Degree study – will any of the government proposals work?
Posted on 1:19pm, 14th June 2010 • No Comments
“We can’t carry on like this any longer”! chorus all the stakeholders concerned with the organisation of degree study in the UK. And that’s where the agreement and the analysis end and the special interest pleadings take over. Which isn’t helpful because there’s not much time to prevent the catastrophe on its way for degree study, UK research and management / professional training.
Let’s look at what government says about degree study and what will happen if they’re able to put their proposals into practice.
The Universities Minister says student fees for degree study shouldn’t rise (much) because the Treasury can’t afford to fund the costs of a hike in student loans. Mr Willetts also says – correctly – students are on the brink of revolt over rising student debts.
His solution? Reduce the costs of degree study by using FE colleges (cheaper than universities) to teach external degrees, the study centres being so close to most students’ homes they won’t need to live independently (allowing the government to cut back on funding that element of the student loan).
This Universities Minister is the first government representative to accept the debt burden of degree study is getting too high (even though he’s more worried about the state’s finances than those of the students!). He’s also right in saying there are cheaper routes to degree study than the one currently favoured by most students.
What the Universities Minister refuses to acknowledge is that FE colleges can’t provide the same quality of degree study as the universities do if the state doesn’t pay up to fund the same (expensive) resources – eg better libraries, more highly qualified teaching staff and so on. Why does it save money to pay into one pot what you’ve previously paid into another pot?
While he’s not admitting it at this stage, the logical implication of the Universities Minister’s proposals is that degree study will soon be delivered almost exclusively through distance-learning organisations such as the Open University. There will be a very few traditional universities offering the face to face learning experiences. Much of the remaining university sector will disappear, due to bankruptcy. How much will it cost to make all those academic staff redundant?
The numbers of students willing to embark on home-based, distance learning degree study will also reduce sharply – while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, a dramatic fall off in the number of graduates over a very few years will have huge consequences for employers and the professions.
When the traditional universities lose out on degree study funding, they’ll be less able to fund their research function. Most research into the arts, humanities, business and pure science is done by universities and very little of this research is of the type that attracts paying customers. Research skills are most commonly taught in the universities by practising researchers. Universities’ loss of degree study funding will gradually impact on UK management’s ability to understand complex business and professional issues and develop solutions to them.