Completely agree.

My experience is somewhat similar to yours in the sense that schools were only interested in pushing HE. I did go to university in the end, but was fortunate to fall into an industry that I happen to have made a very good career out of. Yes, for many, university is the best way forward but for many others, it very much the opposite. My brother, for example, was not academically minded but was still persuaded that a degree was the best option. He dropped out after a year.

There is no doubt in my mind that young people are being sold a lie that going to university is a golden ticket to a lifetime of riches. Schools are consistently pushing HE at young people, under the pretence that your earnings with A-levels and degrees will be so much more that you won't have to worry about the collossal debt that you're building up. It was a nonsense in 2003 when I went to uni and it's an even bigger nonsense today.

Those graduates come out of the system at the other end and guess what? There isn't enough graduate jobs to go around. So your typical grad, even with a good degree, is applying for £15k entry level roles - this wasn't in the university sales brochure (my mistake - they call them 'prospectuses') , was it?

Throw in to the mix the dwindling prospect of home ownership and starting a family, it's little wonder that young people are left feeling that they have been let down. Those who aren't academically minded are made to feel that they're inferior whilst the rest find that they have spent the best part of £20k, only to find that their degree counts for nothing against candidates with decades of experience when they apply for what they were led to believe was a "graduate" opening.

£13 to £15K jobs are pretty much the norm for a 21 year old graduate now and the "degree necessary" qualification is just a default tagline on the advert for many companies, many of whom do not actually need degree educated workers but stick it on there thinking that it will filter out a couple of hundred applicants if they do.

To give two examples my daughter #1 got a position in a large law firm with her law degree a couple of years ago but after she started she was told that the degree, its mark and the status of the uni she took it at were all irrelevant to them, they were only interested in her attitude, which was good as it shows that the company were genuinely interviewing candidates and not just going through the motions and then compiling a league table of degrees.

Her sister, daughter #2 has just got a job at the same company without a degree for exactly the same reason, she interviewed well (coached by her sister) and works hard, again showing that they know what they are looking for in an interview and seem to be pretty switched on about what personality they are looking and the view that they will teach you the rest - which is how it should be but too often is not.

They are both earning salaries that, like for like and with inflation taken into account, I would have dreamed of when I was their age.

Mind you, that isn't saying much

When I started work at 16 in 1975 my annual salary was less than their nett monthly pay, by the time I was 21 the company had added free use of a company van to my stipend and a few more quid and they thought that was over generous

When I left that company ten years later my wage was £140 a week and a company car (they always sold the company car as a big deal, it was a fekkin Ford Escort Pop), and I left to join my dads company where my pay packet was the enormous amount of £80 a week and a second hand Talbot Solara, topped up by whatever cash fiddles he had going that week

The first part, I'm sorry to say, sounds oddly familiar.

That said, we are better than most companies in that regard. Our recruitment manager has a wealth of experience as a head hunter and can see past the degree to pick up on the more intangible things like you describe - attitude, work ethic, willingness, etc. Whilst we don't explicitly ask for degrees for entry level roles, it's probably fair to say that our recruitment is geared more towards grads (we'd sooner advertise through the university than JC+). Invariably, grads do lose some faith in the system when the best we can offer their experience level is a £15k entry level role.

I worked bloody hard to get a good degree and I've got a CV that demonstrates that I'm a grafter, but there's no denying that there is an element of fortune behind where I am today. The company I work for today was a name I had never heard of before and an industry that I barely knew existed. It was complete chance that I landed on the website of a company that would go on to be a Sunday Times Tech Track 100 firm and expand from 20 to 120 staff in the time I have been here.

(I'll stop the shameful plugging now )

Higher education is a striking example of how the ideas of "nobody fails" added to "everybody needs further education" changed the face of HE in this country.

Back in the day, the first dividing line was the infamous 11+, the results of which would broadly speaking route you either to grammar school or a secondary comprehensive. And you would thus (again in general terms) be aiming for either GCEs or else CSEs.

From secondary school, the brightest kids would go to university, those less gifted would go to polytechnic, or college.

Of course we all know what happened to 11+, and the exam system was changed so that pretty much everyone who makes any effort passes, but the drawback is that the qualifications are rendered much less meaningful as there are so many more of them about.

Then it was decided by someone that polys etc were viewed as inferior, so we had a phase of all of them being rebranded as universities.

Back in the day, kids who passed their exams and went to uni would generally qualify for a grant. But as the numbers of kids going to "university" expanded exponentially, the government decided that all students would instead have to now pay for their own course.

