1- Script and Recording

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Great Britaian's Tony Blair faces an educational question for which a quick glance at his children's algebra exercise books won't help him. Q: Suppose that around 3 00,000 English school leavers enter higher education every year and that around 56,000 flail to complete their courses. [ ... ] Explain a) Why it had happened and b) the consequences for a politician who declared education to be one of his most important causes.

There are, coincidentally, three most likely causes for this graduate dropout rate, none of them very palatable to the education-driven Prime Minister.

The first is the replacement of student grants with student loans[ ... ] Graduates now end their education 1 ... 1 owing around £10,000. They have come to think of themselves as customers. This means that they are more critical and demanding about the courses, but that they are also less likely to see the university as an all-day bar with a handy library nearby. They are no longer drinking the local authority's or their parents' money, but their own.

These changes in behaviour might be welcome but teaching-on-credit has less beneficial consequences. A rounded education is harder to achieve because so many students have jobs in the time once filled by clubs and societies. Another risk, as in any system based on loans, is that some will be unable to pay. The worrying number of college dropouts may be accounted for by this.

The second explanation [, ... ] is that the 56,000 who fail to graduate are rebels, and that, despite the widespread assumption of political apathy among the young, a stand is being taken against the middle-class neurosis about the absolute importance of education. The spirit of the 60s - the era in which our image of the college dropout was created - lives on.

The third solution is that tAhe last two British governments seriously overestimated demand. In turning colleges and polytechnics into universities [ ... ] politicians have created a generation of students who were demotivated before they arrived. And these half-hearted students reach academe at a time when, financially, it is harder than ever to stay the course. They are the precise opposite of the 60s dropouts : they are leaving to get a job. [ ... ]

But somewhere in my own rhetorical triptych on education - student poverty, student radicalism, student overload - lies the explanation for these dropouts. My guess is that it is a combination of the first and the third. U..] Politicians greatly increased the number of university places while reducing the funds to sustain students there. You don't need a maths degree to see that this equation doesn't work. While college dropouts of the 60s were protesting against the System in a generalised and apocalyptic way, those of the 90s are making a practical and unavoidable stand against a very specific application of the market. (476 words)

Adapted from The Guardian Weekly, December 9-15 1999

2- Skeleton Summary

• 20% of UK students dropping out is troubling education-focused Prime Minister Tony Blair.
• There are three reasons for this exodus from higher education:

• Government support is replaced by a loans system. There has been a shift from grants to loans which must be paid back.
• The student pays for his/her education and sees himself/herself as a consumer, works harder and more frequently voices criticism of courses and is more demanding of the course.
• The average student has debts of £10, 000 upon graduation.
• Many students are unwilling to run up this kind of debt and so may be giving up.
• With more students working part time, extrAacurricular aspects of college education suffer.

IN AN ECHO OF 60S REBELLION, students are rejecting the given wisdom that education is essential.

PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT POLICY increased university places by scrapping the polytechnic/university distinction ; this has led to problems of motivation.

Education is treated along market principles (more places, fewer public funds) and students have to leave their course which they cannot afford. They are forced to go unlike the the 60s dropout who chose to leave.

1. Most students have failed to notice essential figures (300,000 school leavers- 56,000 drop outs- £10,000) or have failed to add the comma. A percentage or fraction was accepted but no one got the £10k figure right.
2. Most students have failed to differentiate between a grant, defined as a sum of money bestowed on a student, and a loan, defined as money lent on interest by a bank for temporary use. This distinction was left unstated. This was crucial to an understanding of the text since students have to pay back their loans once they leave college. Starting off on the right foot is difficult when one is debt-ridden. Besides, many students used the phrase " teaching on credit " and so obviously coudn't find a way to express it in their own words.
3. Context, that is the date of publication, was left aside. The blame is laid on the last two British governments which -considering the date- might also imply John Major's government. Parties or politicians (except Tony Blair) were not named in the article. However,this implicit contextual aspect was overlooked and led some students to wrong comments in the essay.
4. Various students got muddled over the 60s idea especially the notion that that the drop out of today is different. Perhaps because the text first says that the 60As spirit lives on and then says something slightly different. And then, few students incorporated idea B on the importance of education). Concluding proved difficult also- most people repeating the last sentence.
5. Reading this on the sheet : NB: Sum up in your own words. Direct quotation of the text will be counted against you really means what it says. Understanding is half the job. You are also expected to rephrase what you grasped in your own words.
6. Someone who thinks he/she has done the job in less than 100 words is mistaken. Doing it in approximately 150 words is the job.

