Comment on Bursaries

These points seem to stem especially from comments I made on the Radio Windy talkback show on bursaries. The context was a suggestion that student loans (which would have to paid back in later life) should be introduced. I am opposed to this, basically because overseas experience suggests that this reinforces class divisions in education, rather than reducing them. The argument I used was that as graduates get higher incomes and hence pay higher taxes, they do in fact repay society for the 'investment' in them. I think that attempts to look at education purely in money terms are very short-sighted - I used the argument only because I thought it would get through to the caller better. I can in fact bamboozle people with stats on this point if they really want me to.

Beyond this explanation, I quite agree with Charles' points on the inequalities of the education system. I also wholly agree that much more work needs to be done on them. However, in the interim I think one realistic thing that can be done is to have cost-of-living increases and an end to various anomalies in the bursary system to allow more students to come to these hallowed halls. Lastly, I think the base cause of discrimination in education comes from the capitalist nature of society - unless that is corrected, then true equality, in education or anywhere else, is impossible in my view. A view I tried to raise in a recent article in Salient - which hat had unfortunately no response.