Education fight to stop university costs rising
Thursday 23rd July 2009, 2:59PM BST.
Education Minister James Reed intends to fight the proposed cuts
EDUCATION Minister James Reed is fighting States Business Plan cuts which he says will force up the cost of university education.
The rebel minister says that he is not prepared to cut the £911,000 required from his £99m budget and will lodge amendments to restore the pro-rata cuts.
And his amendments would also help Jersey Heritage out of their financial troubles by cancelling the rent that they have to pay to Jersey Harbours.
Deputy Reed says that higher-education support is already underfunded, with support having dropped since 1996 and the maintenance grant of £5,000 short of the £7,000 that is really required.
And he says he will not make the cuts, and wants his 2010 budget restored to the levels set out in last year’s Business Plan. ‘I am not prepared to do it,’ said Deputy Reed. ‘I have chosen not to support the Business Plan.’
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Thanks goodness for James Reed – education is the Island’s future and he should be fully supported in his fight to look after it.
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Good for him – it’s already beyond the means of most middle income families to send their children away to uni and the £5000 extra that the UK slapped on top is the final straw for lots of parents. We even have to pay for degree courses at Highlands nowadays which makes this option too expensive for lots of families as well.
Surely investing in the youth of the Island should be a priority over things like Singapore Finance offices etc?
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There will come a time when many people in Jersey will not be able to afford to send their kids to college.
So what we will end up with is an island full of unskilled people unable to do jobs which require university qualifications, therefore, meaning more people having to come to the island to do the jobs locals aren’t qualified to do!
Perhaps this is how the CM plans on increasing the population.
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Too many students now are just going off to university for 3 years to get drunk (paid for by us) whilst doing pointless degrees and upon return to Jersey (if they return) they can’t get what they see as a decent job as the schooling and university culture now teaches students that they are too good for most jobs.
So much money is being wasted but sadly I can’t see any way of making a fair system.
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The real issue is why the UK treat Jersey as a foreign country, charging full fees for our youth, who follow the UK education system, whilst conversely providing relief to students of certain commonwealth countries.We lived in the UK throughout my daughter’s entire education. When we returned to Jersey,all of us Jersey born, she had already achieved a place at university, having never lived in Jersey. She spent her gap year abroad and then rented a flat with a friend from her UK school, in an outlying and somewhat dangerous suberb of London, where she lived for four years. The university decided that as we, as her parents, were resident in Jersey on the 1st September on the year of her entry, she was classed as an overseas student. This was despite our only having moved then back to Jersey six weeks before, as UK taxpayers of over thirty years standing.We took legal advice and were told that she remained a UK resident. Despite this, the university refused to budge and threatened to withold her continued placement,withold her marks and expell her for non payment unless we paid overseas full rates. Our legal advice was that legal fees in fighting this would outstrip the difference in achieving the just result.We were left with no alternative but to pay up.This amounted to blackmail.Two weeks ago my daughter achieved a double first in her degree, following several years of hard work and continual debt.She now is embarking on a two year Masters degree. There is something very wrong with the way that the UK Brown government treat their sovereign’s loyal subjects in the Channel Islands, whilst affording relief to other countries.I urge Deputy Reed to examine this inequality and press for change.
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Annie, I do see your point and having been at a bricks and mortar Uni previously I know that to be true of some students. However, many do proper degrees and have very decent futures ahead and Jersey would be shooting itself in the foot if it made further education even more unaffordable.
My friend (a Jerseyman) works and studies and will eventually be qualified to take up a post currently filled by J-Cats. Many subjects, for which there exist jobs in Jersey, can be studied through the OU, allowing locals the opportunity to stay and raise their own family here.
The States really do seem desperate to get rid of anyone that was born here (whatever nationality) as soon as possible, I suspect maybe they worry that if people are here too long they will see the States’ ineptitude!
I also think the schooling system is greatly to blame for so many young people taking on degrees they don’t really want or that are ultimately useless. After all, you choose your course and apply while at school. It is at this age the issue needs to be tackled, not once people are at university, or, God forbid, after they leave.
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Annie,
Students do drink but then again so do most 19 to 22 year olds. Studying for a degree can be very stressful and everyone needs to have fun.
I have to ask, what do you consider to be a pointless degree? I remember the hoards going into computing sciences in the mid 90′s only to be left without jobs on graduation.
Money spent on education is never wasted, it enriches society and provides opportunity to the individual and society as a whole.
Jersey would be better off if it increased education spending rather than the spending on grandiose and much more pointless civil projects.
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Gordon and his government have nearly bankrupted the UK, so it is unlikely that they are going to give Jersey people any concessions over the price of further education in the UK.
