Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
15 January 2010
15:5337679This idea came from the toilet posting, #302 from Bern. Everything Bern said, I can relate to the government Student Loan system. Organised chaos, completely lacking simplicity, an absolute nightmare. After waiting over 2 month`s for a further grant for my daughter, they`re now requesting my P60, along with other info` which I`d sent in the first place, last August and they`d returned with a compliments slip. all got to be done again now,
. No surprise to me that politicians can fiddle the system, or migrants. I often wonder if a completely independant financial group done a thorough audit on this country`s finances and government department`s, what recommendation`s they`d put in their report ?
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
15 January 2010
16:0637682a few people have said the same to me about the student loan fiasco.
they want to know everything including your inside leg measurement, then when they have it all the file gets lost.
15 January 2010
16:3237685IMHO opinion the whole of the Student's Loan system is a total farce.
When I first went to University in the early 70's I got a grant. Not a lot, because it depended upon parent's income. Nevertheless it did me O.K.
I suspect that myself, and most of my cohort have paid it back a number of times over, in the Income Tax that we have paid since we (apparently) earned a greater salary of those who did not have degrees/University education. i.e. The grant was an investment by the tax payer in Education.
One now has the system whereupon apparently 50% of the population are going to go on to Tertiary Education (Universities + the old Polytechnics + God knows what!). This will take 50% out of he work/claimant force for three years. Instead of having to pay Unemployment Benefit for three years for half the population you will have 50% of the population stuck with a debit of C. £15,000 for life (or until they pay it off should they get a job).
Let's be honest a whole raft of the degrees are not worth the paper they are printed on. Mickey Mouse Subjects studied at Mickey Mouse universities.
15 January 2010
16:4337687Don't get me started about student loans!!!!!!! My son obtained exceptional exam results, got a place at a brilliant uni (Durham) and was treated like cattle during the loans process - and it is still being sorted out in part. Complex doesn't even begin to describe it!! I must stop now or I will be here for hours, ranting!!!
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
15 January 2010
16:4637688Which is why my first essay on this posting was so short Bern, I could feel my blood pressure rising.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
15 January 2010
17:1637703As we speak, Colin, as we speak......that hissing sound is our collective blood pressures rising ever higher.........
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,698
15 January 2010
20:0437760This country lost the plot with tertiary education some 30 years ago, when what we needed was to strengthen the polytechnic system into the sort of technical school system Germany was famous for (though even their education system is in the crapper due to financial constraints) so we could churn out the scientists, engineers and technicians we desperately needed/need. Instead successive governments decided to create new universities and allow polytechnics to convert to universities, effectively damning science and manufacturing to a paucity and lack of talent ever since. It is frankly ludicrous as a nation to have an aspiration that 50% of all A level students should attend university, as all this will do is saddle them with debt and the trauma of an over supplied labour market for years after their graduation.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
15 January 2010
20:1037762Never a truer word spoken Ross, and that`s where my daughter`s heading.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
19 January 2010
20:0338277I`ve been trying to get through to the tax office online about the student loan above still, and through the jumble of being unable to find where I can get a replacement P11 form, I eventually found a phone number for the enquiry I was after. Lines open till 20.00, I rung up at 18.15 with another irritating recorded message saying about the busy lines and I may be better going online.
. Despite over an hour before the phone line closes, it rang off. Right, if someone told me tomorrow that someone had blown up a government building, I would not give a S***, and I know now what blokes at work moan about it all for, this whole country has gone to pot, it`s wrapped up in it`s own mess, and is another reason I will not vote for any of them. I`m just going off to have a cuppa, and hope my blood pressure goes down.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
19 January 2010
20:3338279I do apologise for the outburst above, quite out of character for me, so maybe you can see why I`m happy in my own interests, and try to keep out of politics etc. Feel better now, and have another go tomorrow.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
19 January 2010
21:4938290I can just gave you the headlines of what we at U.K.I.P.are saying on this one and Education for our children.
Education should be about excellence,giving our chidren the best possible start in life.
