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New Labour's wasteful debt.
Oct. 10th, 2011 08:00 pmToday I spent a day at The National College in Nottingham. I am beginning a course I don't feel particularly strongly about but which will give me the illusion of career progression in my current role and enable me to walk into a well paid job in locations other than my current one on account of ticking that all important 'qualifications' box.
This building is HUGE. It has no fewer than three, three storey atriums and a lot of empty classrooms/conference rooms. Here is a picture of a bit of the building;
Massive.
So, our course tutor, a man who was offered such good money to become a NCSL tutor that he quit his job as a Primary School Headteacher (a well paid job, if you were wondering), tells us, proudly, that the building was built by Tony Blair. It was Labour's initiative, he tells us, which established the National College and created these qualifications (not unlike an NVQ, but for 'leadership').
I am, therefore, sitting inside a New Labour folly; a monument of wood and glass to wasted money. A monument to creating excessively, disproportionately, well paid jobs for people 'training' people to receive qualifications in the job they are already doing, or would previously simply have learnt by doing, not by writing down how they would do it.
More specifically, I am sitting in a building which - in a roundabout way - is the reason there is no money left in the country. And no money left in the country means cuts to Arts funding. Cuts to Arts funding means fewer scholarships and bursaries. Fewer bursaries and scholarships mean stiffer competition. Stiffer - insane - competition means I los[e/t] out at Hull and I am not currently beginning my PhD research.
In short, the man standing in front of me, droning on about 'evidence types' and 'professional standard written English' and the need to understand your 'learning style' is earning per annum enough money to put me through university as a Postgrad for 3 years. The window I am gazing out of could have bought me, what - all my textbooks? Sent me to a conference? paid my electric bill for the first month?
All around me is waste. Waste which has such a profound impact I am forced to engage with it, am swept along in its pervasive ooze; just so I can remain in employment and, most distasteful of all, perpetuate it by falling down this rabbit hole of a career path.
Labour left this country, specifically education and the arts, with the most appalling debt. The insidious self-perpetuating nature of their callous waste will keep me awake tonight, as it has done many nights before. And what can I do about it? Can't vote Liberal, won't vote Tory, can't vote Labour. Can't send an invoice for my lost future/ambition. Can't win. Can't beat them. Got to join them.
Joining them, filled with self loathing, disgust and fury. Pure, undirected, righteous fury.
This building is HUGE. It has no fewer than three, three storey atriums and a lot of empty classrooms/conference rooms. Here is a picture of a bit of the building;
Massive.
So, our course tutor, a man who was offered such good money to become a NCSL tutor that he quit his job as a Primary School Headteacher (a well paid job, if you were wondering), tells us, proudly, that the building was built by Tony Blair. It was Labour's initiative, he tells us, which established the National College and created these qualifications (not unlike an NVQ, but for 'leadership').
I am, therefore, sitting inside a New Labour folly; a monument of wood and glass to wasted money. A monument to creating excessively, disproportionately, well paid jobs for people 'training' people to receive qualifications in the job they are already doing, or would previously simply have learnt by doing, not by writing down how they would do it.
More specifically, I am sitting in a building which - in a roundabout way - is the reason there is no money left in the country. And no money left in the country means cuts to Arts funding. Cuts to Arts funding means fewer scholarships and bursaries. Fewer bursaries and scholarships mean stiffer competition. Stiffer - insane - competition means I los[e/t] out at Hull and I am not currently beginning my PhD research.
In short, the man standing in front of me, droning on about 'evidence types' and 'professional standard written English' and the need to understand your 'learning style' is earning per annum enough money to put me through university as a Postgrad for 3 years. The window I am gazing out of could have bought me, what - all my textbooks? Sent me to a conference? paid my electric bill for the first month?
All around me is waste. Waste which has such a profound impact I am forced to engage with it, am swept along in its pervasive ooze; just so I can remain in employment and, most distasteful of all, perpetuate it by falling down this rabbit hole of a career path.
Labour left this country, specifically education and the arts, with the most appalling debt. The insidious self-perpetuating nature of their callous waste will keep me awake tonight, as it has done many nights before. And what can I do about it? Can't vote Liberal, won't vote Tory, can't vote Labour. Can't send an invoice for my lost future/ambition. Can't win. Can't beat them. Got to join them.
Joining them, filled with self loathing, disgust and fury. Pure, undirected, righteous fury.
