Uni-reasonable

I worked for a long time on that little play on words in the title. I still dont think it is (a) very clear or (b) any good. "Uni-reasonable"... it's supposed to be a play on univeristy and unreasonable... it's the best I could come up with, it's better than "Extort-iversity" anyway...

It's quite a scary thought knowing that in less than two months, I'll be completely finished with university and education, and will have to go out into the harsh wilderness to find employment. I wont have a degree until official graduation so I'll have a few months where I will have no choice but to find a job where pretty much the only criteria is : they will give me a job.


Quite worryingly, though, I am faced with the fact that once I have a degree, probably an upper second class honours in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Wolverhampton, I will still be forced to find employment with exactly the same criteria. Having a degree is all well and good, and I'm sure it will open doors to me, simply making me elligable for some jobs/oppurtunities/or just making me look a bit better. It has come at the bitter cost of 20ish grand of debt.

However, as the talk of government recently has been to increased university fees, potentially to the disgretion of the specific university (which would be a terrible idea), it makes you wonder how far this might go.
Supposedly, in the near future, all UK universities will be given the right to charge whatever they feel is right per year to study at their institution (currently its around 3,100 a year [my apologies to the lack of a pound symbol, university computers are void of them for some reason]). Now, I think it's pretty clear what will happen if uni's can charge whatever they want: the prestige institutions like Oxford, and Cambridge, and Wolverhampton (...*whistles*...) will begin charging upwards of 20 maybe 30 grand a year, just because the rich can afford to pay it. That will just lead to the kind of system where less privaliged but just as bright kids will have to go to other uni's, or avoid further education simply because they cant afford it. And that just isn't right.

Now obviously, this kind of thing wouldnt bear too much of a problem on me. If next year the fees were all to rise dramatically we would certainly see a huge reduction in the number of students attending university, and consequently, getting degrees. That would see people like me, degree holders, open to more high paid job oppurtunties, as suddenly there would be much fewer graduates entering the marketplace. And indeed, in some ways I would sort of like to see only the people who actually care about getting educated going to university.
From my experience you tend to find that a lot of people these days go to university to get a qualification, rather than an education. It's what leads to people cheering when a lecturer says they'll be finishing an hour early, rather than bemoaning the fact that we pay over 3grand a year for them to teach us.

Nevertheless, being somewhat of a liberal, I tend to find that my heart's inclination says that if a qualification is open for rich people, ...call me crazy... it should be there for the less well off too.

Faith schools.

I think faith schools are a terrible, terrible idea.

Lets back-track a bit though, I'll get to that point in a minute. First lets establish so context:

I hate racism.

But how do you define race?

The colour of someone's skin?

The country they are from?

The nature of their ancestry (e.g. dark haired people in Britain more likely to be descended from Romans, fair haired people more likely to be descended from Vikings)?

What counts as someone's race?

Is a white English person who says "I hate Scottish people", as bad as a white English person who says "I hate black people"?

I cannot see a justification for either of these comments.

The same applies to ageism, or sexism, or homophobia, or in fact any type of driscimination. As soon as we try to define someone for one aspect of their personality, we are negating the fact that they are are a human being. We have become obsessed with defining people by a simple personality trait. A goth? A skater? I bet there are skaters who watch X-Factor, and I bet there are some that would rather surrender themselves sexually to a pack of hyenas than do so.

So now we reach the point. Faith schools. What you are immediately doing is defining someone on the fact that they are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Hindu etc.

Now perhaps there is an argument that you could define people on their religous beliefs. Christians will, in general at least, live by a set of core values that may be different to those values of Muslism, Jews or Atheists. However, I know some Christians who believe in Evolution and others who cant see past Creationism. I know some Christians who dont know what they believe, but try to lead their lives on the values of Christainity (at least to some degree).

I go to university in Wolverhampton. There is a much richer diversity of people here. Many international students from Poland, Germany, China (the list goes on). There are many different religons too. However, what you tend to find is that in general, people with hang around with individuals similar to them. Hindu's tend to stick with Hindu's, and Muslim's with Muslims. To a certain extent, blacks with blacks, and whites with whites.
This doesn't necessarily have to be an issue, people can choose to be friends with whoever they like, and of course there is going to be a level of comfort surrounding hanging around with people who you feel most familiar with.

However, I think we have to start drawing the line when it comes to schools. Young children should not be forced to go to a school of their parents nominated religion. Schools should all be kept secular, thus leading to real diversity where instead of different cultures banding together and creating large groups amongst themselves, you see people of different religions and beliefs coming together.

Faith schools, in my opinion, promote difference instead of unity. They bring together children who will have grown up with the same beliefs and backgrounds, and compound them into thinking that this is the only sensible way of living. In my opinion this can only lead to racial and religous tension.