Monday, April 30, 2007

Nobody's prints on the knife

Harry Haddock has highlighted the story today about the Bologna Process and how Westminster has noticed, yet another power grab from Brussels, this time over higher education,

"The Government must act quickly to stop the commission setting rules for a
higher education "euro-zone" based on the time spent studying rather than the
quality of the work, they say.
If the process is not stopped, the one-year masters degree and the four-year integrated BSc and MA will disappear, says a report by the Commons education and skills select committee to be published today".

As Harry points out,
Whoah, what’s this? British MP’s standing up against the EU superstate project, and what’s more, doing it in a committee? Has the sky fallen in? Has everything I’ve always ranted about been wrong?
‘The MPs are urging the Government to use a ministerial summit later this month to wrest back control.’
So, not really. You see folks, in order to be placed in a position where you have to be
the big brave MP attempting to ‘wrest’ back control, you have to have been dim witted enough to cede it in the first place. ‘Sorry Frank, you know I said I would look after your house while you were on holiday?Well, I left all of the doors and windows open, and someone has walked off with all of your stuff. But don’t you worry. I’m going to urge my Dad to see if he might chase down the road after them in an attempt to at least ‘wrest back’ your DVD player. Or at least see if we can put in place a framework for you using it under a bilateral entertainment directive, under supervision.’ Pillocks.
This reminded me that when I applied for my current institutional job, my three year undergraduate degree did not count, and I had to take one year of my post degree work experience out of the equation. (Each post comes with a required number of years work attached - so if you have burger flipped for twenty five years you are qualified for a senior post in the Commission, whereas if you are an entrepreneur who in ten years have seen your company go global against all sorts of competition, well maybe you can work as a secretary if you are lucky).

Anyhow I did some research on the European Parliament's voting on this piece of legislation. Normal stuff, who voted for it, who voted against that sort of thin, and what did I find. Nothing.
The report is here.
Accordingto the EPP-ED press office the report was carried with "a vast majority". But as it was by a show of hands nobody will ever know who was responsible, and who we should sack. Personally I believe the Tories voted in favour, their education spokesman at the time being arch-europhile Christopher Beazely. But because of the essentially undemocratic nature of the place, nobody can ever be in the know.

One basic reform that is needed now is that all votes are counted.

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