Minister: looking at which groups don’t enter HE ‘doesn’t matter’

I strongly agree with the sentiments expressed by the Minister but she "could do a lot better" in explaining exactly what she wants and why. Her focus on students “completing high-quality, academically rigorous courses that then lead to graduate jobs" begs the questions of what constitutes "high-quality" ( does this mean level 3 and above?) and "academically rigorous" (why "academically", I thought her focus was on technical skills not reading books) and as for "graduate jobs" (this really needs better definition.) Any job done by a graduate is a graduate in a job. Does she mean a skilled, well paid job that challenges the individual and brings benefits to society, like an engineer, lawyer, doctor or simply one that pays well so the Student Loan Company can get some of the loan repaid? This is not good enough and unfair on Universities. Robust clarity is needed from Government so HE institutions can respond sensibly to what the Government wants and prospective students understand what they are likely to get. All stakeholders need to be involved in developing clear objectives. Government and the students who repay the loans are the ones who can demand what the piper (HE providers) will play.

The universities minister replied that “we do have record numbers of disadvantaged students going to university. There are still challenges within different sections of society, including white working-class students." Like so many she knows but dare not mention the elephant in the room, the massive under achievement and representation of white working class boys, only Roma/gypsy ME have lower university representation, as some teachers in unguarded moments will reveal, girls are better behaved and easier to teach and most Asiatic parents enforce strict discipline and understand the value of education to get ahead. What they won't say is the skewing of teaching staff towards women, especially in the primary sector, with the often dismissive attitude towards boys from such teachers does immense and lasting damage, something not so common in private schooling provision enjoyed by the better off. The only way this will ever change is to start acknowledging differences exist, both in pupils and teachers, and that sexually segregated schooling, rather than the current 'one size fits all' which clearly doesn't, mess might actually be better. As might getting rid of the neo-Marxist intersectional ideology where everyone else is a 'victim', except the working class males who are the victims of the system being run by such neo-Marxists, who see them as the root of all evils for failing to revolt in the 1920's.