Analysing Education in Britain. Student fees, Acadamies and Differences in Attainment Levels.

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18 April 2012

Sociology – Education

Recently there have been big reforms and changes to education. Since the labour party have come out of power and the new coalition party have gained power; consisting of the conservative party and the liberal democrats on May 11 2010. There have been some big reforms put forwards and existing plans stopped or changed. The country was left in greater deficit than France, Germany, and Japan and greater than Greece, Italy and Portugal. They also left one in five young people out of work (Isaby, 2010). This means that the country is going through some big cut backs and changes especially to education.

One of the main proposals that have happened this year is the plan to raise student university fees. The coalition’s idea is to raise the university fee cap up to £9,000 from £3,225 per academic year; this is an extremely big jump up in fees. There have been strong protests all over the country especially London. Many people believe they are taking away the right to higher education by     out-pricing the poor. They fear many people from poor backgrounds will be discouraged from going with the huge debt they may be left in.  

The government argues that the original model of education is out of date, as more people go to universities these days from 6% 50 years ago to 45% today. They add that for the UK to keep world class universities, they will need extra funding, even though currently Cambridge university is ranked 1st in the world 2011 by the Guardian league table. They suggest it is only fair that those who benefit from Higher Education contribute to it (Barnett, 2010).

The Government state how they are trying to keep equality of opportunity by still allowing people to lend the money from the government in the form of student loans. This means that people who do not have enough money to finance themselves or their children’s education, they can loan the money off the government and at a low interest. This allows them to still be able to go to university. Graduates who then go into low paid jobs under 21,000 may not have to pay anything back. Currently this is at 15,000. Through a tapered interest rate the government expect that nearly half of students will not have to pay back the full amount back (Barnett, 2010).

The Liberal democrats’ deputy leader Simon Hughes has now been appointed the position of persuading young people that they can still afford to go to university he has agreed to become the government's advocate for access to education in order to discard any myths about the policy that poor people cannot afford to go. In the six-month post, he will also find a replacement for the educational maintenance allowance, even though he was against the closure of it. (Wright, 2010).

As government have put forward the proposal to scrap the education maintenance allowance (EMA), which is a scheme available to people from poor background to get help with educational costs e.g. travel and books. Government Ministers have said it is an inefficient scheme, Chancellor George Osborne announced plans to axe the scheme in the spending review, saying it had very high "dead weight costs" (Hutchinson, 2010). Although many students from poorer backgrounds do depend on this money to help with their finances while attending college.

However school minister Nick Gibb’s questionnaire given to students showed that 9 out of 10 people would still go to higher education without it, this is 90%. Ken Warman a college principle, is concerned that students will suffer hardship, although he believes students are unlikely to leave college when EMA goes because there is little else for young people to do as jobs and apprenticeships are difficult to get. The school minister Nick Gibbs has said a new scheme for the poorest 10% of students will be allowed to access a very generous support fund (Hutchinson, 2010). Although many students may lose out and be forced to give up education and find a low paid job. 

Several research studies have shown great benefits of EMA since it was introduced in 2004 by the labour party, especially where participation in higher education nearly doubled between 1990 and 2004 when introduced. This happened as labour tried to increase opportunities for people from all class backgrounds (Holborn, M Burrage, P Langley, P, 2009). It has had a big impact on students attending college. This is because EMA is only effective if the student has had full attendance for the week. This is a big help and incentive for lower class students to maintain their education.

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A different approach which is a new scheme first announced by the labour government in 2008, and is being continued to be rolled out. This is for poorer children in society to be given a free laptop. This is due to a recent study from the institute of fiscal studies suggested having a laptop at home could lead to a two grade improvement in a single GCSE subject. The announcement comes as recent research suggests that over 1 million families don’t have a computer or broadband connection. Additionally 200 schools and colleges suggested 80% were seeing cuts to their IT ...

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