Listen up, Tony
MA Ma Mia
They can charge us a thousand pounds a year. They can remove the Oxbridge College fee. But when government begins to interfere with the most harmless traditions that Oxford and Cambridge have to offer, they have overstepped the mark.
The decision by the government's Quality Assurance Agency to recommend the abolition of the historic Oxbridge MA is patently absurd. The QAA'a attitude seems to be some kind of politically correct madness engendered in New Labourite cronies whenever Oxford is mentioned, despite the fact that the latest application trends clearly indicate Oxford is reforming itself quicker than Ken Livingstone and the loony London left.
What should make the proposal even harder for Oxford students to stomach is that the QAA's proposition seems to be based on a number of false assumptions. The first of these is that the Oxbridge MA is being awarded unfairly to undeserving students at the expense of other students around the country who do not get such privilege.
The truth is that there is no pretence by anyone that the Oxford MA is equivalent to a taught MA at a redbrick university - just as no-one believes that a degree from a redbrick is as rigorous as its Oxford counterpart. Although some might argue that heavily overworked Oxford students actually deserve an MA for the extra work they do compared to their Teletubbie-watching redbrick counterparts, that is not the reason the MA must be kept.
The Oxbridge MA, as the QAA would have discovered had they researched beyond their own narrow mindsets, is purely an administrative tool used internally to decide alumni voting rights besides being a long-standing tradition in the two Universities. If the government decides to adopt the QAA proposals then they will effectively be saying that they are trying to flatten the standard of education at every university with a bureaucratic steamroller
As any student from a comprehensive school can tell you, such equality is equivalent to reducing all levels of achievement to the lowest common denominator. If such a path is taken then the education offered at top flight institutions like Oxford will suffer as it is forced to conform to government-sponsored criteria, rather than ones thought up by leading academics.
Although the Oxford Student will always champion equality, it has no time for mediocrity. When Tony Blair and the Cabinet come to discuss this proposal they should realise it has implications far beyond the dreaming spires and should take a lesson in learning from the Masters at Oxford. It seems that what New Labour really need is an education, education, education.
Normal service is resumed
Freshers Week is over. Matric day is just an alcohol-infused memory. Real life has begun.
Of course it will not have escaped the more astute observers that Oxford bears as much resemblance to a real world as the Tory Party does to a sane and well-balanced group of individuals. It's great to be able to wander around two-hundred-year old halls, throw up over five-hundred-year own lawns and, for the lucky few at Univ, play loud music in your seven hundred and fifty year old colleges. And the great thing is that none of it matters.
The vast majority of students will emerge from this madhouse with an Oxford degree of some sort in a few years time (and the prospect of an Oxbridge MA, touch wood). What we do between now and Finals will have no bearing on your future life at all (unless you've already met your future spouse, in which case you have our sympathies). We can play at being journalists, Presidents or college sporting idols and emerge with little more than a chronic drinking habit and an enlarged overdraft.
It is only on those odd occasions when the real world intrudes that things ever matter. The national press, the national fees campaign, the dreaded Milkround. But for the moment little of this matters. If you have any mistakes to make, now is the time to make them. You will never have a better chance to completely, utterly fuck up, and still come out smelling of roses.
14th Oct 1999