First degree burns: Why Sunak’s wrong on universities

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rishi Sunak’s decision to limit the number of students able to study what he calls “low-value degrees” has sparked backlash. Why is he doing this – and does it make sense? And is this even about education at all? Dr. Zoe Hope Bulaitis, assistant professor of liberal arts and natural sciences at University of Birmingham and author of Value and The Humanities, joins Gavin Esler in The Bunker to discuss where the PM is getting it wrong on university courses. “The fact that students are willing to go into these careers shows that there’s more to life than a high pay cheque." – Dr Zoe Bulaitis “To say that a degree is ‘low value’ is to concede to the terms that a degree is valued to specific terms.” – Dr Zoe Bulaitis “This is more sensation than substance.” – Dr Zoe Bulaitis Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Producer: Chris Jones. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
0:14.0	It's good you can retrain and do something.
0:16.0	Yeah, yeah.
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0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Gavin Esler Around 40% of Britain's young people go to
1:14.9	university or further education after school. That's a huge advance on the
1:19.5	situation in the 1950s, when only 3% managed to get into the few universities then in existence.
1:26.7	That was an educated elite.
1:29.4	But it all changed in the 1970s with a host of new universities being created, including the University of Kent, where I'm in my final year as Chancellor.
1:38.0	But wait, instead of celebrating this brilliant education success story on the political right and further
1:44.4	right, including the Conservative MP Miriam Cates, there are those who claim that British universities
1:50.2	create too many low-value degrees, whatever they are.
1:55.0	This is somehow tied to what some conservatives and their opaquely funded friends in think tanks call
2:00.8	elite over production. Some even claim that universities teach students to become
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