Even with the probable new government next year it is unlikely they will be prepared to able to help what is regarded as a wealthy island.
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Annie, I think it’s important for us not to over generalise when it comes to matters such as these. There is a perception that students are lazy because the nature of their work can involve less than forty hours a week and they wear their own clothing. However the Education Department will only provide a grant from semester to semester if a student’s performance is satisfactory.
For example in my first year I failed a module and my funding was automatically cut until I was able to get in touch with the department to tell them I had been allowed to continue with my degree nonetheless. (I was doing more modules than require anyway).
The biggest worry for a young graduate in my opinion would be the lack of employment opportunities when returning to Jersey. After I returned to the island after Uni I did three different jobs, none of which required a degree. I was however sent an income tax assessment of over £2,000 so I think it’s safe to say that any graduate who returns will reimburse the people of Jersey.
This I think is the best way we can see University funding, as a future investment but in people rather than money or property. N.
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There is no way that I would have gone to ‘Uni’ 30 years ago – I just did not have it in me. At the time, the only people who went to ‘Uni’ studied for a prefeesion such as medicine or whatever. However, I have worked locally for the past 30 odd years, gaied a diploma level qualification in the finace industry, and do reasonably well, having never sought funding from the States.
What I see in the workplace are two types of graduates. The bright ones who having gained their degree, then go on to study for further professional qualifications. The others seem dissilusioned, don’t really know what they want, and spend most of the day bragging to their colleauges that they are graduates, while showing scant common snece.
There are ample opportunities to gain professional qualifications in this island by working hard after leaving school. I have seen a 16 year old lad with average GCSE’s attain ICSA professional by the time he is 23 by working hard, and studying at the weekends while his mates go to the pub !
Sorry to say this, but funding for further educaton really needs to be allocated to thouse with a longer term plan than 4 years, who can come back and make a contribution to the island.
I for one will not be funding my sons drinking for 4 years if all he wants to is go to ‘Uni’ with no onward plan, and I would not expect the tax payer to fund him either.
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Warren, you have made some pretty important points. However, it is Governments that are to blame for making kids feel that University is the be all and end all and that is why so many are going with no real idea of what they want to do, and it is why so many degrees have become useless to those kids. These same Governments will employ people who have ‘shown they can apply themselves’ by getting a degree even when it is a fairly poor degree and not remotely related to the subject, they will employ such a person over someone with experience in the field. It’s insane and it needs to be sorted out.
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Sorry Annie (comment 4) but I have to disagree.Thinking of my own 2 children and their close friends every one of them is enjoying a successful career within the area which they studied hard for at university.This includes 2 teachers,2 lawyers,a criminal psychologst,and a nurse.Of these few that I am thinking of half returned to Jersey and half have remained in the UK mainly because they cannot afford to return to Jersey and have accepted that fact and made good homes for themselves in the UK.
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The whole Business Plan seems to be going round in circles and is being deconstructed (deliberately) in the press. Even TLS has said it was a rushed document. I’m sure over the summer in preparation for the debate in the States in September many changes will be made to it. Ministers are fighting their corner (all great PR and looks good come re-election time) and the outcome will be cuts will be made in non-emotional sectors; being the cynic I would say that the revised Business Plan was written before the one TLS has released! Ben Querree put it nicely in his comments; its refreshing to have a journalist who sees the game TLS et al is playing and is prepared to expose it in print.
As a Public we should be assisting the process by saying what cuts we would be prepared to take. Education needs a 1% cut so how should that be made?
Remove free nursery places to all? make it means tested?
Reduce classroom assistants?
Stop the mobile library?
etc etc I could go on
The decision by PO is that we must remain a low tax Island; and yes our overall tax bill is very low per person compared to the UK (factor in lower income tax threshhold; GST v VAT; council tax v rates; petrol duty etc).
We cannot expect to have all these wonderful free services unless we are prepared to pay for them. In my view we have reached a point where we either accept cuts in these wonderful (but luxury) services or we all put our hand in our pockets and pay more tax to afford them.
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No one in jersey can ever be classed as poor when taken in context with the rest of the world.
Make the students take government sponsored loans like they do in the UK, forcing them act responsibly when doing the degree.
Why should the tax payer pay for these students to get drunk and throw parties – its ridiculous.
This is another Jerseyfied stealth tax, taxing the hard working to feed the wealthy tax dodging families over here who expect their children to have a university education but save no money through the childs 18 years to pay for it!
People in Jersey are a law unto themselves, everyone else int he rest of the world has to pay for university education – why the hell are Jersey people any diffrent!
The current president of America came from a far worse of family than most of the poverty crying famalies over here and look what he achieved. Its a load of tosh and spin and Jersey creating a scene over an extinct dinasaur.
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