Changes in Higher Education Policy in the UK

By Martin Campbell-Kelly

In his election manifesto, Tony Blair promised that the new Labour government’s top three priorities would be "education, education, education." On Thursday, May 1 last year the nation voted and by the early morning, as the votes were counted, it was clear that eighteen years of Tory rule were at an end. It was an historic landslide, the biggest that anyone of working age has ever experienced.

In university departments the following morning, academics were uncharacteristically cheerful: a little bleary-eyed from watching TV late into the night, but wearing the beatific smile of soldiers for whom the war was over. Overnight there was a surge of optimism in a profession that has been demoralized by nearly two decades of government opprobrium and budget cuts.

As I write, the honeymoon period of the new government is unquestionably over, and we are in something of a policy vacuum as the new administration evolves its strategy for higher education. Nonetheless the tone and realities of the new government are already clear. The government’s tone is prescriptive rather than consensual, and there is little evidence so far of much of a dialog between the academy and government. As to realities, the new government – like Clinton’s administration in the United States – is bound by the new consensus politics that favor a shift away from high taxation and state provision. For higher education, this means a move toward private purchase within a state-managed education service.

So far, the "education, education, education" rhetoric has mainly applied to children’s schools. The Labour government has not been overly sympathetic to the higher education sector, which many Members of Parliament perceive as cosseted and elitist. When a policy emerges it will be oriented to lifetime learning, and widening access. Meanwhile the government is basing policy on the Dearing Report. The Dearing Report, which was published in July 1997, was produced by a committee of inquiry into higher education established by the previous administration, though with the support of all political parties. The government has focused on three main aspects of the report: the expansion of higher education, the assessment of teaching quality, and research – although this comes a poor third.

First, the government has committed to a massive expansion in higher education from the 30 percent of young adults currently entering the system to perhaps 45 percent. The expansion will target particularly low-income groups and ethnic minorities whose participation in higher education has been historically low. However, this is to be done with a much-reduced unit of resources. The spending constraints are particularly worrying for laboratory-based subjects, such as computing, where students are already often using somewhat antiquated equipment. In addition – for the first time in Britain – students will be required to contribute to their tuition fees. This will be set at a level of £1,000 a year starting next year, and students will be able to take out loans to cover the cost, to be repaid when they are earning a significant salary.

The long-term effect of students having to take out loans is presently unknown, but there is concern that it will tend to encourage high-earning, vocational subjects such as computing, business studies, and law, but disadvantage subjects with a less well-rewarded career outcome, such as drama, social work, or teaching. Students will typically graduate with a personal debt of £10,000 -15,000, which they must sooner or later discharge. In computer science, this is starting to translate into very high initial salary offers from cherry-picking employers – pre-eminently financial institutions – in order to attract the choicest graduating students. Sadly, these are the students we once attracted to postgraduate research and an academic career. Academics feel it cannot be right that the choice of an academic career is becoming ever more economically irrational.

The second point of the Dearing Report recommendation that the Blair government has taken on board is the establishment of a Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. This promises to be an unwelcome administrative burden that will involve onsite teaching assessment by a government-appointed inspectorate, with close examination of teaching methods and materials, and all aspects of the teacher-student interface. There is much that is wrong with university teaching, but hardly anyone in the profession believes that the way to fix things is by the appointment of a teaching police. This has been one of the more disappointing outcomes of the new government: we had hoped for a less oppressive regulatory environment, but there is a feeling that the new authority will be worse than the bureaucracy it replaced. There is also much talk of introducing national standards in higher education, so that all degree programs will be regarded equal. This will theoretically equate a bachelor’s degree in computer sciences from Cambridge University with a computing degree from a lowly institute of higher education. Few academics or employers think this makes sense; but so far the government is not listening to either of us.

The third issue concerning the academic community is research funding. For the last several years there has been intense pressure on universities to undertake high-quality research. As a result the competition for limited government funding is intense; only one in five applications secures funding, with a strong bias to elite institutions with a successful track record, so that most institutions are in practice doomed to disappointment. The Dearing Report recommended that the government should invest £1 billion to address infrastructure and equipment deficits, but so far only a fraction of that amount has been provided, pending a major policy review.

Nine months into a Labour government there is not much optimism left. As a colleague at my university remarked: the future holds the threat of the same, for less, forever. The only consolation is that at least most of us voted for this government, unlike its predecessor.

Martin Campbell-Kelly is Reader in computer science at the University of Warwick. The opinions expressed are entirely personal. He can be reached by e-mail, mck@dcs.warwick.ac.uk