Seneca21

The Tories started Labour's policy of setting a target to send 50% of young people to university? Was that the secret Tories under the cabinet table?

Grayling

The Tories, under Keith Joseph as secretary for education, created universities fromthe old polytechnics and that was the start of the current trend.

Seneca21

The Tories stopped using the word "polytechnic" in 1992, and all this meant was that they could call themselves universities and give their own quals away. It did not encourage half - literally - half the young people in the country to go to university.

We can lay this turd squarely on Labour's doorstep. Another totally failed piece of social engineering that has harmed most those it sought to assist.

spartacus

Totally agree. Not only has it "harmed most those it sought to assist" but, for those kids not academically minded enough to be in that 50% attending HE, it's left them with no hope whatsoever . . . kids with degrees can't get jobs, kids with a few GCSEs might as well not bother applying.

Amazulu

They do, but we don't have anywhere near the economic problems the UK has. As the UK has moved from a manufacturing to a service based economy, university has become a rite of passage for the young. It's been university for all at any cost - hence the boom in worthless degrees. Jobs that used to require a high school education, now require a degree. What's the point of a degree if you are going to do a school leavers job?

A stat from my UK institute, the IET (formerly the IEE):
Number of UK electrical engineering graduates per year - less than 100
Number of German electrical engineering graduates per year - approx. 5000

spartacus

That's shocking.

Amazulu

Pun intended?

Seneca21

Nice pun...............! But seriously, yes shocking. Same thing with maths and science graduates coming out of the West compare with China.

JAJ

A "cushie life in Oz?"

Most migrants - including those from the United Kingdom - have had to work hard to build lives in Australia. Those that haven't, mainly when house prices and exchange rate aligned a certain way, have been very much the exception not the rule. If your mindset is not focused towards hard work, then perhaps migration is not the best option for you.

Seneca21

+1. The days of Mr and Mrs Average selling their 2 bedroom hovel in Birmingham and buying outright a 7 bedroom palace in Brisbane are long gone.

It will be the exact reverse in another generation's time.

Lilia

Your Children are so young... Why are you worrying about Uni???

I have 2 young Children & the most important thing I worry about is that they ENJOY every moment of their Aussie Childhood.

elfman

I found that very hard to believe, since there must be dozens of UK institutions offering degrees in electrical engineering. Is each one only graduating 2-3 students each year? While googling I came across this, which, while not exactly rosy, implies that the number of elec eng graduates in Britain must be a damn sight higher than under 100 per year:

The ETB report ‘Engineering UK 2007’3 reveals that Electronic and Electrical Engineering degrees saw a 45 per cent decline in UK acceptances of places to 2,824 between 2002 and 2006, and that only one third of recent graduates in this discipline move on to professional engineering careers. More recent UCAS4 data show a continued decline in UK acceptances to 2,689 for 2008

can't be arsed to spend all night looking into this but I also came across this, which suggests to me that Loughborough University alone graduates around 100 electrical/electronic engineers per year (Fig 2). Or are you saying that 90% of them are foreigners?

Bermudashorts

+2. been here three months, never worked so hard in my life.

To original question, the future of and quality of life the kids will have will depend more on their upbringing and their own personality than what country they are in.

Amazulu

A lot are foreigners - the lifeblood of most universities. A lot of people who study electrical engineering, combine it with something else - electronics, computing etc. Very few do pure electrical engineering - hence the shortage of these people in the UK (and Australia for that matter). This at a time when there is increased demand for them due to UK spending heaps in upgrading their power supply/network. UK has some great engineering schools - better than Germany. If you graduate from Imperial with a degree in electrical engineering you would know your shit.

The figure I quoted was from an issue of my IET magazine - so I will have to take their word for it. The IET (IEE) is one of the most prestigious and reliable engineering institutes in the world - the lack of engineering graduates and skills in the UK is a big issue for them and they write a lot about it.

Deancm_MKII

Nail, head!