As the start of the University term approaches, we've already had two major stories on higher education funding and neither of them have been particularly nice. Firstly, the Liberal Democrats have annoucned that they will probably scrap their core policy of scrapping tuition fees (http://www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Speech%3a_Liberal_Democrat_Leader_Nick_Clegg_delivers_his_rally_speech&pPK=a6eb332d-764d-46b1-bae8-4dc28d49649c), atleast for the time being (aka forever). Whilst this in itself is enough to make the student Liberals wonder why they bother, the most irrational news was - as usual - yet to come!
That wonderful organisation the CBI ("Confederation of British Industry" for those who weren't sure) - whos main members are, on the whole, not industrial companies but fat-cat bankers and service providers - are telling us that we (students) don't pay enough. They say we need to pay more money and get less financial support if British Universities are to remain the successful world-leaders that they already are. They also (quietly in the footnotes) say that businesses should provide a bit more sponsorship and a few more bursaries (the number of which you can count on one hand, with spare fingers).
Sorry but, am I the only person who has woken up in some alternate reality where students and their parents are all unable to get out of bed without a ladder because of the huge piles of £50 notes they have instead of a mattress? Because that seems to be the general idea to me, and it's total, complete and utter crap. As a student I get pretty much the full grant and loans because of my parents low financial status, which totals approximately £6,300 to last me the 36 weeks per year at university and whilst I am at home over the holidays. That works out at a sum of £175 per week to live on.
Why don't the CBI buisinesses instead, give out LOTS (not one or two) more scholarships to students who agree to be contracted to them after university, and why don't they take some of their sickeningly huge profits and invest in Universities charitably (although due to the gravity of the situation I am grudgingly open to the prospect of this being on a loan or exchange - but not PURCHASE - basis)? The answer is they won't because they don't want to. They all weren't charged tuition fees when they were at University and lived off generous grants, bursaries and scholarships. Why should these greedy fat-cats give anything back? This is capitalism at its most decadent!
Now, when one considers that my (very cheap!) acommodation is £68 per week, and I spend approximately another £40 on food, clothes and non inclusive bills (phone, TV etc), this leaves me a total of £72 per week on which to live. Doesn't sound too bad does it?! Now add up the cost of books (minimum £300 per academic year, robbing bleeders!), learning materials and photocopying/printing, travel and transport, hidden costs of getting medical care etc, this totals another (based on last years receipts) about £15, leaving me a grand total of £57 per week what you might call 'disposible income'.
Take this away and I have no ability to exist beyond university. I cannot socialise with my friends, I cannot afford to even FIND a job (the lack of which is another problem in the current climate which compounds student poverty). The whole point of University is to make a better future for yourself, and for the society in which you live, isn't it? Stripping students of this help, especially when the vast majority of whom have no other financial support (including like me little or none from my parents, who are themselves struggling), is not only lunacy. It is plain wrong.
When you take the basic state pension (£95.25 per week for a single person) and add all the other benefits - fuel allowences, pension credit etc, you find that students are only on marginally more than pensioners, and this is arguably made up by the costs of healthcare and housing and such.
No one would ever dare to advocate cutting the state pension or benefits to the elderly, and quite rightly so! So why is it so easy - and almost desireable - to turn on students who are in a similar financial position. This will continue as long as students don't take a stand and fight for what we need. This will continue as long as we allow imbeciles like Wes Streeting and the NUS to 'defend' us so meekly, only to roll over when something of their political persuasion comes along in an effort to further their own selfish careerist desires.
This will even contunue if we pretend that the NUS's right-wing undemocratic "funding blueprint" will save us with things like graduate taxes. Why should someone who goes to a decent main-stream university and get a job earning £50-80k a year at their peak pay the same as an OxBridge graduate who leaves university and gets a top rung job earning hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds per year? Especially when they have had ten times the amount of help and resources in terms of their university and (mostly, but not universally) class background, with infinately better job prospects despite being no better or more intelligent that you or I.
To quote Danny from 'Brassed Off' in a slightly different context: "The point is - if this lot (students) were seals or whales, you'd all be up in bloody arms. But their not, are they, no, no they're not. They're just ordinary common-or-garden honest, decent human beings."
It's time we stood up and were counted. We are the future of Britain, and the future of humanity. Let's go out and be vocal about where the CBI can put its proposals!
Monday 21 September 2009
Thursday 3 September 2009
NHS job cuts? Oh hell no!
Article this morning about a proposal by a team of "management consulatants" to cut the number of jobs in the NHS by 10% (or 137,000 jobs by 2014) to save the UK £20billion. But these jobs aren't office staff, pen pushers and filing clerks, these jobs are to be cut mainly from front-line services - Doctors, Nurses and the like. Quite rightly, the government has rejected these "short sighted" (Dr Mark Porter, BMA) proposals out of hand.
