Across the 9 days leading up to polling day Dorset Eye will publish the answers to the questions set by local people for some of the local candidates standing in the 2015 General Election. Some candidates have yet to reply and should we receive their responses then they will be included in later interviews.
How will you help those who don’t go to university secure alternative routes to professional jobs, since fees are so expensive?
How do you intend to help and support foreign students?
Vikki Slade: Liberal Democrats Mid Dorset and North Poole
I am passionate about apprenticeships and I am proud that so many of our companies are offering high level apprenticeships that progress into degrees. I would like to see more sponsorship of young people through university by companies in return for a specific time in their company.
Liberal Democrats would remove foreign students from the immigration figures and would reinstate the foreign student visa so that post-graduate students can continue to work here and give something back to our community once they have finished their study. We must recognise that foreign students help our colleges and universities to remain world class and should not be putting that status at risk by limiting their ability to get the very best students studying and researching in this country.
Ros Kayes: Liberal Democrats West Dorset
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary, has led the drive to deliver more than 2.2 million apprenticeships in government, twice as many as were delivered under the last Labour government. This vast expanse was in apprenticeships which are, in general, longer (at least one year) and more advanced (level 3 and above).
The Liberal Democrats want to see:
- New national colleges through the vision in Vince Cable’s Green Paper for a new generation of colleges filling the gap left by the abolition of polytechnics .
- A concentration on higher apprenticeships – level four, foundation degree and above – building on the Coalition’s work.
- An emphasis on apprenticeships in key areas of skill shortages: digital, construction and engineering.
- Developing the emphasis on employer ownership with more apprenticeships to small and medium sized enterprises which currently have poorer take up.
- A commitment to help employers by exempting them from national insurance when taking on apprentices and by providing hundreds of thousands of apprenticeship grants for small businesses throughout the next parliament.
Finally, the price of student loans repayment is currently £30 per month only after you earn £21,000. Under the previous government loan repayment started at £18,000. A UCAS report in February 2015 showed that more disadvantaged people than ever before were going to university . 10.6 % of students on England and Wales compared to 6.4% in Scotland which does not have university fees. This is because extra funding for students from disadvantaged backgrounds has been provided to cover their costs. We support a full review of the student finance. Personally I would support at least a £3000 cut in fees plus extra support for maintenance because many students are struggling to meet living costs whilst at Uni.
Higher Education is one of our most successful export markets. Students travelling to the United Kingdom were worth an estimated £13 billion in 2012, expected to rise to £16 billion over the next 5 years. International students build long term professional links with UK organisations, helping our businesses trade in future. They directly benefit our higher education institutions, and the fees they pay help fund the education of British students, Those benefits for host countries provoke fierce international competition for overseas students. According to the Russell Group the UK is the 2nd most popular destination in the world for international first degree and PhD students, behind the USA. Clearly we should aim to grow and not harm such a valuable export market. We believe that.students should be taken out of the net migration target.
We support foreign graduates from UK universities being able to stay on in the UK for a further three years. However , we recognise that the labour market for young people is already overcrowded, with well documented problems around graduate unemployment. It is therefore important that foreign graduates permitted to stay and take jobs are meeting a demand for skills which are not available in the UK labour market. So permission to stay should be linked to UK skill shortages.
Jane Burnet: Green Party Dorset South
For a start we would abolish tuition fees. This is why:
a) The loans attract interest so they grow while they are unpaid. Unlike maintenance loans, once taken out, tuition fees CANNOT be paid off early, they can only be paid off by having the repayment deducted from income over time. This is to ensure the interest is all paid. As soon as a graduate starts to earn £21,000 they are charged 9% of their earnings to start repaying their loans. The more a student earns, the more they repay each month. High earners will pay their loans off early (and then be rid of this extra 9% deduction) but the majority of graduates will not be earning high enough salaries to do this. So, although, they are cancelled after 30years, 73% of students will never repay their loans because they will not earn enough. This means these graduates will be paying the equivalent of 29% tax if they are on the basic rate, or 49% if they are on the higher rate. Someone earing £42,000 will be paying 20% tax while new graduates will pay 29%. This is unfair and will increase inequality and make buying homes even more difficult for your age group. Labour plans to reduce the fees to £6000 but this will only help the highest earners (earning over about £55,000 at today’s prices) so the majority of graduates will still be saddled with debts.
b) This system will leave your generation with even bigger debts, as individuals and debts unpaid to the Student loan Company (essentially the government / future tax payers.
c) FE & HE are worth £23bn to the economy every year. Education is an investment for us all.
To answer the question, because we will cancel tuition fees, because we have the bold tax policies which will allow us to do this, it is only fair that students not wishing to go to university should also have the opportunity to continue with their training, We plan to ensure there are properly funded apprenticeships and we would ensure FE colleges are given the same financial support as schools.
Recent immigration caps have meant that foreign students have been put off coming to the Uk to study. These need to be reformed. Our aid programs would encourage the growth of good quality FE and HE in recipient nations.
Rachel Rogers, Labour Party West Dorset
Tackle the growth of unpaid internships: too many very able young people who cannot afford to work for free are unable to enter too many of our professions.
• guarantee an apprenticeship for every school leaver that gets the grades, requiring every firm that gets a large government contract to offer apprenticeships and ensuring those apprenticeships can lead to higher level qualifications.
• introduce a Compulsory Jobs Guarantee, paid for by a bank bonus tax, which will provide a paid starter job for every young person unemployed for over a year, to give them the experience that might be holding them back.
