Students RSS feed for the Students tag
found 14 stories.
Comment
Valerie Vaz, Letters Advertiser 16 Dec 10
Last Thursday (December 9) I voted against the Government’s plans to treble tuition fees.
The fee increase is not necessary, not fair and not good for higher education. The short-term need for deficit reduction does not justify a long-term change in Higher Education (HE) funding…
Comment
The Mushroom 11 Dec 10
As a youngster I lived not that far from the University of Birmingham on an estate where no one went to university. Our dislike of students was borne out of what we saw as privilege. Many of the youngsters on our estate simply couldn’t afford to spend another two years in education getting the qualifications to go to university.
It was simple, you got a job and you contributed to the household income. Even though you got a student grant once you got to higher education. And so for us, the ‘easy’ life of the junior common room and lectures was unattainable. Your life was predetermined. It was the factory, the shop or a junior in an office.
At that time, only ten percent of population went into higher education. As I grew a little older and actually meet some students I realised they weren’t a bunch of self-obsessed middle class kids; they were almost to a man, middle class, but not self-obsessed. (Well not all). Many cared passionately about the wider society and the inequalities inherent in it…
Comment
Cllr Ian Shires 10 Dec 10
Unlike a great many, I have actually read through the arguments for and against the Coalition’s plans for funding higher education. My views have not changed, I don’t agree with what is being proposed.
I remain opposed to Tuition Fees in whatever form they appear, be they Labour; Tory or Coalition…
Comment
Cllr Ian Shires 6 Dec 10
There’s a couple of questions I’d love to hear Labour answer. The first being, just how did they get away with introducing Tuition Fees back in 1997 having being totally opposed to such a policy prior to the election of new Labour in that year?
Labour had an overall majority back then so did need to share power with others along with the inevitable compromises that that means.
Back in 1997 Labour inherited a strong economy, not the £1 Trillion debt the Coalition Government is having to deal with following 13 years of New Labour under Blair and Brown…
News
Helen Draycott Advertiser 2 Dec 10
A Walsall College fashion student is hoping to be crowned queen of the catwalk after her designs made it through to the finals of a prestigious competition.
Rosannah Hines, who is studying HND Fashion, is one of just 10 finalists who have cut, sewn and out-stitched hundreds of other students to battle for the title of Young Designer of the Year…
Comment
ThePlasticHippo 1 Dec 10
According to Wikileaks, the Obama administration consider David Cameron as a “lightweight”, Gordon Brown as “unstable” and that the Governor of the Bank of England thinks George Osbourne “lacked depth”.
Apart from stating the bleeding obvious, one wonders if Wikileaks will publish leaked cables from US embassies regarding Business Secretary Vince Cable.
The US State Department and the British government shriek that the leaked cables put “thousands of lives in danger”. Presumably the US State Department and the coalition government resent this threat to their monopoly in putting thousands of lives in danger and the obvious perils of open, honest and accountable politics. The ticker tape machines from Washington to Willenhall will no doubt be clattering away after the stumbling, bizarre, tongue-tied and downright vacuous performance that Vince gave from the despatch box during the tuition fees debate in the commons…
News
B'ham Post 25 Nov 10
David Winnick (Walsall N) said Wednesday’s protest against plans to raise tuition fees “gives a lead to others” who wanted to demonstrate against Government spending cuts.
Commons Leader Sir George Young told him: “I wonder whether, on reflection, you would like to describe the demonstration yesterday as ‘marvellous’…
Comment
The Plastic Hippo 25 Nov 10
It is of interest that the Director of Communications for the Bishop and Diocese of Lichfield has stated on his blog that [Wednesday's tuition fees] protest was “just plain wrong” and suggests that the organisers should have called off the demonstration because “they knew full well” that it would end in violence.
“The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamour of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.”
Charles Eliot Norton (November 1827 – October 1908)
At about the time that David Cameron rose in the Commons to take Prime Ministers questions, thousands of real commoners gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest against an increase in student tuition fees and cuts to university funding. By the time PMQs had finished with very few questions answered, students, secondary school pupils, lecturers, teachers and parents were noisily but peacefully marching down Whitehall. By the time Michael Gove stood to deliver his white paper on education, the Metropolitan Police had blocked the planned route and began a process of “containment”.
“Containment”, sometimes referred to as kettling, is a tactic of beautiful medieval simplicity worthy of a 7th century siege. A riotous mob is “contained” in a progressively decreasing area by a heavy police presence. The boiling anger is contained in the kettle and the steam is not allowed to escape to cause damage elsewhere. The theory is that the anarchists within will become calmer, tired, cold, hungry or might just need to go to the loo or simply go home. This, though, was not a riotous mob and was not allowed to go home.
The school children, students and their elders had made their point and the vast majority wanted to disperse. However, they were not allowed to return along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square or along King Charles Street between the Treasury and the Foreign Office toward St James’s Park or down Richmond Terrace to Victoria Embankment. The lid was on the kettle and the heat turned up…
Comment
Gavin Drake 24 Nov 10
I’ve not been impressed by the students behaviour over the past two months; and Wednesday’s violent disorder in London is doing nothing to advance their cause and everything to turn people against them.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of government policy on tuition fees; the behaviour being witnessed in Whitehall is just plain wrong. The organisers of the planned ‘peaceful protest’ knew full well what was going to happen today and should have called their protest off.
These are leaders of university student unions – presumably very bright young people – they ought to be intelligent enough to work out ways of getting their message across…
Feature
Lee Kenny Advertiser 19 Nov 10
Students from Walsall College were among thousands who travelled to London last week to protest against Government proposals to increase university tuition fees.
It was the largest student protest in a generation and we almost missed it. Coach delays and motorway traffic put us hugely behind schedule and, as we hit the capital, notorious London congestion brought our convoy to a crawl.
For the 70 students and staff from Walsall College who made the journey down the M40, it was a day of excitement and camaraderie. For some students it was their first time in London, let alone their first time on a political rally…