Now, in general, I'm against cutting any jobs, full stop. I'm especially against cutting the numbers of Doctors, and in particular nurses in the NHS. But on the other hand I accept that the NHS is a huge, cumbersome organisation which has a lot of waste that needs to be addessed. Particularly the fact that the NHS is a very top-heavy organisation with an abundance of "managers" (who don't seem to do much management), "advisors" (whose advice is usually pretty crap) and other such staff. Now, whilst I appreciate that there are intracacies of their jobs which help to provide valuble and important services, their is an abundance of waste. How the NHS can justify paying a "manager" a salary of £40,000 per year plus to do a common sense job, whilst a newly qualified nurse earns only £16-18,000 per annum, is beyond me.
There is a perfect opportunity to save money here, simply by cutting the ridiculous salaries of "managers" and higher staff such as Managing Directors (over a quarter of who earn more than £100,000 per annum!). These are people on enourmous salaries with ridiculous benefits (expensive company cars etc), who contribute very little and take a hell of a lot. Now some people would whinge about private business and how much their MDs earn, and how much bankers get in bonuses etc - but it's a simple matter of fact: If they don't want a reduced salary, they can leave the organisation so that someone who is just as skilled can take their place, because let's be fair, these people have no specialist skills or knowledge (other than experience, which as the recent banking crisis has shown is relatively worthless), and so can be easily and effectively replaced, even if only by their "underlings". The savings we are talking about are large, and the number of job losses are minimal - so it's a win-win scenario.
Secondly, the NHS needs to be diverse in ways of saving money. Drug companies such as Glaxo-Smith-Klein make enourmous sums of money charging the NHS for simple drugs that they could produce themselves, and the NHS seems to have little interest or investment in Research and Development beyond what is developed by private industry. Simple drugs and anaesthetics etc could quite easily be produced by hospitals at much lower costs than purchasing them from expensive drug companies, meaning not only could money be saved, but more expensive drugs (for cancer etc) could be made available to a greater proportion of the population, if the project was managed efficiently.
There are lots of other ways the NHS coiuld save money, and I'm not going to sit and list them all here. Let's hope that the government choose to do so in a way that doesn't make thousands of people unemployed or diminish the important service the NHS provides. We'll see enough of that when the Tories get in.
Now, in general, I'm against cutting any jobs, full stop. I'm especially against cutting the numbers of Doctors, and in particular nurses in the NHS. But on the other hand I accept that the NHS is a huge, cumbersome organisation which has a lot of waste that needs to be addessed. Particularly the fact that the NHS is a very top-heavy organisation with an abundance of "managers" (who don't seem to do much management), "advisors" (whose advice is usually pretty crap) and other such staff. Now, whilst I appreciate that there are intracacies of their jobs which help to provide valuble and important services, their is an abundance of waste. How the NHS can justify paying a "manager" a salary of £40,000 per year plus to do a common sense job, whilst a newly qualified nurse earns only £16-18,000 per annum, is beyond me.
There is a perfect opportunity to save money here, simply by cutting the ridiculous salaries of "managers" and higher staff such as Managing Directors (over a quarter of who earn more than £100,000 per annum!). These are people on enourmous salaries with ridiculous benefits (expensive company cars etc), who contribute very little and take a hell of a lot. Now some people would whinge about private business and how much their MDs earn, and how much bankers get in bonuses etc - but it's a simple matter of fact: If they don't want a reduced salary, they can leave the organisation so that someone who is just as skilled can take their place, because let's be fair, these people have no specialist skills or knowledge (other than experience, which as the recent banking crisis has shown is relatively worthless), and so can be easily and effectively replaced, even if only by their "underlings". The savings we are talking about are large, and the number of job losses are minimal - so it's a win-win scenario.
Secondly, the NHS needs to be diverse in ways of saving money. Drug companies such as Glaxo-Smith-Klein make enourmous sums of money charging the NHS for simple drugs that they could produce themselves, and the NHS seems to have little interest or investment in Research and Development beyond what is developed by private industry. Simple drugs and anaesthetics etc could quite easily be produced by hospitals at much lower costs than purchasing them from expensive drug companies, meaning not only could money be saved, but more expensive drugs (for cancer etc) could be made available to a greater proportion of the population, if the project was managed efficiently.
There are lots of other ways the NHS coiuld save money, and I'm not going to sit and list them all here. Let's hope that the government choose to do so in a way that doesn't make thousands of people unemployed or diminish the important service the NHS provides. We'll see enough of that when the Tories get in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)