But today,s education system prioritises goverment interference and ignores real issues like bullying.
The brightest pupils are not challenged,and no genuine vocational choice is offered until age 16.
Labours target of 50%of young people going to university causes huge debt and reduces the value of degrees.
The E.U. Bologna process means 5-year degrees-even more debt for students,so after reading that this is U,k I.P.
Plan.
(1)Students grants, not student loans.
(2)Proper skills training and apprenticeships.
(3)Scrap labour,s 50%graduate target.
(4)No to school playing field closures.
I would just like to add to this but this not from the party but myself.
I would like to see teachers staying at the same schools under contract for 3years or more,this would help them and the students,going back now teachers would stay at the same school 20or more years and would first teach the mums and dads and then their kids and this was a help,but today the teachers move around after just a year or less and that is no help to the students, all teachers have their own way of doing just that,so for the young they just get into one way with the teacher then that teacher goes incomes a new one and it back to the start again for the young student.Again that is just me saying that not the party.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
19 January 2010
21:5838293Thank you Vic, it is all a mess, and is long overdue for sorting out from what I here, even before I had these problems.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
19 January 2010
23:1838318i must admit that items 2 and 4 struck a positive chord with me.
the 3 year contract sounds good, not sure about the legality though.
ideally the longer that teachers are at a school is better for the pupils, in that a relationship is built.
would be interesting to hear what DT1 has to say on this subject, he is our local master of lobbing the blackboard rubber.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
20 January 2010
16:1338362It seems par for the course, given that we have an economy that plunges hugely into recession if credit is cut off, that we have to saddle the next generation with thousands of pounds worth of debt just so that they can qualify to earn the kind of salaries that will pay that debt off.......
Why must we always owe money, both personally and as a nation? It's common sense, to me anyway, that the vast majority of students will spend so long paying their debt off that they will be married with kids of their own, mortgaged to the hilt with car loans on top of that, so much so that they will really struggle to ever be free from debt.
Do we have too many students racking up too much debt that they may never clear? And, is our economy not built on exactly the same quicksand foundations?
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
2 February 2010
15:3939434I think if I heard the news that someone with a gun had gone beserk up at the student finance england centre, the way I`m feeling at the moment, I would wonder who my sympathy would lie with, the victims or the gunman? Sounds bad, well they`re doing their best to kill me off with stress with their utter incompetance which is costing all of you as well as me lots of wasted public money. And, if this student finance england is representative of all government departments then no wonder this country is in such an appalling mess!!! I sent a form off to Darlington 3 weeks ago showing my wife does not work, then yesterday, she got 2 seperate letters, both from Glasgow asking, yes, you`ve guessed it, what are her yearly earnings for the current year? With it came another set of passwords and logon details so it can all be done on the internet. Yes, done it all again and after 3 goes and not recognising the reference number, the alternative is the phone, which means holding the line for 20 mins while the phone companies rake it in, and when you`re through, being told they`re sorry, and they`ll get another form out to you. Me vote, you must be joking!!!!!!!!!!!
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
2 February 2010
17:4939444Colin - you have my entire sympathy. It would be funny if it weren't so serious. Kafka had some very valid points!!! Let's just hope the bast**ds who run the agebcies turn into beetles. Then we can stand on them. Now then, form an orderly queue!!
2 February 2010
22:5639487KCC reduced my daughters pitiful grant (she got more from my employer who had no chance of a return on their investment) once my son went to University too. For some perverted reason he got a bigger grant because he was the second family member to go to Tertiary education. But hey, why penalise the first child? Work that out if you can.
Two visits to Maidstone and some very stronly worded letters caused KCC to rethink and up the grants to both. After that experience I would always recommend challenging their arbitrary decisions.
Remember, KCC are the body who lost over £50m of our money in Icelandic investments and said they were sure the loss was covered. Yes, by us of course. So, I dig a little deeper and find they had another £53m investment of OUR money somewhere else! With that amount of money sloshing around doing nothing, it HAS to be worth a go to get more in a grant.
