Jacob Riddle is a student based in the North West who writes on politics, law, and public policy.
If you ask the National Student Survey or its 346,000 respondents entering higher education, time spent at university could be a gateway to employability and further study. Yet, for many students, the reality is the complete opposite.
Last month saw Cardiff University announce the merger or closure of some of its degree programmes and whilst it’s a damning indictment and insight into the educational policies of the Labour-run Wales (where PISA results are below that of the national average), it should also send alarm bells to anyone involved in higher education.
There are around three million students per year in higher education, and of those, 900,000 graduate with a degree. However, if you ask students from the same University about their experiences, the results are wildly different.
If you take a vocational-based course such as nursing, the typical student’s day is 9-5 Monday to Friday and follows the same framework as a school year: the occasional week off here or there, but 9-5 Monday to Friday with a placement block built in. This is in stark contrast to counterparts following other courses.
At the other end of the spectrum are degrees such as law and business, where the classroom time isn’t 9-5 but often sporadically placed throughout the week with time given for reading. As for placement blocks, in many courses, these don’t exist, and whilst universities are making great strides in improving their offering of work experience through Advice Centres and careers services (and I include my own University in their considerable advancements in this area), very little – on the whole – will be achieved without a mandatory framework. Whilst I understand that learning must be done independently at higher levels, a few hours of contact time a week doesn’t cut it – not for £9,535 a year.
The content of those modules should also be a concern to anyone with half an eye on education.
The mass influx of university students every year has meant that the content of degrees has been watered down. Many people have accused degrees of losing value in recent years, but I will go one further: the degree has been bankrupted.
Precious weeks out of that teaching time are taken to explain to undergraduates what the court structure or what the House of Commons is or for ‘consolidation’ or a ‘reading week‘ (as they are more commonly known): students are only in University for an average of 7-9 months.
Under the current system, these are the next generation of professionals, yet they lack any understanding of the world around them or how they can use their skills to make a difference.
And this isn’t entirely the fault of students; a rigid A-level structure means students are pigeonholed into what’s in the textbooks and what the examiner is looking for and not how their subject works in practice: they are taught the theory but lack any practical application. From the start, students are void and denied understanding of the world around them.
Yet we promised to change that; we vowed to bring in a bold new model of national civic service that would give young people an understanding of the world around them, of an Advanced British Standard which would see students’ minds broadened outside of the textbook, a clamp down on ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ and a tightening of the belts for Universities.
But we failed to deliver a meaningful mandate, and we didn’t go far enough – our faith in these institutions has allowed them to run free – to offer courses in magic – and what the events of Cardiff have shown is that students will continue to be void of any understanding of the practical application of their degree. We created a system whereby everything that counts is on the certificate, and Labour watered down the routes for getting that certificate.
Unpopular degrees disappear from the syllabus while the ‘easy (or popular’)’ degrees take a chokehold. That’s why we must get our higher education offering right for the next election, and it starts with being selective.
Most students attend University to gain employability skills over research, and universities need to reflect that – we must revert to factory settings.
We need to separate the two streams: Redbricks and the traditional universities for those who want to do research and never really see the practical application of their specialist subject, and Polytechnics and Metropolitans for those who wish to gain the skills to become employable.
But that also means recruiting a new generation of scholars and teachers. We must encourage those who have left the profession to go to polytechnics to pass on their knowledge and not be unnecessarily pushed into academia.
But this only works if we’re honest about student numbers and the degrees being taught. Students need to realise that the skills they learn now will stay and scaffold their way of thinking for years to come, so whilst a degree in magic might seem great now, on paper, it is worthless.
However, specialised courses only work if you have a few people to dedicate your time to. Look at the average Paramedicine course – only a select few per cohort and who must apply by UCAs and sit interviews. Compare this to a law course where all that is required is a personal statement and UCAS Application.
Those smaller numbers allow you to vet your students better, spend time with them, learn how they think and work and create a community, which is difficult in a large cohort.
That extra time allows you to do something else: it will enable you to build and scaffold placement blocks for students, helping the students and society. Take law as an example, a sector borderline on its knees: over 509 firms have shut in 2024, and 1,000 solicitors have left criminal practice since 2017, but this is an area where a switched-on law student can make the difference.
Putting them in firms to manage casework and learn the trade skills would benefit society and the student (which is precisely what an internship is intended) to do but made mandatory as part of the curriculum.
As for students who don’t get in, that’s where apprenticeships should be kicking into life. University isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve anything – that needs to be clarified. That’s why money should be redirected into apprenticeship schemes for employers to take on learners who need that extra time to be made ready or don’t quite fit the mould of university. This approach should benefit the employer with a boost to the funds offered.
So, if we want to ‘renew’ and offer a better deal for young people, then we must get our educational policy right.
We must be ready to be bold and take the steps in higher education that will deliver reform for students, see university structures redesigned to benefit everyone, back calls such as that by the Law Society of Wales for more Apprenticeships – on people’s doorsteps – and give credibility to degrees once again.
