Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The new socialism of fools

95 suicides or about one death every four days! "In the drive to make universities profitable, there is a fundamental confusion about what they are for. As a result, there has been a shift from prizing learning as an end in itself to equipping graduates for the job market, in what for some can be a joyless environment. At the same time as access to university was dramatically expanded, spending on public services was slashed: in the decade after the financial crash, day-to-day spending on public services as a share of GDP was at its lowest since the late 1930s. This meant savage cuts to local authorities, schools budgets and NHS mental health provision." In addition to the workload at university, according to a 2014 report , "a significant number of students  (45%) do paid part-time  work alongside their studies, with 13% doing a 35-hour week." That's what we call joyful learning and learning to develop critical thinking! In reality, corporate universit

Education and beyond According to the Times Higher Education, Phil Baty,  THE ’s chief knowledge officer, said that, based on current trends and with Brexit looming, Germany was “poised to overtake the UK as Europe’s number one higher education nation”, thanks to its extra research spending, increased focus on internationalisation and successful excellence initiative.   Meanwhile, mainland China has continued its ascent of the rankings this year and is now home to the top two universities in Asia for the first time.  Tsinghua University  holds on to the number one spot in the region, despite dropping one place since last year to 23rd, while  Peking University  is now second in Asia and 24th overall, after rising seven places. The  National University of Singapore  drops two places to 25th. It should be born in mind that in both Germany and China public higher education is free. Another area that reflects the decline of Britain.

This has been going on for decades. The gender pay gap in Easyjet and British Gas, for example, is above 45%. We should add that in a few workplaces unions are not allowed and that they have done little to fight the injustice because they have been weakened and "neoliberalised", and parliament knows about it. But it seems that at universities unions have been passive or complicit. One can only wonder how many of these employees, workers, students, professors believe in "liberating" other women in far away countries. I've often heard white students in their teens studying in two elite universities, who want "to help and empower" women in Africa and the Middle East! Cultural arrogance has blinded them from seeing what is around them and how capitalism works. Big university gender pay gap revealed See also You are not only exploited, you are more exploited than others Ethnic academic minority pay

"It is more a matter of the daily erosion of intellectual integrity, the relentless commodification of scholarly values, and the tightening grip of managerialist autocracy. And no one can seriously believe that any of this will be improved by leaving the EU and submitting to the unregulated embrace of global capitalism in its most buccaneering and profit-hungry form." In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity