So, it was A-level results day yesterday here in the UK, and, as predicted, pass-rates are through the roof for the 26th year running, everyone’s ecstatic, and everyone hopes to be off to university. The usual factoids trotted out on the news, as if it’s any surprise.
Not that I think signs of education improving are bad, of course, but every August this one event does indeed get absolutely milked dry by the media.
While I’m very pleased at how everyone’s done – congratulations to everyone who got what they wanted and are off to where they wanted to go, I’m a little perturbed with how, in recent years especially, the notion of not going to university is spun as being cataclysmic. Life isn’t worth living if you don’t get a place anywhere.
For those of you who have been taken in, you’re sadly mistaken. It’s a cute, TV-friendly way of putting it, but the media won’t let the facts get in the way of a good story (especially when it involves the bizarre ritual of having students trotted out on live television to open their results there and then, filming every frame of their reaction. Pretty cruel, really).
I think it’s dreadfully deceptive to paint the picture on the news – you know, people crying over results slips, the apparent sprint to secure places in Clearing as if it was a sale at Ikea, and, of course, the perennial favourite – UCAS buckling under the pressure of “record” numbers of enquiries. A pattern has indeed developed to make every results day pretty much a carbon-copy of the one before, just a little more tumultuous and with a little more pandemonium.
I’m surprised they didn’t start taking comments from Twitter…
What I think people need to remember is to take regular reality checks at this time. Yes, going to university can be a fulfilling, enlightening and broadening experience. But it’s not the be-all and end all, and I wish that the alternate path was made a little more clear for students, especially as they start their A-level journeys and find themselves almost immediately confronted with irreversible, life-changing decisions that require answers many do not have.
As should be common knowledge, I didn’t go to university, and I don’t regret it, for my own reasons. Read the linked blog post for more details; I felt very nudged down the university road, when I wasn’t sure in my own mind that this was what I actually wanted. My teachers were lovely, but in a sense that made it all the worse – a fear of disappointment from them, and also the disappointment and bewilderment of one’s peers was ever present. This was deeply detectable in the now-infamous memory I have of the entire year being brought into the library to sign up for UCAS accounts. I didn’t feel I could put my hand up and be the only one (or, at best, one of a few) to question in front of 200 peers that I wasn’t terribly sure about what I wanted. No 17-year-old wants to have to do that.
The alternate path should have gotten a passing mention. Yes, you could go travelling, take a year out, or go straight into work. I work very hard – my job isn’t terribly glamorous, but it does indeed net me an income that I would estimate is more then any student earns, and it’s helped me develop a more outgoing personality – and hasn’t cost me money! I definitely want to move on to better and brighter things, but for now, I’m more independent as I’ve ever been and, you know what, I’m pretty content. It beats being “on the dole, except my parents are proud of me”; an image and attitude which in itself sickens me.
One website I can thoroughly recommend for you if you’re faced with this enormous cross-roads is notgoingtouni.co.uk – just remember, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t go to university. There are lots of other options; apprenticeships, foundation degrees, from-home learning, employer-funded study… just be bold and don’t be afraid to stick out from the crowd. You’re in charge of your future; don’t let yourself get love-bombed by a very one-sided argument that’s almost engrained in the education system.
It feels to me that you’re almost guilt-tripped into going into the university system. There was virtually no support for those who’d said no to it, and I think that was awful. People were allowed to see these non-uni people as failures. There were no speakers telling the year that if you don’t go to university, you won’t end up as a bin man. That ignorant school of thought was left to fester in the minds of, essentially, uninformed 16-year-olds. I’m not a failure, am I? I know what I know, and I’m always learning – just in my own way. I love it.
If you think about it, it’s fundamentally wrong to build everyone’s hopes up that there’s a university place for all – there isn’t. It’s a lovely cute idea, but reality states that there’s no way on God’s earth that it’s feasible for everyone to go to university; even if it was, if everyone has a degree, then the whole system of using that as a yardstick to measure the wheat from the chaff (excuse the less-then-elegant term), then the whole system is meaningless!
And if you thought separating the absolute best achievers by reverting to star shapes next to grade letters was bad, things will only get worse. You can’t keep tacking on stars, or moons, or smiley faces to the A-grade; just spare these students the misery and make the grade boundaries a little more strict. It’s obviously a psychological thing, isn’t it? There’s nothing wrong with B grades or C. Too much emphasis is put on being an A-student that these stupid micro-grades have to be cobbled together to, to me, almost preserve people’s self-esteem by not recognising that some students are not absolutely perfect. Sometimes it’s character-building to receive a bit of a knock, lest we want people to be systematically egocentric. It keeps your feet on the ground and your mind knowing that, however good one is, there’s always space to improve.
I’m not trying to say university is bad. It suits some people more then others. It probably wasn’t for me, that’s my personal decision which I’m content with. I just wish students, impressionable though they are, were made aware that if you don’t want to go to university, or don’t get a place at university, always remember: it’s not the end of the world. Make your own future where you’re in charge of the direction you take; you’ll be fine.
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