Similarly, many institutions (in a similar way to examination boards, and of course schools) completely changed the way they work as teaching kids was no longer your main priority, it was now box ticking, record-keeping, hoop-jumping and beauty parading. I make an analogy with major companies and their "customer care". In general, they actually don't give a flying fart about customer care, you can't get through, you can't even find a number or if you do get past endless menus and queues, you can't speak to a human except to a first-line script reader in a call centre. But that's not important. What is important is that that company will have been voted the best customer experience by 99%, it will have numerous gold stars and platinum rankings, and will have a million stats to prove how ell they do. It will greatly surpass all KPIs. Service may be utter crap, but they can prove it's great. Statistics will demonstrate whatever you want, and spin-doctors will present everything as a major triumph.

In similar ways, OFSTED and the rest have generated a complete new level of administration, with many parallels to managers in the NHS (who also prove everything is fantastic). The emphasis is on smoke and mirrors, not on reality, and the processes of accreditation drain resources and deflect those within the institutions from what they actually are supposed to be doing.

Add to teh mix people running the show, such as the present incumbent, the moron Gove, changing everything at least twice a year, and it is no surprise that we are now lumbered with a system which is unfit for purpose. Somewhere along the way, everybody gradually lost sight of what it was we were actually trying to achieve, which is NOT to force everybody through the machine, but to produce well-educated, well-rounded individuals, which in many cases (for example) would be more appropriately done by leaving school at 16 and going straight into a job they want to do, and like, and suit.

My issues with HE include that under the present system, in many cases, the courses and degrees are of little use; the unfortunate students (in England, anyway) have little choice but to rack up a monster debt; and that the major concern of too many institutions is the statistics they churn out rather than their graduates. It is no surprise that the worth of many of their qualifications has been gradually and substantially devalued.

Chuck into the mix the fact that back in the day every employer was expected to continue with your education in the form of in-job-training, often involving industry approved training courses and certification PAID FOR BY THE EMPLOYER.

So you did a period of a number of years as a trainee or even as an indentured apprentice, which for those too young to remember means that the employer could not get rid of you by sacking or other excuses unless the business failed in which case your trade or professional association would be obliged to find you another placement - nett result is that young people up to the age of 21 need not miss out on employment or recognised qualifications just because they did not choose an academic route.


The situation now ?

Have a look around any job offer for an 18 to 21 year old and see if it mentions whether the employer will continue to fund your education.

When did you last visit?

There's one right next to the beach at Port d'Avall that we use, which is three cubicles with squats inside, plus one 'disabled' cubicle with a conventional toilet, which I tend to use – I've never seen anyone flogging bog roll, but I always take my own. All these are proper fittings – even the squats – and are washed down thoroughly (with hose) at least three times a day, so maybe it's improved. So basic, but essentially clean. I haven't used the ones for years that are up steps and in the little side bit of the church near Boramar beach.

I only really discovered, this summer, that it's an incredibly new, in terms of serious tourist trade. Just 30 years ago, there were still fishing boats on the beach and the old women in black lined up by the wall. It was one of the poorest regions in the country, but it's been an astonishing turnaround – specifically for Collioure – since then. Thirty years ago, there were no galleries, for instance.

And then there are things like the vineyards above the village: although those hills were first planted with vines something like 3,000 years ago, many had been allowed to get into a state of disrepair. There's a cooperative in the village making good wines already, and slowly reclaiming and rebuilding the terraces, which with the increasing opportunities to market the regional wines beyond Roussillon is obviously a rather good idea.

But you're absolutely right about it being staggering beautiful.

We've commented on plenty of this previously, and in addition to what you've rightly highlighted, you can add businesses whinging about school leavers not being trained in, say, customer relations, as has happened in recent years.

Quick history lesson, but very relevant to that comment:

When I left school (pre thatcher!), only 7% of the population went on to get a degree - I'm one of the 93% .... Now I find myself out of work, and despite 30+ years experience in the water/wastewater sector, I can't get an interview because I can't get past the HR robots who insist you must have a degree or the application goes directly in the bin.

I then get the flip side from neighbours/friends kids who have degrees in subjects totally unrelated to engineering who are granted interviews for the very same posts, only to be rejected because, you've guessed it, they haven't got any relevant experience.

To say the country's gone mad is an understatement.

edit : back to thread topic - anyone slags off this government for zero hours contracts has been sleeping. They've been rife throughout engineering sector for well over a decade - when that lovely "butter wouldn't melt" President Blair was in office! Did he care? Too busy trying to get £1m notes into a salary designed to hold £100k....

I first noticed it back in the early 1990s, when looking for jobs I was more than capable of doing, but seeing a massive expansion in jobs saying they were for graduates.

Shagability if their female?
Or is that just shallow old me?

A wine bar I used to frequent once advertised for a "witty and urbane bar person". I wondered what wittyand urbane meant until I saw the successful candidate: "blonde with big tits"