Ignore the party, think new term

The start of the academic year - shudders of apprehension combined with anticipation. Pity the poor admissions people, accommodation officers and print rooms.

Registrars who take in too many students will consider falling on their paper knives. Registrars who fail to take in their quotas will face a queue at the local DSS office. It is a time when the pressures on staff are at their greatest and when the system is tested to its limit. I am always heartened by the loyalty and hard work of staff at the start of the year and concerned by the fact that they have not even had a pay rise yet this year and face job cuts, overwork and stress. Loyalty is being tested to its limit in higher education at the moment but the staff still work long and hard to welcome the new student intake. They will show a lot more loyalty than is ever shown to them by university employers. Yet if they decide to show anger at the way they have been treated they will no doubt be labelled as militants. Universities today mean adverts on buses, larger public relations departments, smaller maintenance and security units and more expensive accommodation.

This academic year will be the most momentous for 30 years because, by the end of it, we will have a new government and we may have the Dearing report. A new government may bring higher education more of the same - unnecessary and costly competition, overcrowding, underpaid staff and poorly maintained buildings. But it might feel different. Not so much a feel-good factor as a feel-slightly-better factor whoever is elected.

Thirty years ago we had the dreadful binary line. We also failed to address the issue of further education. At least now we acknowledge that the neglect of further education is a scandal and that if we do not face up to that honestly it will drag higher education down with it. The pressures for change in higher education are as great now as they were prior to the Robbins report. The systematic and businesslike approach of the Dearing committee bodes well. We expect competent recommendations but we also need a sure political grasp of the long-term needs of our country. By the end of this academic year we will know whether higher education will be part of positive building for the future or part of the cynical decline into short-term solutions and an unfair society.

Something that may not be appreciated by the main political parties is that their conferences, at various seaside towns dotted around the country, coincide with the new academic year. This means for most staff that the party conferences might as well not exist. Perhaps a good thing, the party leaders might say. But it does lead to a surprising mutual ignorance between universities and political parties and that cannot be a good thing. It ensures few MPs actually witness the registration queues, sleeping bags on floors and chaotic last-minute changes to a course planned a year ago by staff whose contracts have not been renewed and who are not there to teach it. Job satisfaction has been replaced with make do and mend, and bewildered students entering the world of debt, poor academic counselling and cramped learning facilities often vent their frustration on support staff who are sometimes their only regular contact and support when academics focus on earning their Brownie points in research and publications.

So give a thought to university staff this week. Most of us are already worn out with start-of-the-year preparations. No more "did you have a good holiday?" but more like "do you think we'll survive this week?" Have a good year.

Rita Donaghy is permanent secretary of the Institute of Education student union,and a member of the national executive of Unison and the TUC General Council.