skilled labour for a supposed massive expansion of the housebuilding programme, the agricultural workers come from because we are not producing enough of any of them as the govt, of right and left, have not been investing in training them for years.

 

So we are going to sit here for 2 years negotiating brexit with doctors being deterred from joining training, nursing trainees are already down due to their being no subsidy on fees from this year, a 30% planned expansion of desperately needed housing with house builders saying they cannot recruit workers for the present programme, with an education sector concentrated and organised around production of people with degrees in anything from Teaching Welsh to Fine Art Appreciation, all of which I'm sure in a civilised society we need, but is not really going to prepare people for nursing incontinent old people, shovelling concrete or picking cabbages on a freezing morning like today in east anglia.

 

A very long winded way of saying that Theresa May can pretend all she likes and all the brxiteers can keep on telling everyone they can have cake all year round but there will come a crunch point where some realities will have to be faced, there will have to be immigration and it will have to be by then on a substantial scale, are people going to be prepared for that or is the present denial going to be continued until the Conservatives get themselves elected again in 2020.

It looks like the present govt is willing to see the NHS go to the wall and simply deny any responsibility for aged and mental health care, seemingly on cost grounds but increasingly it appears to be idealogical grounds, I believe brexit now suits this govts agenda as they will be able to obfuscate comparisons in future with Europe.

[BacktoDemocracy]

Just reading Private Eye, some interesting statistics.

 

70% of grain exports to EU

 

90% of Lamb exports go to EU worth 300m, 40% of total production, if subjected to EU tariffs, once we leave EU, it would add 2689 pounds per tonne to price in EU.

 

At present large scale sales of milk to Ireland for cheese production would also be subject to tariffs making the trade uneconomic.

 

Whilst in EU tariffs imposed on imports such as beef, 2622 pounds per tonne and butter, 1635pounds per tonne, keep low cost food exporting countries such as Canada, Australia, USA, China, New Zealand from dumping low cost food into our market.

 

Which countries is the UK trying to tempt into trade deals, all of the above and what will be at the top of their free trade deal with the UK, access for their cheap agricultural producers.

 

What will be the options open to the UK, subsidise our farmers, massive cost to taxpayers, allow farming to naturally whither away like the manufacturing towns across the Midlands and North of England, with all the knock on effects of unemployment and social decline well at least it solves two problems , no need to worry about immigrants to do any harvesting. Bo Boom!!!! and where do we build all these houses everybody wants, ta dah!!!

Edited February 15, 2017 by BacktoDemocracy

[Perthbum]

there is no substitute for experience. Fact! But I also know I was helping my year 10 son with his maths last night, and they are doing in year 10 what I was doing in year 12.

 

Doubt it..

[h=1]A-levels 'now two grades easier than 20 years ago'[/h][h=2]A-level exams are now two grades easier than they were 20 years ago, academics claimed last night.[/h]

Sixth-formers of the same ability awarded C grades in the late 1980s can now expect to gain As, they said.

Researchers found that average results improved by more than two grades in most subjects, even though students were no brighter. In mathematics, scores jumped by three-and-a-half grades. Academics said the trend was likely to be influenced by a number of factors, including a fall in the rigour of exams combined with an increased focus on test preparation in schools and colleges, reigniting the debate over A-level standards.

The findings - in a study by Durham University - come as almost 250,000 students prepare to receive results of A-levels on Thursday.

Experts are already predicting a rise in the number of passes and A grades.

Last year, 25.3 per cent of papers were awarded the top mark - more than double the number in 1990.

[BacktoDemocracy]

Doubt it..

A-levels 'now two grades easier than 20 years ago'

 

A-level exams are now two grades easier than they were 20 years ago, academics claimed last night.

 

 

Sixth-formers of the same ability awarded C grades in the late 1980s can now expect to gain As, they said.

Researchers found that average results improved by more than two grades in most subjects, even though students were no brighter. In mathematics, scores jumped by three-and-a-half grades. Academics said the trend was likely to be influenced by a number of factors, including a fall in the rigour of exams combined with an increased focus on test preparation in schools and colleges, reigniting the debate over A-level standards.

