IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
“Higher education is everybody's rite,” someone anonymously quipped in early 20th century Britain. At that time, this brilliant play of word was summarily dismissed as “far-fetched” and “obnoxious”. Roughly, a century later, the Britons have found dark humour in these words.
For the last couple of months, the world has been too engrossed in uprisings in West Asia and North Africa and has possibly ignored another uprising of sorts in a First World Nation: Britain. This uprising has been started and spearheaded by students who aspire to go for higher studies. And this uprising has to do with the astronomical hike in the tuition fees charged by several colleges.
There were protest marches several thousand strong in university towns and cities across Britain including, most famously, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. In Cambridge, thousands of prospective students brought down the barrier blocking Senate House – the historical structure that has been hosting convocation ceremonies since ages – and then gathered into the courtyards of the seven centuries old King’s College yelling and waving posters. A few arrests were made on the ground.
The government went into PR frenzy encouraging articles and programmes that would help students “see reason”. However, protests and demonstrations continue as universities and colleges open for the new session.
Meanwhile, the British government would be bound to spend almost £1bn more than the earlier estimate in the coming eight academic sessions to fill up the gap in the funds as a large number of universities have either announced or are on the verge of announcing the maximum tuition fees to be £9,000 a year. Universities seeking the £9,000 maximum are Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Exeter, Essex, Aston, Manchester, Warwick and Durham. St Mary's University College, Twickenham has said it plans to charge £8,000.
This essentially means that from autumn session in 2012, universities will be free to roughly treble the tuition fee they now charge. They have been empowered to do so by the Parliament ostensibly as part of the reform to regularise the funding of higher studies. According to the format, initially the tuition fee is borne by the government, which deposits the fee for students pursuing higher studies in the form of a loan. However, it retrieves the amount in full as soon as the student graduates and lands a job that pays more than £21,000 per annum.
Ministers and other officials have conceded that the middle class people with modest incomes will be the most affected by this hike in tuition fee. Graduates who pass out and land a job bringing in more than £45,000 per annum will have to dole out five times as much a year for the recovery of tuition fee than those who are not as successful. This estimation has been made by none other than the government statistical department.
Even though the tuition fees across Britain are minor in contrast to those at most of the US and other European colleges, British universities have essentially been public institutions. People protesting against the proposed tuition fee hike have indicated that Prime Minister David Cameron and other ministers of his government have gone to elite universities and colleges such as Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick and Northampton in an era when higher studies were completely free.
Opponents of this law suspect that the government will try to offset the planned outlay from other higher education schemes. This might mean that the government will either cut down on number of available seats or will simply bring down the support from research activities and channelise the funds towards the fee payment.
On the other hand, David Willetts, the universities minister, had hoped that as the market would evolve, different institutions will start charging different amount of fees and not necessarily the maximum limit. However, his optimism appears crashed as by the time this report goes to the press, the majority of universities have announced that they would go for the top fee of £9,000. Of the 16 universities that have so far declared the fee for autumn 2012, as many as 13 have stated that they will go for the maximum.
Gareth Thomas, the shadow universities minister, has meanwhile threatened that either the institutions will have to scale down their fees or face the partial withdrawal of funds or the government would have to announce a rollback. He said: “The government repeatedly promised that fees over £6,000 would be the exception, but it is increasingly clear that they are powerless to stop most universities charging closer to £9,000. This will push up the average fees beyond the £7,500 estimate on which the government's spending plans are based, requiring deeper cuts elsewhere in the higher education budget.”
On the other hand, supporter of this step see it as a step to improve the ailing education system. Talking to TSI, Omer, an economist based at the University of Warwick, says, “Increasing the upper limit on tuition fees actually provided institutions much more resources at their disposal. See it this way. Under the current law, the institutions have been actually empowered. Now even if the government decides to withdraw the aid, these institutions will have their corpus to continue providing world class education to their students.”
Omer goes on to explain this phenomenon in terms of open market system. He says, “Why don't people protest when Hugo Boss charges more for their cologne than their cheaper cousins? On the face of it, both are colognes. The only reason Hugo Boss charges more and get away with it is because we consider its cologne more valuable than others. In that case, why should not good universities charge more fee than the run-of-the-mill ones?” Interesting argument.
But opponents dismiss this comparison as callous. They claim that it is difficult for the members of Brown Review Committee or the coalition cabinet, who have jointly carried this legislation, to understand the pain as they comprise 18 millionaires and only one non-white member. They insist that even after the increased maintenance grant of £3,250, poor students will still be paying fees that are almost double of what they pay now.
It has political undercurrents as well. For the Liberal Democrats the entire idea of subsidised higher studies has been a matter of ideological belief over the decades. In that case, it is surprising, and heart breaking too, that within a couple of months after joining government at UK level for the first time since the World War II, they joined ranks with the Tories to introduce such a harsh legislation. The way their MPs are going about is equally nauseating. They have become completely insulated.
I can not help but remember a famous anecdote by great theologian Richard Pratt. A university professor set an examination question in which he asked what is the difference between ignorance and apathy. The professor had to give an A+ to a student who answered: I don't know and I don't care.
One wonders whether that student was David Cameron.
Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
Dr Malay Chaudhuri, Founder Director IIPM, tells TSI why the IIPM Awards are in a league of their own
Bollywood's No.1 Mum Kajol: Step ahead MOM!
