News
Call for student holidays to be cut
- 15th September 2010
A top professional body in the City has called for the long university holidays to be cut to allow degrees to be completed in two years instead of three.
The Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment says students should have more time to save money and get into the working world more quickly, and shorter degree courses would cut costs for students.
The CISI’s chief executive Simon Culhane, says: “Of course there is more to going to university than just developing academically, but with over a third of today's students working part time to fund the cost of their studies, the extra-curricular argument is wearing thin.” And he argues that if universities were to open for an additional six weeks each year and summer exams put back by a fortnight, the degree could be reduced to two years.
He says that whilst tuition fees would have to rise, students would not have a third year of living expenses to fund. Both the business secretary Vince Cable and his predecessor Lord Mandelson also favour two-year degrees.
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