Jacob Riddle is a student based in the North West who writes on politics, law, and public policy.
If you ask the National Student Survey or its 346,000 respondents entering higher education, time spent at university could be a gateway to employability and further study. Yet, for many students, the reality is the complete opposite.
Last month saw Cardiff University announce the merger or closure of some of its degree programmes and whilst it’s a damning indictment and insight into the educational policies of the Labour-run Wales (where PISA results are below that of the national average), it should also send alarm bells to anyone involved in higher education.
There are around three million students per year in higher education, and of those, 900,000 graduate with a degree. However, if you ask students from the same University about their experiences, the results are wildly different.
If you take a vocational-based course such as nursing, the typical student’s day is 9-5 Monday to Friday and follows the same framework as a school year: the occasional week off here or there, but 9-5 Monday to Friday with a placement block built in. This is in stark contrast to counterparts following other courses.
At the other end of the spectrum are degrees such as law and business, where the classroom time isn’t 9-5 but often sporadically placed throughout the week with time given for reading. As for placement blocks, in many courses, these don’t exist, and whilst universities are making great strides in improving their offering of work experience through Advice Centres and careers services (and I include my own University in their considerable advancements in this area), very little – on the whole – will be achieved without a mandatory framework. Whilst I understand that learning must be done independently at higher levels, a few hours of contact time a week doesn’t cut it – not for £9,535 a year.
The content of those modules should also be a concern to anyone with half an eye on education.
The mass influx of university students every year has meant that the content of degrees has been watered down. Many people have accused degrees of losing value in recent years, but I will go one further: the degree has been bankrupted.
Precious weeks out of that teaching time are taken to explain to undergraduates what the court structure or what the House of Commons is or for ‘consolidation’ or a ‘reading week‘ (as they are more commonly known): students are only in University for an average of 7-9 months.
Under the current system, these are the next generation of professionals, yet they lack any understanding of the world around them or how they can use their skills to make a difference.
And this isn’t entirely the fault of students; a rigid A-level structure means students are pigeonholed into what’s in the textbooks and what the examiner is looking for and not how their subject works in practice: they are taught the theory but lack any practical application. From the start, students are void and denied understanding of the world around them.
Yet we promised to change that; we vowed to bring in a bold new model of national civic service that would give young people an understanding of the world around them, of an Advanced British Standard which would see students’ minds broadened outside of the textbook, a clamp down on ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ and a tightening of the belts for Universities.
But we failed to deliver a meaningful mandate, and we didn’t go far enough – our faith in these institutions has allowed them to run free – to offer courses in magic – and what the events of Cardiff have shown is that students will continue to be void of any understanding of the practical application of their degree. We created a system whereby everything that counts is on the certificate, and Labour watered down the routes for getting that certificate.
Unpopular degrees disappear from the syllabus while the ‘easy (or popular’)’ degrees take a chokehold. That’s why we must get our higher education offering right for the next election, and it starts with being selective.
Most students attend University to gain employability skills over research, and universities need to reflect that – we must revert to factory settings.
We need to separate the two streams: Redbricks and the traditional universities for those who want to do research and never really see the practical application of their specialist subject, and Polytechnics and Metropolitans for those who wish to gain the skills to become employable.
But that also means recruiting a new generation of scholars and teachers. We must encourage those who have left the profession to go to polytechnics to pass on their knowledge and not be unnecessarily pushed into academia.
But this only works if we’re honest about student numbers and the degrees being taught. Students need to realise that the skills they learn now will stay and scaffold their way of thinking for years to come, so whilst a degree in magic might seem great now, on paper, it is worthless.
However, specialised courses only work if you have a few people to dedicate your time to. Look at the average Paramedicine course – only a select few per cohort and who must apply by UCAs and sit interviews. Compare this to a law course where all that is required is a personal statement and UCAS Application.
Those smaller numbers allow you to vet your students better, spend time with them, learn how they think and work and create a community, which is difficult in a large cohort.
That extra time allows you to do something else: it will enable you to build and scaffold placement blocks for students, helping the students and society. Take law as an example, a sector borderline on its knees: over 509 firms have shut in 2024, and 1,000 solicitors have left criminal practice since 2017, but this is an area where a switched-on law student can make the difference.
Putting them in firms to manage casework and learn the trade skills would benefit society and the student (which is precisely what an internship is intended) to do but made mandatory as part of the curriculum.
As for students who don’t get in, that’s where apprenticeships should be kicking into life. University isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve anything – that needs to be clarified. That’s why money should be redirected into apprenticeship schemes for employers to take on learners who need that extra time to be made ready or don’t quite fit the mould of university. This approach should benefit the employer with a boost to the funds offered.
So, if we want to ‘renew’ and offer a better deal for young people, then we must get our educational policy right.
We must be ready to be bold and take the steps in higher education that will deliver reform for students, see university structures redesigned to benefit everyone, back calls such as that by the Law Society of Wales for more Apprenticeships – on people’s doorsteps – and give credibility to degrees once again.