The findings - in a study by Durham University - come as almost 250,000 students prepare to receive results of A-levels on Thursday.

Experts are already predicting a rise in the number of passes and A grades.

Last year, 25.3 per cent of papers were awarded the top mark - more than double the number in 1990.

If you make education a economic imperative and make it a capitalist profit making industry then it will act like a capitalist industry, the universities need customers to make their business plans work so they organise the system to suit, the Russell group of Universities skim off the best kids from predominately the public schools, who teach to a broader syllabus, but then the local universities have to have a constant throughput of students to stay in business, they influence the teaching standards by producing poorer and poorer teachers for the schools, a downward spiral is produced by making education about the numbers of students put though the system and not about educational achievement.

 

Teaching is about achieving targets so everybody is involved in keeping the edifice stood up.

Edited February 15, 2017 by BacktoDemocracy

[newjez]

If you make education a economic imperative and make it a capitalist profit making industry then it will act like a capitalist industry, the universities need customers to make their business plans work so they organise the system to suit, the Russell group of Universities skim off the best kids from predominately the public schools, who teach to a broader syllabus, but then the local universities have to have a constant throughput of students to stay in business, they influence the teaching standards by producing poorer and poorer teachers for the schools, a downward spiral is produced by making education about the numbers of students put though the system and not about educational achievement.

 

Teaching is about achieving targets so everybody is involved in keeping the edifice stood up.

 

Perthbum provided no link as his article was ten years old.

 

Epic fail

[BacktoDemocracy]

Whether the article is 10 years old or not is not really relevant to the argument about privatising education, I was at Univ of E Anglia yesterday, it was like a football crowd at 1.00pm lecture changeover and my experience of being there on a number of occasions is, A) there are a lot of overseas students, I don't have a problem with that but it is indicative of the business model of the universities which are heavily dependent on the higher fees from these students,B) the demographic seems to be very young 18 year olds, not a mature student in sight.

 

I have just been out round a industrial estate based on a giant ex RAF base on the edge of town and noticed a govt skills centre based in a WW2 accommodation block at the back of an giant original aircraft hangar and I was struck by the difference between the "profit" based uni and the govt taskforce trying to raise skills for industry and get people into skilled jobs.

 

I thought it just epitomised how stratified the country has once again become.

 

And unfortunately I have to agree that there are young people at Uni who shouldn't be there, but who go thro the sausage machine and who are left floundering but believe that a degree will guarantee them a job.

Edited February 15, 2017 by BacktoDemocracy

[Perthbum]

Exams were harder to pass in teh 50s 60s 0s no one disputes that, what is worrying is the high pass rate todat...100% in some schools, this is just not right, the exams are to easy and students are almost given the answers....I know, I was one of them.

[newjez]

Whether the article is 10 years old or not is not really relevant to the argument about privatising education, I was at Univ of E Anglia yesterday, it was like a football crowd at 1.00pm lecture changeover and my experience of being there on a number of occasions is, A) there are a lot of overseas students, I don't have a problem with that but it is indicative of the business model of the universities which are heavily dependent on the higher fees from these students,B) the demographic seems to be very young 18 year olds, not a mature student in sight.

 

I have just been out round a industrial estate based on a giant ex RAF base on the edge of town and noticed a govt skills centre based in a WW2 accommodation block at the back of an giant original aircraft hangar and I was struck by the difference between the "profit" based uni and the govt taskforce trying to raise skills for industry and get people into skilled jobs.

 

I thought it just epitomised how stratified the country has once again become.

 

And unfortunately I have to agree that there are young people at Uni who shouldn't be there, but who go thro the sausage machine and who are left floundering but believe that a degree will guarantee them a job.

privatisation and foreign students are another argument. But it does seem to be the favourite topic of the 'geriatric old daily mail reader' that the kids of today are not educated as well as the previous generation. A levels aren't as hard as they were twenty years ago. The intention of a levels is to compare students today. Not to compare students today with students twenty years ago. Whether an exam is harder or not than another year is irrelevant. An exam is designed to create a spread so universities can differentiate students. This is the only concern for exams. There is also a difference between exams and the course material being examined. If the course has been taught, how hard the exam is neither here nor there.