Work is the organising principle of the modern world. All aspects of contemporary society revolve around the way in which wage-labour is organised.
In earlier forms of society status was derived from factors other than work: custom, tradition, family or religion. Work was something to be avoided and performed by the lower orders, and the less than human.
In the modern world the situation is reversed, those who avoid work are treated with contempt, and even the privileged are held up to ridicule if they are unable to make it in the world of work.
The development of waged work has been central to the way in which modern systems of education have emerged. The first modern schools appeared in work-houses with training and education for children and young people sponsored by factory owners. University were established in the middle ages to train the clergy, lawyers and public officials, before emerging in 19 th century
Europe as a place for personal growth and development before starting work.
This relationship between work and education is the central issue of this film, and, in particular, the importance that getting a job and future work, vocationalism, has come to play in the development of undergraduate education .
This is the subject matter of this film: Students at Work in Higher Education
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What do you want to do when you leave university? [5 vox pops]
- get a job/ get a job
1, 05 Oliver
1, 13.15 – point of ed to get a better job
2, 16
– biomedical chemistry – better salary
2, 24 – computer science job that pays you well.
07:37 Laura Home – (westwood) people choose less academic courses so as to be more prespared for work – or does this go in ‘too vocational below?
08: 20 (westwood) need to be ed to degree level to get a good job
01: 01/ 04Then Sean Russell from Careers – people go to uni – lots of reasons - to get a job
01,54:20 Polly Toynbee stats indicate better degree from better uni equals better job
Despite the common and popular claim that studying at university improves future job prospects, the latest research by the 2006 Annual Graduate
Careers Survey based on sample of over 16,000 students from universities most highly regarded by graduate employers, showed that about one third of finalists expected to enter the graduate job market.
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100
80
20
0
60
40
44%
42%
49%
43%
42% 40% 39%
37%
35% 36%
40%
96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06
S ource : B ase – Th e UK Gradu ate Careers S urve y 19 96 - 200 6
What students go on to do – careers interview with Sean Russell
58, 38
– Sean Russell students more aware of vocational agenda
Tony Elgar – Institute for Employment research – how long it takes to find a job? Income? 09:10 types of graduate jobs
Sam Lyle to film talking about grad stats.
2, 36 – 2: Asian girls good degrees due to general rise in qualification
D. Too vocational?
VO: IS HIGHER ED BECOMING TOO VOCATIONAL? Curriculum becoming career oriented and, some would say, increasingly vocational. No one would deny the importance of leaving university with relevant skills, but are some of the other important aspects of a university education becoming devalued?
(VO to go over general footage of students working, unless we get something more exciting like a careers fair 2:30 onwards)
LEITCH REPORT (2007) – ROSTRUM CAMERA or words from quotation appearing as written text.
08: 51 Marcus at westwood – vocationalism a bad thing: leads to loss of individual autonomy
02:38 Vox pop – reconciled to being a bit of both; not a conveyor belt.
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03:44 Tony Elgar: tension in the vocational and academic purposes of ed.
Our point in this film is that the vision of a University as a place to learn and develop before starting work has been subsumed to the logic of waged-work, and that, as a result, something important about Higher Education is being undermined.
PART 2
– STUDENTS AT WORK
VO - The relationship between higher education and work is not just about students’ future job prospects. The reality of student life has changed dramatically in the last decade or so - fees
– students are working just to survive being a student.
Prof Bev Skeggs:
‘This is not Higher Education: this is torture’ [REPEAT THIS PHRASE AT
POINTS THROUGHOUT FILM
Prof Tony Elger
05:40 working whilst being astudent heightens students’ awareness of HE as a vocational project.
BUT can also be an opportunity – tor esearch about work itself …
WHAT STUDENTS DO for jobs - Interview with student job recruitment company at Warwick
But students are already working and learning about work, sometimes to the detriment of their studies. A Report, All work and low pay, published in 2006, quoted the latest Student Income and Expenditure Survey (SIES) figures, which estimated that full-time students in regular or continuous jobs throughout the academic year worked on average 14 hours a week.
Furthermore, nearly 40 per cent of full-time students with jobs felt that their employment had impacted negatively upon their studies.
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More than three-quarters of those full-time students who felt their paid work had an impact on their studies stated that working meant they spent less time studying and reading. Around two-thirds reported that lack of time impacted on the quality of their studies. A similar proportion reported increased stress levels and feeling overloaded. Moreover, a quarter reported missing lectures or classes.
How full time s tudents felt affected by part time work (% )
Les s time s tudying
Lack of time on s tudy, s o poor quality work
Increas ed s tres s and overload
Les s time s leeping
Les s time revis ing
Mis s ing clas s es and lectures
S ource : NatCe n/I E S S IE S S UR VE Y 2 004 /0 5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
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Another study by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information
(CHERI) and London South Bank University found working students also had less time for leisure activities, seeing their families and sleeping, and that 62% of those studied felt constantly overloaded because of the demands between their job and academic work.
Patrick Ainley and Mark Weyer’s data here – how to present? TO SHOOT
Such findings have been consistent in research into students ’ experience of part-time work and moreover, lecturers, those working with students and writers, have also expressed concern at the effect of employment on those students’ academic work.
Cut the above with Footage from interviews:
Tony Elgar
Alternative view Polly Toynbee?
Possibility that PT work helps find a job later
Balanced/critical summary that acknowledges that whilst some paid work might be beneficial for many students, for others it can be a real threat to their studies, if not their health. Some comment on the unequal playing field of HE.
PART 3 – is there an alternative?
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Vox pops/ Marcus
– link about students vbeing critical about their own learning/ student experience. VO – what we are trying to explore is the possibility for working within the present system in order to both work with and against given reality. Prepare students for the reality of work but also enable them to be critical about this.
THE NEXT PART OF FILM SUGGESTS ANTIDOTE TO FOCUS ON
VOCATIONALISM THROUGH WORK OF REINVENTION CENTRE] examples of students as researchers – rbl. Students critically engaged – not passive consumers. Acquiring skills (associated with research) but at time are thinking critically about the worls.
40:23 active resistance to question what university does Marcus at Westwood .
The film one example – describe making of film. 18:28 Marcus in Westwood saying students question what university’s for and that’s what we are doing in this film
- also 46-48 the poly Toynbee filiming
Students doing research
– footage from the conference
Including Laura and Sabine from Sheffield – collaboration
STUDENT AS PRODUCER - URSS/SGF posters
– ask students explicitly about their experience of doing research? What have they learn in relation to their university experience and also of benefit for the future? TALKING BIRDS
TO SHOOT
- student journal
– interview David Metcalfe? And film the journal launch
SUMMARY
– complex/ tensions and contradictions -
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