Anyway, back on the proper subject.
In tutorial today our tutor brought up the fact that he'd been contacted by Labour Party HQ, via our local MP, with a request for a student from the Horticulture Dept to appear on a news programme to discuss the forthcoming axe of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and Adult Learner's Grant (ALG).
While he has no affiliation with any political party, our tutor rightly argued that were it not bound to be spun like a Shane Warne hat-trick, the opportunity to raise awareness of the threat to Further Education (Such as our National Diploma in Horticulture), as opposed to University and other Higher Education should be considered by us, the students and the FE staff of the college.
We've heard plenty about how the middle classes and high academic achievers will be forced to double or even treble the amount they pay for their degrees. Who yet has mentioned the thousands of people, mainly working class school leavers or career changers who plan to train as electricians, plumbers, mechanics, horticulturists, builders: skilled trades? The fees for these courses will at least double at the same time as the degrees. It is highly doubtful that our particular course will even be provided at the college beyond the graduation of our year group. A course which has for many years provided ordinary people with an alternative, hard-working path to important skills and sees dozens of its alumni working for Kew, for the Forestry Commission, for the National Trust and English Heritage, for councils and best of all, for themselves in their own businesses.
There are only three out of twenty-two students in our class liable for full tuition fees of £1500 a year. The rest are on benefits and desperate to get off, or working part time to meet a contribution to their fees. I pay full-whack because I've done and am still paying off my English degree, with which I got nowhere. But that's my responsibility.
If the Condems get their way, half my classmates by next year will be picking up dog shit instead of attending classes in which they work fucking hard to better themselves.
What percentage of our current respective cabinets attended such Further Education, compared to attending private school and swanning round Oxbridge on a Roman Mythology course?
