The price of reputation: an insight into Britain's education system

Through secondary education, I attended a highly regarded state school. It was an all male, Catholic institution, with strict, known rules. They were in place to protect the most valuable of commodities: a reputation, something which is hard earnt over long periods of time. The down side of being in such a system, is that it was often at the expense of its students. Moratoriums on joy do not make for happy working environments.

University certainly offers great reprieve from the anal world I had known, however, certain aspects of the system are hauntingly familiar. In my faculty, and seemingly across many other departments, reputation appears to be prized far above student satisfaction. This is evidenced by survey results on our university, seeing satisfaction go nowhere near to matching up our academic and research standards. Unkept promises of trips have led to accusations of false advertising, many students not feeling challenged by their course, and others lacking fundamental facilities, like work space, a quality library and modern equipment.

What excuses can be made? In 'much valued' department feedback sessions, we were outlined the vicious circle of British tertiary eduction, where funding can only be received through expanded departments, who then take on more students which drains that funding, limiting all innovation. The department shifts the blame to the main university body, who then shift the blame onto the government. One might be excused for being confused when trying to point fingers.

With the general election looming, we must ask what can really be done to make a meaningful change to the management of education in Britain. Most of the answers are gut-wrenchingly basic, but like so many other things, they require radical reform and honesty from the politicians, which they appear incredibly unwilling to offer. It also requires some self-discipline from universities and their departments, who must learn to work together rather than squabbling over money, which does not instill a great degree of hope into students.

In many ways, schooling in Britain can appear to be simply an alternative for children being on the streets. An education based around examination systems generates so much alienation from parents, who should always take on the primary teaching and disciplinary role in an upbringing, that immediately, too much is being expected of the state. Mass consensus says that examinations do not prepare children for working life, and many of us would agree that they fail to teach any proper academic discipline. It is clearly an area in need of radical reform.

There is also wide agreement that higher education should be made available to all. However, this cannot be at the expense of making university into an extension of the schooling system, where it is becomes yet another way of keeping youth off the streets and therefore, unemployment levels down. 'Mickey-Mouse' degrees cause controversy for this reason, seemingly created so that universities can raise their statistics quickly and effectively. However, they are an awful drain on funding better spent in proper departments, where satisfaction rates continue to slide.

A particularly controversial issue is that of staffing at universities. A position as an academic has traditionally been treated as a job for life, but to avoid the nasty circle of expansion, universities need the self discipline to lay off staff and limit year sizes to what they can effectively manage with the facilities made available to them. If universities insist on expanding student numbers, they first need to address whether the departments can cope.

To off set the impact that these lay offs could have on the academic community in Britain, separate state run research funds must be made available far more widely to individuals, especially whilst they are still young. Through the guidance of established universities and other academic institutions, independent research often yields far more productive results. So yes, this would be at the expense of university reputation being built up on international stages, but it is for the benefit of the academic community as a whole. It appears unlikely to me that an international student could be deterred from coming to Britain to study when we offer so much.

York is a fledgling institution when one looks comparatively to our closest academic rivals. When reputations like ours are gained at such rates, we will tend to get ahead of ourselves, and whilst competition for the best students remains so fierce, we may be fooled into thinking expansion is the only obvious way forward. If I could, I would hold a 'SLOW' sign up to these reactions, promoting instead some traditional values of perfecting what is in place already. A university cannot be run like a business, for the basic reason that as students, we do not work for the university - it works for us.

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