Graduate cuts are damaging
Shrouded by a veil of uncertainty, jubilation and often confusion, the British public have quite enough to worry about these days. However, through the perpetual haze, a very vital piece of information looks to be tiptoeing by quite unnoticed.
Our government continues to work; changing, reviewing, and of course, cutting; yet again, students may be the ones to suffer. The discontinuation of the state funded graduate internship scheme offers us new concern.
The scheme aimed to aid graduates in obtaining employment. Indeed, by providing opportunities through funding for 18,500 students at smaller businesses as interns, it led to at least a quarter being offered jobs upon completion. Arguably nothing but a drop in the ocean in tackling the ever prevalent issue of record high graduate unemployment, it was certainly a commendable endeavour. However, beyond the actual opportunity loss, the message that the discontinuation sends is perhaps more concerning.
at York we are among the worst off
Our Deputy Prime Minister has piped up against the incestuous nature of the internship market. Mr. Clegg dreamt of a country where desirable positions were not granted as the result of “connections”. Hypocrisy rings loud from the towers of Westminster. The end of the valuable scheme shows us that we’ve been misguided.
We need schemes like this; not just to help us gain actual employment, but to reassure us that we are still enfranchised, to reassure us that our dire situation as a hopelessly unemployable generation has not been left to fester on the landfill of student disappointment.
Here at York, we are among the worst off. Figures published by the Higher Education Statistics Authority calculated our graduate employment rate at 88.3%; below that of many other peer institutions. A 2010 Nouse study revealed that we are 11% less likely to achieve “graduate level employment” than the other top ten universities at the time. We have now dropped out of that top ten.
Whilst all this may be attributed to poor University initiative, our worries should be augmented by the ending of what could have been an extremely valuable government scheme.
I can’t blame the government for its austerity measures, for they seem to be a necessity these days. Neither can I for its mistakes, its folly or its fallibility. But again, it begs the question, why us?
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