Do You Believe That Billionaires Should Exist?

[spathiphyllum]

1 million seconds equal 11 and 1/2 days. 1 billion seconds equal 31 and 3/4 years.

Yes or no?

[Spicerack]

Unpaid internships must have kept most working class (even some middle class) kids out of many choice careers.
Anyway, I don't think we're a million miles apart, Naomi. I'm certainly not advocating 'free' stuff for all and whatnot.
And just to show you what a sport I am, I'll ask spath to reinstate your BA when I catch up with the scamp. x ;-)

[naomi24]

Pixie, did anyone say all grammar schools have been closed? They certainly haven’t - just most of them which is a great pity. What a waste of potential.

[douglas9401]

The question is....

moot. :-)

[andres]

We still have a Grammar School but no longer have the eleven plus exam for the local junior schools. Instead the Grammar sets its own entrance exam. Parents from far and wide are now able to put their children in for this exam and think nothing of paying loads of money for private tuition. The children in our local junior schools no longer have the incentive of working towards the eleven plus . Consequently social mobility has been stagnating in this area for years.

[New Judge]

//...but for the bright and ambitious the opportunities for higher learning are there. If they weren’t, students from Comprehensives would never do anything much at all… but some of them do very well indeed.//

Indeed, naomi. But it takes them three years longer and costs them a shedload of money to achieve a similar standing to that which a couple of decent 'A' levels would have gained them fifty years ago. It's a great shame and a scandal.

[Deskdiary]

I interviewed a 29 year old yesterday, for a £20k position, who had a 2.1 in.....wait for it.....animation.

My field is re-insurance (I won't bother to explain what that is to those that don't know because, let's face it, any form of insurance is boring...until it's needed of course).

I turned 50 two weeks ago and I was earning £20k in 1992, admittedly after university with what I would call a 'proper' degree, so I must admit I do feel sorry for youngsters nowadays who are are encouraged to go to university, rack up shed-loads of debt, and (in some cases) come out with a Mickey Mouse degree, and are ill-equipped to enter the real world.

This is entirely the fault of Blair who wanted 50% of kids to go to university, even though many should not have.

[naomi24]

NJ/Deskdiary, indeed - and I agree.

[ummmm]

What is considered a Mickey Mouse degree?

[douglas9401]

Well ummmm, animation, obviously. :-)

[ummmm]

Lol :-)

[diddlydo]

I fail to see why the demise of grammar schools is "a waste of potential". My kids had the option of the local (i.e. nearest) comprehensive or a grammar school as we live in a cross county border situation. They wanted to go to the comprehensive as all their friends from primary school were going there so they did. They are now both in very lucrative jobs, especially one of them who obtained a 1st class honours in Maths and French from a big city redbrick university and earns x times more (even allowing for inflation) than I could ever have earned as a teacher. Both kids agree that going to a comprehensive gave them a much better grip/balanced view on society/the world than a grammar school would ever have done.

[New Judge]

//Both kids agree that going to a comprehensive gave them a much better grip/balanced view on society/the world than a grammar school would ever have done.//

How do they know?

[diddlydo]

NJ - because they know that they co-existed educationally with those of all abilities and outlooks rather than just middle-class aspirationals, appreciate the fact that there is room for all in our society and show compassion for those less fortunate than themselves. In a nutshell they are very very decent individuals.

[ummmm]

In a nutshell they still don't know.

[naomi24]

diddlydo, if your kids weren't middle class aspirationals, what class aspirationals were they? And you taught what where?

[Prudie]

Well I went to a grammar school, it didn't cost anything and there were all tiers of 'class' amongst my peers. It's only those who didn't go that have this huge chip that assumes it's only the home of middle class aspirationals (whatever that means).

[New Judge]

//NJ - because they know that they co-existed educationally with those of all abilities and outlooks rather than just middle-class aspirationals, appreciate the fact that there is room for all in our society and show compassion for those less fortunate than themselves. In a nutshell they are very very decent individuals.//

I'm sure they are, dd. But attending a grammar school does not preclude you from acquiring those qualities. I went to a grammar school but neither I nor my parents were "middle class aspirationals" (though quite what's so criminal about aspiration that it has to be mentioned almost as an insult I don't really know). My parents wanted what they believed was best for me and in that respect almost all parents are aspirational. Are you really saying that those young people attending grammar schools lack compassion and empathy with those less fortunate? If so, I really don't know how you arrive at that conclusion.

Your children have taken a view about their education and the view it gave them of the world. That's fair enough. But they no more know that they are correct than grammar school pupils would if they'd made any assumptions about the qualities a comprehensive education would have bestowed on them.

[naomi24]

^Yep.

[naomi24]

^That was to Prudie - but since NJ posted in between it's to him too.

[jourdain2]

I went to a northern Grammar school - it was a very mixed intake. My best friend was a half-Polish girl from a huge council estate. Eldest of what ended up as 9 children who she had to help organise. Feckless mother on second marriage and my friend only admitted some 10 years later that her step-dad sexually abused her.
In what way was this a protected and privileged education, please? She's earned her place - as had we. It suited the sort of children we were.