Of pretty much all of the proposed ways to fund university education, I think that the NUS’ is actually the best. They propose a graduate tax, based on income, rather than the excessive charges that universities seem to want students to pay – from the £3,000 each year today to £6,500!
This at the same time as they are claiming a salary of around £194,000 per annum for their services.
A graduate tax would mean that those who earn most from their degree pay most – and mean that students no longer …

This year’s graduates (and next year’s too) are screwed. They’re chances of getting a job are smaller than ever before – and they’ll emerge from univeristy with a bigger debt than any other year of British graduates, all thanks to this Labour government.
I’ve just started paying back from Student Loan, and it will take me years to pay it off. And mine is probably not much more than half what these graduates will owe.
I feel sorry for them. So here’s a little song for gradutes of 2009 and 2010:

Nick Clegg is certainly stating the obvious when he saysthat

After having already suffered under Gordon Brown’s failure to sort out our education system, this generation now bears the heaviest brunt of his economic mismanagement.

Well duh.
Those who have just got qualifications are effectively unemployable in a recession. They have no work experience, no skills, nothing of any real use to employers who are suffering from the down-turn and considering getting making employees they already have redundant or cutting their working week.
Entering the world of work straight from school or university is …

Does dyslexia exist? Not according to Labour MP Graham Stringer:

Dyslexia is a cruel fiction, it is no more real than the 19th-century scientific construction of ‘the aether’ to explain how light travels through a vacuum…
It is time that the dyslexia industry was killed off and we recognised that there are well known methods for teaching everybody to read and write.

Dyslexia does indeed exist. Some people find it hard to learn how to read and write due to a neurological difference.
However, one could accept that there is a tendency for children …

(I know it’s not Saturday, but I’ve been out ’saving lives’. It’s still weekend though, so that’s acceptable, I’m sure)
On Friday, I attended the first day of my "Professional Skills Course" – part of my continuing development to be a fully qualified liar lawyer solicitor. When I do qualify, I’ll be obliged to attend a certain number of courses as part of my "Continual Professional Development".
I know these things are often scorned. I’ve finished my education, I know have a full time job, surely I’ve had enough of lectures and …

If this isn’t dumbing down, I don’t know what is:
A major review of the curriculum for England’s primary schools suggests that six broad “areas of learning” could replace individual subjects…
It also calls for children to learn more about well-being, happiness and healthy living. (BBC)
And what are these so-called “areas of learning”?

understanding English, communication and languages
mathematical understanding; scientific and technological understanding
scientific and technological understanding
human, social and environmental understanding
understanding physical health and well-being
understanding the arts and design

As part of this, it suggests that our kids are taught in less depth about, well, …

Every year GCSE and A-level results suggest continual approvements, with more than a quarter of all grades being As – and growing each year. However, all of those grades are going the same children.
Only 47.2% of children are getting five “good” GCSEs (A*-C), if English and Maths are excluded, meaning that 52.8% of children aren’t getting these grades. That’s more than half!
If English and Maths are not required, this percentage riss to 64.6%, which still means that 35.4% of children are completely failing to get five good GCSEs!
Our education system …

Unions. What rubbish they spout:

Teachers should not be prosecuted for having affairs with their sixth formers, a union chief has said.
NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said it was an “anomaly” that a teacher who had sex with a pupil aged over 16 could go on the sex offenders register… because a teacher could legally enter a relationship with a sixth former at another school. (BBC)

Teachers who have such relationships should be prosecuted, found guilty, and punished appropriately if they have a sexual relationship with any pupil at their school. Whether …

Andrew Adonis has been moved from his position as Schools Minister to the Department of Transport. This has been to the condemnation of both the Conservatives and Lib Dems, who both fear the imminent demise of the academy schools programme, of which Adonis was known to be a champion.
It seems that even depsite bringing Peter Mandelson back, Brown certainly isn’t willing to fully embrace a Blairite agenda – just a spun Brown one [about as bad as each other].
All well and good.
However, there is just one thing that made me …

One third of graduates basically waste three years of their life and thousands of pounds. Now, about 30% of graduates end up in nongraduate jobs five years after leaving university, up from about 20% in 1992. This is due, quite obviously, to the [stupidly] massive increase in the numbers of students going to university.
The rise in the number of graduates seeking employment isn’t matched by an equal rise in the number of graduate jobs available. But the rise in students numbers has also meant that a large number of less …