Erm....

UK slips behind on graduate numbers

Let's ignore for one moment the recent decision to withdraw funding for students studying any course which is at a level lower than that which they've already achieved. Let's look first of all at some of the details of the BBC report. Firstly

With modern economies emphasising the need for a highly-skilled, well-educated workforce, the survey shows that the UK has been relatively sluggish in its approach - with much less expansion than in countries such as South Korea, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Of course it's difficult to find any real research that supports this proposition. In fact the reason that so many Poles come to the UK is that they have a highly educated workforce, one of the best in Eastern Europe, but the economy is a basket-case.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the UK has slipped from the third highest proportion of graduates to 10th.

The survey also found that teenagers in the UK had particularly low expectations of going to university.

Damning really given that this government has spent the last 10 years pumping money into projects like Aimhigher and P4P. Millions and millions of pounds - the cost of each widening participation place is incredible and the ongoing failure shows how poorly targeted these activities have been. If the money had been put into secondary schools....

In response, Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said: "The figures are encouraging.

"The UK has one of the highest entry rates for vocational higher education and since the higher education figures in the OECD report are from 2005 we expect to see continued increases over the coming years.

And here's the nub of it. This government is so hung up on the idea of "vocational higher education" that they are prepared to devalue all the other types of higher education. The much vaunted lifelong learning agenda has a rider - only if the learning is vocational. How long before they offer a degree in floor sweeping to increase the number of vocational higher education courses? New Labour's love affair with qualifications rather than learning continues and we are all paying through the nose for it.