Wed 5th October, 2011
Jack (Grimston, The Sunday Times) many thanks - and David (Willetts, MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science) I want to say thank you too. We have not always agreed in the last 18 months but we have never doubted your commitment to universities and students and we know how hard you’ve worked to deliver within the challenges of Coalition Government.
And let’s face it, it has been a challenging time – perhaps rather more challenging than many universities and students might have wanted. But since this is our third Party Conference in three weeks, let me assure you that it has been a very interesting year for the other political parties as well.
Take the Liberal-Democrats: last year packed meetings in Liverpool, the Deputy Leader on the million+ / NUS platform saying he would stop tuition fees; this year - meetings filled by some activists but Lib-Dem MPs – well, a bit thin on the ground.
Then there’s Labour: last year here in Manchester - raring to go on the graduate tax: this year - Liverpool raring to go on – well, who knows? But to be fair at least Labour has acknowledged the importance of restoring teaching funding.
But let’s also face it: this time last year the majority if not all Conservatives did not know that there would be an 80 per cent cut imposed on teaching funding, that a fee cap of £9,000 would be voted through Parliament and we are all in a very different place than the one that we might have considered or even hoped to be in a year ago.
So the real question is where we go from here and I have to confess to being worried.
Worried about the future of students.
Worried about the future of universities.
And worried about the future for social mobility the theme for this fringe.
Here’s why:
On the 28 June, David and Vince Cable published a Higher Education White Paper which may not have risen to the top of your political agenda. After all, there’s been Libya, News International and the riots but already, the closing date for responses to the White Paper has passed and I do think that Conservatives need to consider carefully what it means in practice.
First, the White Paper proposes that in the 2012-13 academic year universities should be able to recruit unlimited numbers of ‘high achieving’ students – defined by Ministers as those students achieving at least AAB+ at A-level. My experience is that Conservatives strongly support ambition but they also support fairness when it comes to education and while there may be some winners, there’s no doubt that this proposal will advantage a sub-section of students, in particular younger students and those who have studied at independent schools.
Second, 20,000 student places will be removed in particular from universities like mine and re-offered to lower cost providers charging less than £7,500 - providers which may not all be universities.
And third, the White Paper makes clear that the Government wants to lower the criteria for degree-awarding powers, opening the way for for-profit providers and organisations like Pearsons which neither teach nor undertake research, to apply to be awarded university title.
Now for their part David Cameron and Nick Clegg have made it clear that they have no ideological presumption that only one sector should run services so it is not really surprising that the Government’s plans for the NHS and the Government’s plans for universities now look very similar.
I understand, of course, that Conservatives support a market approach but when it comes to education and higher education, I am much less certain that it’s right or will be in the long-term interests of students to encourage providers who operate in the shareholder rather than the public interest to access UK university title and taxpayer-backed investment.
Let me illustrate the point with my own University, the University of Bedfordshire: we have a Board of Governors, all unpaid, from FTSE 100 companies; like other universities we compete for UK students and we trade internationally backed by the global reputation which is associated with the standards and the quality which we must deliver under the current criteria for university title.
We undertake near market research and research acknowledged to be internationally excellent; we promote knowledge exchange with local businesses and international companies; 99 per cent of our students are from state schools, 35 per cent of our students are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; 43 per cent of our students are older when they enter university and 60 per cent of our students qualify for full state maintenance grant – meaning that they come from families with incomes of less than £25,000 a year.
Bedfordshire contributes £300m to the local economy and beyond any monetary value, we contribute to aspiration and social cohesion - and we do all of these things because we are run in the public interest.
I am not in favour of a closed shop. However, I am in favour of England and the UK retaining the current criteria for teaching and research degree-awarding powers and I am utterly opposed the reputation of the UK’s universities and our trans-national international partnerships being wrecked by lowering the bar for degree-awarding powers.
But let’s also be clear: if 20,000 places are removed from universities charging in excess of £7,500, my University will lose 300 places in 2012, 600 places in 2013 and 900 places by 2014. Many of the prospective students who might have been recruited to these places will not have AAB+ A-level grades but they will have the talent to succeed and they are more likely to be from less advantaged families.
These students will be forced into looking for places at providers charging less than £7,500 a year and they will benefit from less taxpayer-backed investment than the students whom Ministers have classed as ‘high achieving’. This is why the White Paper risks undermining social mobility and why these proposals are the very opposite of the pupil premium which adds resources to less advantaged students in schools.
So this is why I am calling on Ministers to delay making any decisions about a White Paper that many MPs and Party activists across all the main political parties have not read, which the public has not yet understood and which will undoubtedly change English Higher Education forever.
I am calling on Ministers not to move forward on proposals which risk reducing university title to a tradable commodity rather than treating it as a precious asset for the UK.
And I am also calling on Ministers not to promote a market in student numbers in 2012-13. After all there’s change aplenty in 2012 and no-one yet knows the impact of the new fees and loan system on student demand or indeed on the take-up of postgraduate study in the future.
So yes it’s been an interesting year but if the Conservatives want to deliver for students, if you do want to deliver for social mobility, you should pause these further reforms to higher education in England, reflect on their wider implications and avoid risking the assets which have been built up through years of public investment and your own entirely laudable ambitions for social mobility.
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