The Master said: "I never refuse to teach anyone, not even those so lowly they come offering nothing more but a few strips of dried meat."? ?
Confucius,?
The Analects 7.7
It?s that time of year again when hopeful applicants are being interviewed for postgraduate places in the UK. The bar is set ever higher: gone are the days when a good first degree would guarantee you an interview. In my own department, the sad reality is that even for those with stellar CVs, the amount of funding is pitifully small. If you?re really smart and motivated and determined to get a doctorate, the only way forward may be self-funding. But here?s the problem: student loans will cover undergraduate but not postgraduate study. If you?re on a full-time course, it can be hard to find a job that would begin to cover your costs. So the only option may be to find friends or relatives willing to give or loan you the money. For a doctorate in Experimental Psychology at Oxford (UK and EU students), this comes to ?6,659 per annum in fees, plus you have to demonstrate you have ?12,900 per annum for living costs. And for overseas students, the fees are nearly three times as much.
At undergraduate level, huge efforts have been made to widen access and to ensure that family background is no barrier to studying at Oxford. Indeed, there have even been complaints that there is a bias against public school applicants. But at postgraduate level, everything is different. This point has been forcefully brought to the attention of academics here in Oxford because of a legal challenge that was issued last So what?s the solution? Perhaps we need to rethink how we structure our educational system. The current model imposes a chasm between studying and employment. The University of Oxford does not offer part-time degrees*(see below!), and discourages students from taking on any but minimal paid work. Contrast this with Birkbeck College London, where my mother studied for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the 1960s, while working as a secretary. (She was a mature student, and mealtimes in our household were greatly enlivened by regular ?Educating Rita? moments, as when she was first introduced to Kafka :?I just don?t get it. There?s this man who?s turned into a cockroach. I mean, it?s just completely stupid!?).
I don?t see Oxford introducing part-time courses or evening study any time soon. Apart from creating administrative complications, especially in the context of the college system, it would go against an ethos that values the idea of intense scholarship, with the student free from worldly distractions. I?ve always thought that here in the UK our postgraduates have a huge advantage because they can immerse themselves entirely in research, allowing them to complete a doctorate some two to three years ahead of their North American contemporaries. I?d be sorry to see the option for full-time scholarship disappear: there is something special that occurs when a person is entirely free to focus just on academic study, to the exclusion of everything else. But I do think we need other options, especially in view of the growing financial pressures on students.
The introduction of more flexible degrees could make a big difference to students like Damien Shannon, because they would make it feasible to fund oneself through a degree. I can see benefits, too, for those who want to combine an academic degree with child-rearing. We have for many years had models in the UK for institutions offering part-time degrees, evening courses, sandwich courses and distance learning, yet these are regarded as outside the mainstream. My suggestion is that our top universities need to think seriously about offering such alternative modes of study alongside traditional degree courses if we really want to make postgraduate education accessible to all of those who are able to benefit from it.
Reference Lindley, J., & Machin, S. (2012). The Quest for More and More Education: Implications for Social Mobility* Fiscal Studies, 33 (2), 265-286 DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5890.2012.00161.x*This is what I love about blogging - within minutes of posting this blog, I've been corrected by Tristram - see first comment - Oxford DOES offer some part-time postgrad degrees already!?
Source: http://deevybee.blogspot.com/2013/02/postgraduate-education-time-for-rethink.html
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