Beth Cherryman

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October 25, 2011

Freshers Week

They wear Leopard-skin togas. They drink gut-wrenching combinations of cheap alcohol. They wander the streets in thousands, crawling out of sticky-floored nightclubs in the wee hours of the morning. Yes, it’s that time again…Freshers’ week.

Fresh-faced and delirious with newfound freedom this strange breed embarks on their university career with all the naïve optimism their parents, teachers or even the last Labour government encourages with anecdotes of “the time of my life” and promises of graduate jobs and higher salaries.

Three-years ago, that was me (minus the leopard-skin toga). An avid Today Programme listener, I was filled with happy notions of students sitting around watching daytime TV and mooching between bookshops and backstreet cafes. Don’t worry I was quickly disillusioned.

The workload is a terrifying step up from A Level. To get a regular 9 to 5 job seems like the easier option. Add to this the pressure of knowing that anything less than a 2:1 undermines the opportunity cost of attending university. Suddenly your classmates are your competition. Your lecturers are no longer a font of wisdom waiting to be tapped by the interested and eager, but a resource for passing the exam. The secret to success is ‘follow the syllabus’ rather than ‘follow your curiosity’.

I chose to study philosophy because I wanted an education rather than a training. I spent 13 years jumping through the petty and pointless hoops of the state school system in the hopes that one day I’d get to university and that all encompassing education I so desperately craved.  Instead I entered a world where university is a constraining commercial investment, the risk-averse succeed and the hoop jumping continues.

Don’t get me wrong. There are good parts. Critical thinking remains the core of many university degrees. In that sense graduates should be armed with the fundamental skills necessary to navigate civilised society; capable of debating how we should live and criticising established beliefs.

Still, I feel that my degree has been reduced to yet another qualification worth gaining because without it I have little to no chance of landing a creative sector job. But if there becomes little or no chance of landing a creative sector job even with a degree – as I fear we are starting to see – this business model will fail.

University education is confused. It serves a variety of purposes, but does not serve a single purpose well.

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October 25, 2011

Theresa You’re Wrong

The Human Rights Act is far from perfect, but proposals to scrap it are misguided.

The idea that everyone should be treated in a way that does not undermine his or her status as a human being adheres to our moral intuitions: people should be respected as people and in this sense we are all equal.  These two principles, the essence of the Human Rights Act and all Human Rights legislation, are what make it necessary.

Where problems arise is in its application. Theresa May’s attacks are just the latest in a parade of examples designed to question the Act’s credibility. Yes, it seems ridiculous to drive a prison van 96 miles only to transport a prisoner a little way up the same road, but then how far can a prisoner be made to walk out in public before his safety becomes compromised? How far would that be if his crimes were particularly provocative? How far if he lived in a country with a less advanced police service?

As a theoretical construct the Human Rights Act has to be general. It has to be applicable to all humans everywhere. Therefore, there will always be specific instances that seem to contradict commonsense.

I agree that to bring Human Rights legislation more in line with our existing legal framework could make its application less clumsy.

But the challenge of keeping true to the essence of the present Act is too great to warrant such country specific changes. The risk of political interference or judicial entrenchment prohibits it.

Currently, if anyone of us feels failed or unfairly treated by the British courts there is a process that we can appeal to for a second hearing. For example, where British courts have traditionally prioritised the right to privacy over the right to freedom of expression, the European Court of Human Rights often prioritises freedom of expression over privacy. Without freedom of expression, the power of a free press is severely undermined.

Moreover, should the UK break from the pack and bow out of the Human Rights Act the pressure for other European countries to get themselves up to acceptable standards could ease. That would be very regrettable, especially considering the promotion of Human Rights, albeit in select countries, seems to be this government’s foreign policy.

The Human Rights Act may give the Home Secretary a bit of a headache, but that’s no reason to scrap it.

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