'Punished for being working class'

Kathryn Sharman says that as a student because of the fees/grants support available in the Isle of Man she thinks she is being ‘punished for being working class’. Some may see this as a bit emotive but for sure there's more than a grain of truth.

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=42432&headline=Manx%20students%...

The article here on IOM Today sets out the arguments and the governments bumbling attempts to tackle it. There is to be a ‘review’ - strange there was no need for ‘a review’ when prior to the last election the MHK/MLCs discovered that the government's ‘new terms for new starters' would have left some of them out of pocket - they just fixed it QUICK!

Even the great man himself Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK recognises in this weeks Moulton interview there is a problem. In the same MTTV interview the senseless waste of governments funds to create a handful of jobs using the Dept for Enterprise ‘honeypot’ is highlighted by Paul Moulton.

Personally I think Sharman is right and we should give more support to students and not on the basis that they should ‘give something back’ although of course if they do end up making their career here it will presumably have cost us less than the Department for Enterprise are squandering on speculative chancers from the UK anxious to get their hands on some of the £50 million Enterprise Fund.

Predictably under the IOM Today article there are the usual negative comments from the pond life that inhabit the bowels of the comments section of the paper. I pay no heed to these folk they are the sort who would cheerfully have burned Galileo in his day given half a chance.

All Manx young people should have the opportunity to reach their full potential and if that means University so be it. If they then go on to realise a career globally - bon voyage!

It will of course be expensive but ensuring that ALL students have the same opportunity and not just the sons and daughters of the well-heeled is surely an aspiration worth endorsing.

Bernard Moffatt