Cool head required

Howard Newby explains why Hefce will not charge in where subjects are considered at risk

Last year, Charles Clarke, then Education Secretary, asked the Higher Education Funding Council for England for advice on strategically important subjects. He has since moved on - but the issue has not. My chairman last week replied to his successor, Ruth Kelly, with our advice on how we can safeguard vulnerable subjects such as languages, some sciences and land-based studies.

Is it time to hit the panic button? We don't think so. This is one policy area in which it is vital to look beyond the headlines. We don't see every departmental closure as cause for alarm. For example, some case studies reveal that after the closure of a department, the subject in question was in fact taught to more students in a region, as happened when Exeter University closed its chemistry department.

Statistics about precipitate declines can be interpreted in different ways. We should not put our faith in what statistics say until we have considered what they do not say. While the study of maths and chemistry declined between 1999 and 2003, figures for biosciences and physics were virtually unchanged, and pharmacy, medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences all saw a rise. Not so much a slight to the sciences as a change to the profile of sciences studied.

But we should not be complacent. The aims of the Government's ten-year science and innovation investment framework are ambitious. The modern languages strategy for higher education expressed concern about the numbers of graduates in these subjects, especially in an increasingly globalised world. Small but culturally important subjects, such as Arabic studies, must be safeguarded. Subjects such as land-based studies, primarily concentrated in specialist institutions, must be protected.

But let us apply the right solution to the right problem. Hefce neither wants to nor has the right to charge in and upset institutional autonomy. We must not confine subject disciplines to outdated definitions determined more than a century ago. The sector needs to be sure-footed, responsive and flexible.

An advisory group chaired by Sir Gareth Roberts has told us that there is already plenty going on in terms of supporting supply and demand. And we can do more.

There are supply-side solutions, such as Hefce taking a regional view and being flexible about moving provision from one institution to another. We have already done this to ensure that chemistry is taught to more students, not fewer, in the South-West after Exeter University closed its chemistry department. But we can respond to situations only if we are involved in the discussions from an early stage, not when the issue has already hit the headlines.

We have also provided funding to support minority subjects such as Czech and Slovak studies. We will take steps to ensure that one or more national centres remain where national capacity is vital in minority subjects. And we will sponsor a review of land-based studies so that the sector can address the best way to sustain their capacity.

Many academics have complained about levels of funding for expensive courses, such as laboratory-based subjects, or languages taught from beginner's level at university. We don't have extra cash from the Government for further funding and any move to a cost-based method for distributing teaching funds should ensure that they are allocated as fairly as possible.

Because we don't want to fund empty places, we must address the demand side as well. Work with employers, through regional development agencies and sector skills councils, is particularly important. We have agreed to provide nearly £3 million to the Royal Academy of Engineering to increase and widen participation in the field.

This last initiative is exciting because it does not attempt to tackle the problem solely at school, college or university levels. Rather, it rises above the silos, bringing the different parties together, including Aimhigher partnerships, universities (including the Cambridge-MIT Institute), employers (such as Thames Water) and charities (such as the Brightside Trust). Instead of working separately on parts of the jigsaw, participants can together address all the issues relating to demand for engineering.

A similar project for chemistry is being run with the Royal Society of Chemistry through Aimhigher.

We will not be able to satisfy everyone. And we have been given no extra money to tackle these issues. But a kneejerk reaction for change to every proposal is not the answer. We need to look at the underlying issues and at what can realistically be done. Then we can proceed on the basis of the evidence, rather than on the basis of who shouts loudest.

Sir Howard Newby is chief executive of Hefce.