Katrina Kaif: A British Indian Actress Born on July 16, 1984
IIPM Professor Arindam Chaudhuri on 'OBAMA and OSAMA'
“Higher education is everybody's rite,” someone anonymously quipped in early 20th century Britain. At that time, this brilliant play of word was summarily dismissed as “far-fetched” and “obnoxious”. Roughly, a century later, the Britons have found dark humour in these words.
For the last couple of months, the world has been too engrossed in uprisings in West Asia and North Africa and has possibly ignored another uprising of sorts in a First World Nation: Britain. This uprising has been started and spearheaded by students who aspire to go for higher studies. And this uprising has to do with the astronomical hike in the tuition fees charged by several colleges.
There were protest marches several thousand strong in university towns and cities across Britain including, most famously, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. In Cambridge, thousands of prospective students brought down the barrier blocking Senate House – the historical structure that has been hosting convocation ceremonies since ages – and then gathered into the courtyards of the seven centuries old King’s College yelling and waving posters. A few arrests were made on the ground.
The government went into PR frenzy encouraging articles and programmes that would help students “see reason”. However, protests and demonstrations continue as universities and colleges open for the new session.
Meanwhile, the British government would be bound to spend almost £1bn more than the earlier estimate in the coming eight academic sessions to fill up the gap in the funds as a large number of universities have either announced or are on the verge of announcing the maximum tuition fees to be £9,000 a year. Universities seeking the £9,000 maximum are Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Exeter, Essex, Aston, Manchester, Warwick and Durham. St Mary's University College, Twickenham has said it plans to charge £8,000.
This essentially means that from autumn session in 2012, universities will be free to roughly treble the tuition fee they now charge. They have been empowered to do so by the Parliament ostensibly as part of the reform to regularise the funding of higher studies. According to the format, initially the tuition fee is borne by the government, which deposits the fee for students pursuing higher studies in the form of a loan. However, it retrieves the amount in full as soon as the student graduates and lands a job that pays more than £21,000 per annum.
Ministers and other officials have conceded that the middle class people with modest incomes will be the most affected by this hike in tuition fee. Graduates who pass out and land a job bringing in more than £45,000 per annum will have to dole out five times as much a year for the recovery of tuition fee than those who are not as successful. This estimation has been made by none other than the government statistical department.
Even though the tuition fees across Britain are minor in contrast to those at most of the US and other European colleges, British universities have essentially been public institutions. People protesting against the proposed tuition fee hike have indicated that Prime Minister David Cameron and other ministers of his government have gone to elite universities and colleges such as Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick and Northampton in an era when higher studies were completely free.
Opponents of this law suspect that the government will try to offset the planned outlay from other higher education schemes. This might mean that the government will either cut down on number of available seats or will simply bring down the support from research activities and channelise the funds towards the fee payment.
On the other hand, David Willetts, the universities minister, had hoped that as the market would evolve, different institutions will start charging different amount of fees and not necessarily the maximum limit. However, his optimism appears crashed as by the time this report goes to the press, the majority of universities have announced that they would go for the top fee of £9,000. Of the 16 universities that have so far declared the fee for autumn 2012, as many as 13 have stated that they will go for the maximum.
Gareth Thomas, the shadow universities minister, has meanwhile threatened that either the institutions will have to scale down their fees or face the partial withdrawal of funds or the government would have to announce a rollback. He said: “The government repeatedly promised that fees over £6,000 would be the exception, but it is increasingly clear that they are powerless to stop most universities charging closer to £9,000. This will push up the average fees beyond the £7,500 estimate on which the government's spending plans are based, requiring deeper cuts elsewhere in the higher education budget.”
On the other hand, supporter of this step see it as a step to improve the ailing education system. Talking to TSI, Omer, an economist based at the University of Warwick, says, “Increasing the upper limit on tuition fees actually provided institutions much more resources at their disposal. See it this way. Under the current law, the institutions have been actually empowered. Now even if the government decides to withdraw the aid, these institutions will have their corpus to continue providing world class education to their students.”
Omer goes on to explain this phenomenon in terms of open market system. He says, “Why don't people protest when Hugo Boss charges more for their cologne than their cheaper cousins? On the face of it, both are colognes. The only reason Hugo Boss charges more and get away with it is because we consider its cologne more valuable than others. In that case, why should not good universities charge more fee than the run-of-the-mill ones?” Interesting argument.
But opponents dismiss this comparison as callous. They claim that it is difficult for the members of Brown Review Committee or the coalition cabinet, who have jointly carried this legislation, to understand the pain as they comprise 18 millionaires and only one non-white member. They insist that even after the increased maintenance grant of £3,250, poor students will still be paying fees that are almost double of what they pay now.
It has political undercurrents as well. For the Liberal Democrats the entire idea of subsidised higher studies has been a matter of ideological belief over the decades. In that case, it is surprising, and heart breaking too, that within a couple of months after joining government at UK level for the first time since the World War II, they joined ranks with the Tories to introduce such a harsh legislation. The way their MPs are going about is equally nauseating. They have become completely insulated.
I can not help but remember a famous anecdote by great theologian Richard Pratt. A university professor set an examination question in which he asked what is the difference between ignorance and apathy. The professor had to give an A+ to a student who answered: I don't know and I don't care.
One wonders whether that student was David Cameron.
Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
Dr Malay Chaudhuri, Founder Director IIPM, tells TSI why the IIPM Awards are in a league of their own
Bollywood's No.1 Mum Kajol: Step ahead MOM!
Katrina Kaif: A British Indian Actress Born on July 16, 1984
IIPM Professor Arindam Chaudhuri on 'OBAMA and OSAMA'
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