Cuts could put universities back on the right path
02 February 2010
However you look at it, the higher education system seems to be unfit for purpose, and the cuts announced this week will do nothing to help.
I know that the cuts were not actually announced this week, but the more targeted figures of where the cuts would be made were. The responses to the cuts, as well as the cuts themselves, revealed – to me at least – our biggest problem. The main reason why the education system is not fit for purpose is because we don’t know what that purpose is.
Teaching leaders are concerned about lecturers’ jobs, student leaders about numbers of student places, while Tories and Lib Dems want more places and less fees respectively. The whole circus revolves around the shifting up and down of various benchmarks, but these benchmarks don’t have much relevance to what we might want the higher education system to actually do. It seems that the focus now is on providing a system that gives schoolchildren something to keep them entertained for three years before being let loose into the real world.
If we took the view from the other perspective, starting with what we want to achieve, higher education would end up looking entirely different. So working from the end goal backwards, we want the UK to be successful so that we all have jobs and are rich and happy. The next stage is that we have a balanced economy that supports all these jobs. Then we educate a workforce to fill the jobs.
If Britain was serious about getting rid of all the debt it has recently got itself into and be a successful economy, we need to start creating and making things – it is the only way of providing fuel to economy rather than the trend towards relying on financial shenanigans. The people who create are designers and engineers and they need technical training to degree level. The people who ‘make’ may need more manual and practical skills that are better taught by apprenticeships and sandwich courses. The point being that if we ‘lost’ 6000 student places, as the student unions predict as a result of these cuts, then the only thing to suffer would be the government targets. While appreciating that we have a diverse society with an almost infinite array of job opportunities, a general trend towards reducing the numbers of places available for humanities and arts etc can only be a good thing. Many young people would be far better out in the world of work rather than being forced to study until they are nearly 21 on a subject that will almost certainly be of little use to them or anyone else. So if cuts are made, as long as they are the right ones, it may be no bad thing.
On the other hand, as part of the same announcement it has been decreed that the research fund for universities is to be held at £1.6 billion. Given the quality of our universities, the skills and knowledge that they contain, and the potential resource for industry to take advantage of, this seemed to me to be a paltry figure if the government is serious about investing in the future. By way of comparison, BMW invested about €2.7bn (£2.4bn) on its R&D last year. So as a country we are investing less, centrally, in R&D than a car company, so are we really putting our faith in our ability to lead the world in technology and innovation?
‘Education Education Education’ is still a mantra worth working towards, but it has got to be a focussed education and not education for education’s sake. It also has to be funded in such a way as to provide a technological springboard for both start-ups and larger companies looking to invest in the UK.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Email your comments to: tim.fryer@imlgroup.co.uk
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