Short-term student visitor visas have dramatically increased, so we will tighten the system to prevent abuse, whilst welcoming overseas university students who bring money and skills and diversity into Britain. Places of education must ensure that overseas students are aware of their rights and their responsibilities and protect them from exploitation and abuse.
Oliver Letwin: The Conservative Party West Dorset
To help those young people who embark on a vocational path after leaving school, we have created over 2 million apprenticeships, and over the next five years we will deliver 3 million more. These apprenticeships provide a brilliant pathway into work of many different kinds, including entry to the professions.
I don’t think that the British taxpayer should support those foreign students who can afford to pay for themselves. But I welcome the programmes, both public and charitable, that help particularly talented foreign students who cannot afford to pay for themselves.
Simon Hoare: Conservative Party North Dorset
Conservative support for apprenticeships are a huge help to those seeking non academic qualifications. We will continue with them. Once again the economy is at the root of this. A growing economy under the Conservatives will continue to see jobs and opportunities created.
Peter Barton: Green Party West Dorset
The Green Party will abolish university tuition fees because we regard higher education as something that benefits the whole society, not a commodity to be bought and sold. We will also restore the Education Maintenance Allowance which the coalition government abolished. This enables 16 and 17 year-olds from low income families to afford to go to college. We will oppose the privatisation of Further Education and restore it to the control of the local authority, increasing funding for FE by £1.5 billion p.a. We will reverse the trend whereby 45% of apprenticeships are taken by the over-25s. We will reinstate the government’s duty to provide an apprenticeship to all young people aged 16-19 who do not have one and want one but extend it to age 25 and increase funding for apprenticeships by 30%.
The Green Party believes that the doors of opportunity and learning should stay open for as long as possible for young people, providing anyone who needs it for a ‘second chance’ to follow a route to a professional qualification. We will increase funding to local authorities and encourage them to use some of this to restore a full range of adult education services.
The Green Party will impose no restriction on the number of students coming to the UK from abroad. They contribute hugely to our education system both financially and in terms of the wider perspectives they bring. They take back to their own countries important skills, knowledge and experience which enhance their own societies. We would allow foreign students to work in the UK for two years after graduation. We would widen the Youth Mobility scheme to allow those from poorer countries to participate.
Simon Bowkett: Labour Party Dorset South
All our young people deserve the opportunities to succeed, but the under the Tories the 50 per cent of young people who don’t go to university have too oftenbeen forgotten. Not everyone wants to go down an academic route – but vocational education is being neglected by David Cameron.
Too many young people are unemployed, but there is a lack of high quality vocational education in schools to support young people into good jobs or further training. Fewer than one in ten employers in England offer apprenticeships. At the same time, the skills gap keeps on growing and Britain is falling behind other countries in terms of technical skills.
Instead of ensuring we can compete with our main competitors in Europe and deliver opportunities for all young people, the Tories have downgraded apprenticeships. They have created low quality courses that all too often last only for short durations, provide no training at all to apprentices, and would not even be recognised as apprenticeships abroad.
The number of young people starting apprenticeships is falling, and most new apprenticeships are going to people aged over 25 who are already in work.
Our education system needs to change if we are to set all young people up for the future and if we are to buildthe high skill, high wage economy we need to succeed as a country.
Labour has a plan to ensure that everyone can get the skills and training they need.
1) We will create a clear route for the forgotten 50 per cent, with a new gold standard Technical Baccalaureate for 16 to 19-year-olds, with rigorous vocational qualifications, accredited by employers, a high quality work placement and English and maths to 18.
2) We will introduce new Technical Degrees as the pinnacle of this new vocational route, ensuring that young people who excel in vocational skills have opportunities to progress to high level training that sets them up for a career.
3) We will increase the number of apprenticeships, asking all firms that bid for major government procurement contracts to provide new apprenticeship opportunities for the next generation.
4) We will tackle the recent rise in low quality apprenticeships, putting employers in the driving seat when it comes to developing apprenticeships, to ensure the creation of more gold standard qualifications, trusted both by employers and by young people.
This government’s attempts to appease UKIP and their own right-wing has seen panicky immigration announcements that have triggered a sharp fall in international students attending British universities and contributing the British economy.
Numbers of international students seeking to study key subjects at UK universities are falling because tighter immigration rules are creating an “unwelcoming” impression, an influential House of Lords committee says.
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report last year called on the UK government to rethink its immigration policy, which it says is “contradictory”, and warning that the decline is putting university courses of vital importance to the UK – the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths – under threat.
International students on stem courses fell from 58,815 in 2010/11 to 52,905 in 2012/13, a drop of more than 10%. In particular, the number of Indian students on STEM courses fell by 38% in 2011/12 and a further 28% in 212/13. The decline is particularly acute among students on taught postgraduate courses in STEM subjects – the number of new students fell by 13% in 2010/11 and a further 3% the following year.
Labour has a better plan.
The Labour Party last year announced its pledge to remove international students from future net migration targets, so breaking with the current policy of the coalition government.
Our ambition is simple: world-class higher education and a world-class higher education system. But to be world class, you have to welcome the world’s best minds. Not ban them, because somehow we think the UK is ‘full’.
No one wants open-door immigration. We need systems that work for all by tackling exploitation to stop people being undercut. But legitimate overseas students boost not burden our economy; they enrich not endanger our future. And that’s why Labour would remove legitimate international students from the net migration target.
Thank you to all those who responded and to all those who set the questions.
