Mandy's Free Degrees

Peter Mandelson loves Universities. In fact, he seems obsessed with them. But not in a good way. More like a celebrity stalker, who feels that the lady newsreader would really enjoy his caresses, if she'd just let him try.

He just can't stop thinking about them, imagining what's best for them, what they should be doing.

Even though 'Education' is one of the few Government Departments he doesn't run, he can't resist tinkering, fiddling, sharing his views, sniping and directing from the sidelines.

And he's got some bad news for Universities today. As sneaky as ever, Mandlesnake has slipped out this news two days before Christmas: after all the 'real', elected MP's have gone home and while the entire country is in 'crisis', buried in 2 inches of slush.

Mandleson's  little Christmas present to the Universities is a huge cut in their budgets for 2010. Yup. Those same universities that struggled this year, that couldn't take on all the students wanting to attend, will get 135 million pounds less to play with next year.

And that cut is in addition to the 600 million pounds of mythical 'efficiency' savings for 2012 already dumped on the Universities in Badger Darling's PBR.

But don't worry, Uni's, Mandy's got some ideas. Some ideas on how you can do better. Better than you've managed in the hundreds of years for which you've existed. Much better - this is the NuLab way, see?

The Foy Boy's main suggestion - actually, more of an order really - is that Universities provide:

"..more programmes that are taken flexibly and part-time and that a learner can access with ease alongside their other commitments,

Oh for flying, flaming, fuck's sake. A degree is supposed to indicate that some effort has been made. That there was some commitment, possibly even - heaven forbid - some sacrifice. It shouldn't be possible to get a degree in the spare moments between cold calls in your day job. 

Not content with that simpering idiocy, Manders also dictates that he wishes to see:

“..programmes such as foundation and fast-track degrees, that can be completed full-time in two years"

Oh yeah. Fucking genius. After all, in this age of instant gratification, 3 years is a long time to have to wait for a degree, isn't it? In fact, even 2 years sounds a bit of a slog. Why not make it a couple of weeks? Dear God.

Get this straight, Mandy: if you can get a 'degree' in two years, it’s not a fucking degree is it? It's some other, simpler, qualification, isn't it?

Why is it that the fucking socialists can only achieve the 'fairness' that they bang on and on about by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator? By setting the hurdles at two inches, so everyone can jump them?

In their tiny 'all-shall-have-prizes' minds, everybody must a have a 'degree' from a 'university'. So they have to achieve this misguided target by calling every single further education institution a fucking university and every single poxy qualification a degree.

Oh dear god, why? Why are we letting these fuckwits ruin our once world-renowned University system?

This is getting close to an emergency. Some Universities have been around for literally hundreds of years, providing valuable, meaningful qualifications to hard-working students. In just 12 short years, the idiots in government have managed to undo all of this.

If these cuts, and these directives from High Lord Mandelson, go through next year, they will have achieved their aims. There'll be 20th Century degrees, achieved through 3 years of hard slog. And there'll by 21st century degrees, 'accessed with ease' by call centre workers in their spare time. And the old ones will be worth about ten new ones. Brilliant.

For fuck's sake, somebody get their hands off the controls.

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