3- Opinion Question

Discuss this statement " In Great Britain students have come to think of themselves as customers". Should universities be customer-oriented rather than student-oriented ? How different would they be ? Justify your answer with appropriate examples.

Most Common Mistakes

1. Writing far more or far less than 300 words. Considering the mass of possible answers, this shows poor and inadequate home preparation.
2. Not reading the subject properly : the question is not what do you think of your university ? Are my teachers good enough ? why don't I pass ?
3. Not accounting for the difference between customer-orientation and student-orientation. How different would they be ? means that you need to compare courses or curricula and strategy. Few people made a really convincing attempt at both sides, especially the Great Britain case. But any essay which did not make use of standard comparative structures betrays a failure to analyse the statement.
4. A failure to give basic, no nonsense examples.
5. A tendency to hammer unargued asAsertions, a weakness towards virtuous statements and a failure to raise questions. You are not expected to have all the answers and to solve all the issues of this world from 9 to 10 on a Monday morning. You would have a hard time doing this. And this is definitely not the point of the opinion question. Addressing issues means watching a problem from different angles, from different perspectives. You are entitled to doubts.
6. Finally a tendency to forget that this is a LEA course : you have been immersed in international affairs-related issues. Try and set up links with the other courses you took. But focus on the question asked and when you do use sentences you have learnt off by rote, try to check if they are pertinent to include in this opinion question.

Until quite recently education has been officially student-oriented, that is to say that learning, course contents and degress have come first in academe. If education becomes market-oriented, or if universities are expected to work like firms, it implies that courses, teachers and students will be valued as commodities, marketable goods . What does it mean for a university to become a firm with an agenda geared on profit ? What is profitable in a university environment ?

1. Students as a market basis of potential consumers :
   • If students are a market target, how is profit defined ? By what students learn, the way they mature into working adults who are well-adapted to their jobs ? Or by what they spend on education (dorms, course and library fees, food, entertainment, etc.)
   • Should university fees be tagged to the purchasing power of captive consumers ? Should grants be banned ? And loans the only option for talented but poor students ?A In GB, poor students are already forced to stay local rather than go to the college of their choice if it is too far away and compounds travelling and accommodation expenses to the usual fees.
   • Should university compete for the best-paying students ? One should note that UK and US universities already source the brightest students. How should universities do this ? through commercials on TV, ads in papers, recruiting drives to scout the land high schools ? What marketing strategy would they display ? Discounts, first-arrived-first served services, red carpet for the biggest payers ? What value would high schoolers'achievements have ?
   • Where do universities stand in a multi tier system ? Do they reward the most talented and encourage others to rise to the top level ?
   • To the extreme, one might wonder whether sponsorship or partnership are not a form of corporate intrusion to train people the way corporation needs them. Are university a pre-training experience for entry into firms or a moment of general awakening for individual potential ?
     
2. Teachers and Courses:
   
   • One of the standard marketing procedures is for goods to be in sync with demand and adapted to new tastes. How does a market analyst assess the value of a course or a teacher ?
   • If a teacher, a course or a subject fails to attract students or is massively under attended, does this imply that it should be ruthlessly discarded for the sake of efficiency? Ancient Greek or poetry hardly draw crowds of students but does it mean it should no longer be taught or transmitted to younger generations ? No matter what their intrinsic value may be, should money be spent on them? These sorts of courses are A suffering, they are berated as " useles " or " unpractical " in the modern world. Is this an evidence that students already have a consumeristic attitude to education ?q Should the question be : where does this course get me ? or what do I get out of it?
   • Should teachers and courses be rated in a business like way ? This has long been the rule in English-speaking countries. What value would such ratings have in a profit-oriented university? What consequences are foreseeable ?
   • If students have a consumer status, would teachers feel under pressure to grant satisfactory grades to students, regardless of their talents ? Would in-class relations change ?
   • Does paying for a course invariably means success ? The consumer's basic approach is that money spent should garantee service. Is this compatible with the learning process ? Does buying a book mean that one masters its contents ? Are consuming and learning compatible ? Learning implies efforts on the part of the student, slow progress and often a feeling of inadequacy : the task looms overwhelmingly large ahead. Consuming implies satisfaction.
   • When thinking of market-orientation, one cannot but think of online pay-to-read courses offered by most US and British institutions of higher education. How effective are they ? what garantee do students have that they will get their money's worth ? Shouldn't there be standards/league tables to help consumers distinguish the best products ?

All in all, the point is not to choose or to share an equal load of blames on the two systems but to be aware of current trends in education. One may wonder if the corporate bandwagon has already taken over and if universities are Astill free to teach freely (pun intended) what they deem useful academically as opposed to practically.

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