Daily Telegraph Supports The Students
Forgive my tabloid headline ‘Telegraph Supports The Students!’. The Telegraph may not yet support the students. But there are reasons to be optimistic when a letter like this is published in the Telegraph. Here is the link:
Here is the article itself:
Deep unease in universities at dangerous haste of 'supply and demand' reforms
SIR – We need a Public Commission of Inquiry on the future of higher education. It is clear from the scale of last week's largely peaceful demonstrations across Britain that there is enormous concern among young people over the future of higher education. They are not alone.
A wide range of commentators, public figures and academics have expressed closely argued reservations about the Government's attempt to rush through changes, the far-reaching consequences of which are potentially so damaging.
Within universities there is considerable unease about what reforms based on the Browne report will mean. How might a "supply and demand" model for arts and humanities funding function in practice? Education and research institutions cannot be set up, shut down and restarted according to market demand.
British universities do not benefit from the enormous endowments of elite American institutions, which can help them adapt to change. With so much uncertainty about employment prospects and economic conditions, student numbers will ebb and flow. Higher education needs much greater stability.
The Higher Education Policy Institute – a respected independent think tank – has pointed out that government proposals for higher education funding "will increase public expenditure through this parliament and into the next". The income stream from repayments – which is supposed to form the long-term basis for higher education funding – will not come back to the Treasury for many years.
This undermines the argument that changes to higher education funding are concurrent with a deficit-reduction strategy in this parliament. Thus, there is no need to push through reforms with undue haste.
Given the nature of the promises made by the Coalition partners at the general election, there is a weak political mandate for change. It may be that all three major political parties would benefit from further time to develop policy in this area.
We therefore do not believe that present circumstances are propitious for far-reaching reforms. Instead, we suggest the Government set up a Public Commission of Inquiry, which should include wide consultations with politicians, academics, students, business leaders and others to examine the function and funding of higher education from first principles.
Such an approach would be far more likely to produce the consensus required to make reform deliverable and place higher education on a sustainable footing.
Sir Harold Kroto
Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of Sussex (Nobel Prize 1996)
Sir Christopher Bayly
Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial History, University of Cambridge
Hermione Lee
Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature (1998-2008)
University of Oxford
John Dainton
Sir James Chadwick Professor of Physics, University of Liverpool
Christopher Pelling
Regius Professor of Greek, University of Oxford
Linda Colley
Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History, Princeton University
Mary Beard
Professor of Classics, University of Cambridge
Steve Jones
Professor of Genetics, University College London
Chris Wickham
Chair of the Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Robert Parker
Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford
Jonathan Tennyson
Massey Professor of Physics, University College London
Quentin Skinner
Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities, University of London
Richard Carwardine
Rhodes Professor of American History (2002-2009), University of Oxford
Stefan Collini
Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge
David Colquhoun
Professor of Pharmacology, University College London
Robert Gildea
Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford
J.N. Adams
Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford
Adam Smith
Senior Lecturer in American History, University College London
John Sabapathy
Lecturer in Medieval History, University College London
Michael Collins
Lecturer in Twentieth Century British History, University College London
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