Denham defends ELQ cuts

[sawyl]

Appallingly, the government minister responsible for removing funding for second degrees etc — equivalent level qualifications in government argot — has had the breathtaking chutzpah to attempt to defend his decision in a speech at the Open University, the institution that will probably be hit hardest by the cuts.

To prove that the government really doesn't understand the purpose of education, here are some of salient details of the Denham position as given by the Guardian:

Denham expects more employers to co-fund higher education courses, which will be exempt from the changes, alongside degrees in strategic subjects and foundation degrees.

"We believe on evidence of what many universities are already doing and what employers have already said, that there will be employer interest in funding or co-funding higher level courses for people to retrain or re-skill later in life."

He added: "Many of the courses universities run are designed with employers, but they have never engaged employers in paying for them."

Yeah, because we all know that employers are going to be falling over themselves to pay for their employees to study philosophy and art history and astrophysics, don't we? I guess the OU's arts faculty should just close down right now and the sciences should ditch all their useless blue skies courses and instead start supplying BAs in Having A Nice Voice on the Telephone and MAs in Stamp Licking Studies, because these are the sorts of skills that, I sure Denham would have us believe, employers in the Real World really want.