As I said earlier, there's no debate to be had here. The original poster continually repeats that 1+1=3 (whether you use metric or, dare I say it, the Imperial system) and there's nothing you can say that will make him change his mind.

:-) Of course I know! Forget the racist/imperialist thingy, delete button. :-)

And I also want to know Benm's response to me...

Benm, I'd like to pin you down on this:

Do you think any international student, doing research on any topic whatsoever, should be subsidised by the UK government to do that research? Or only those whose work is of particular benefit to the UK?

If the latter, what criteria did you have in mind? Is cancer research of particular benefit to the UK? Research on the effects of alcohol? Research on Shakespeare's sonnets? European History? Autism? Caterpillars?

hmm - research that only benefits the uk - maybe binge drinking, maybe fish and chip eating and the effects on the waist band 8-)

Sneaks,

Excellent :-) thanks for bringing in some humour in all this! Oooh I forgot...the Sterling now has lost against the Euro (A possible research project?).Any reason not to join the Euro zone now? It comes back to my point! Imperialism!... Whether anyone likes it or not the truth hurts :p:p

BenM, since you are convinced of imperialism/racism by now, would you again, I request kindly respond to my point as I am the only view on here that has not received your feedback!

PhDbug,

You are right...and by the way I never mentioned racism anywhere! I do respect the chaps within the academia very much and i believe most of them do have the voice of reason. Well the issue is, this who International/home ,I was born here you were born there etc is a mess!

And so the circular argument continues. The UK being out of the Euro is nothing to do with Imperialism but due to the fact that we are able to control interest rates in our economy thus having an economic policy attuned to the needs of UK plc, rather than the one size fits all model of the Euro. It may also have escaped your notice that the lower value of the pound is also excellent for UK exporters, meaning more business, meaning more jobs, meaning more international trade. Imperialism, you were saying?

Sylvester, Do we still have the prestigious "Made in England"...Well times have changed! It's now "Made in China" or atleast made in India. So i bet the exports are as few! and watch this space, they gona get fewer! No offence though.

If that isn't suggesting racism I'm not sure what is.... "you are not judged on merit but on where you come from and possibly colour"

All you can seem to do is to state imperialism (utterly ludicrous) and racism - I am surprised that you have made it to PhD level with having such a simplistic and bigotted view of the world - you obviously detest the UK and everything to do with it. Our education programme is inferior (see above quote) - why are you here? I don't understand if it is so damned awful why you stay here and don't go somewhere else where there is no imperialism, racism and better education.

Stressed,

:p you sound very bitter! Unfortunately, you are not able to stand criticism! It's the same feeling that you are always right! I honestly respect some of the chaps here who've tried to drive very important points rather than show anger!(down)

======= Date Modified 24 Sep 2009 21:14:35 =======
benm

I will perform a task of collating and synthesizing this now, something I regrettably enjoy, with a fiendish delight. I am collating questions which I feel you should respond to for you are very bothered with this issue, and we are all capable of debate here.

1. Stressed has raised some very pertinent questions which merit an answer given both your discontent and love for argument. (a) if the education system is much better elsewhere, as you feel, why are you here? (b) if your comment on colour was not about racism what was it about?

2. I raised some questions which you do not answer. (a) Why was the uni in my home country charging the French guys 10 times more fees? (b) Why should any country use its money to fund education which could and most probably, in many cases, just return the skills to another country?

3. Questions others have raised: (a) if you are suggesting a partial system of subsidizing, i.e. have bureaucrats and similar decide which thesis is beneficial to the UK and subsidize those, as Magic said, where would lines be drawn, as I think I said, imagine the mess and it strikes me now, the sheer unfairness of it. i.e. telling an intelligent studnet from abroad, that we shal not fund you for studying gender in Taiwan, but we will fund your cousin studying gender in the UK?

4. A general question. If the state of affairs is so bad here, and much better elsewhere in Europe (which I assure you, is a grossly rushed and generalised comment from you) then did anyone drag these international students kicking and screaming here.


Finally, my most important question. UK unis if given a choice where the situation comes down to 1 seat, and having to choose between a meritorious and deserving home student who will get in 3k a yr, and a linguistically challenged, and often even incapable or at least less capable international student who wil get in 13 k a year, will select the latter.

How does that home student feel then? The solution to this cannot be a simplistic make fees equal. I am merely trying to draw your atention to the fact that the home students here have every reason to feel equally uncomfortable about the *implications* of the fee situation. The solution however, is NOT what you suggest.


I am beginning to tire a bit of this debate, but most, because in my year on here, I have made some excellent online friends, who I know for a fact are anything but imperialist, racist and so on. They have been nothing but brilliant when I have complained of pressure, hard work, no life etc etc and to see convoluted arguments implying they are imperialist, racist, biased.. is a little depressing.

Well, I'd like to contribute to the discussion.
I am from a country where there are NO fees at unis. Despite this, I chose to do my PhD in Britain and pay fees (EU, but compared to my country where there are no fees...). Here, I am at a great uni, with great supervisorS (plural), with access to online resources, counsellors etc.
I guess that if you think that education elsewhere is better, language should not be a barrier! I mean, as it several others have mentioned, many foreign students have problems with English, so why not go to France, or German, or Finland, or somewhere and have language problems there????
Nobody pressured me and nobody pressured everybody else to come here to study. We were free to go anywhere we wanted, but we chose UK. Have you wondered why???
And as far as the judgement of projects and their relativity to British context....Who is going to do that? And if that was happening, would that mean that cancer, special needs, engineering, medicine, media should be "examined" under British lens????

So, I guess we are all saying the same thing, BUT you are insisting on your opinions and do not want to be engaged in a dialogue. You just wanted to say what you had to say.....

I would question why anyone (let alone a group of PhD level students and post docs) are entertaining this troll. By now you must realise you can use all the patience and logic in existance and he/she is not going to budge an inch.

If we are taking the spirit of trolling further, I have a meeting with the VC of my Russell group university tommorow morning and will be strongly advocating increasing fees for foreign students in favour of reducing fees even more for home (UK) students. As sterling is so weak at the moment, I am sure this will be fine with everyone.

ouch bhc... on a purely technical snag for me personally, if they did that, i would have to drop out...but that's a technical snag!