Ideas welcome

As 2024 winds down, there is the opportunity to reflect on a year in which the UK’s higher education permacrisis continued, and warnings of the dire and inevitable consequences of a seven-year tuition-fee freeze in England, rampant inflation, visa curbs and more began to turn into reality.

The conversation at last week’s THE Campus Live event in Birmingham reflected that gloomy denouement to a year in which universities have begun to cut jobs in earnest.

The consequences both for the individuals concerned and for universities was front of mind among the panel of leaders who convened for the annual “V-c Question Time” session at the THE event.

As Paul Bartholomew, vice-chancellor of Ulster University, put it: “We sometimes talk about universities as if they are monolithic institutions, but actually they are full of people, people doing the right things for their students, for their colleagues, for the nation and for the world.”

In recent weeks, THE has reported on warnings that the number of redundancies nationally could hit 10,000 in the coming months, and while it was a figure that the speakers on the panel were careful not to endorse, they did reflect on the strangely muted response to such damaging retrenchment.

Shitij Kapur, vice-chancellor of King’s College London, observed: “If a steel plant with 2,000 jobs is at risk of closure, it becomes a huge national issue – the government jumps in, the prime minister shows up, there is some deal made to save the jobs.

“Yet I think our political system is relatively nonplussed about the possibility that something of that nature could happen to what is, at the moment, Britain’s best industry.

“I am surprised at the level of political comfort with that. Perhaps it is because it is spread across 150 universities; perhaps it is because we don’t have the political clout that we should have.”

One political heavyweight who has been making the case for universities in recent weeks is William Hague, the former Conservative Party leader who has been elected the next chancellor of the University of Oxford, and who has equated the success of the UK’s universities with the success of the country.

But at last week’s event, there was frustration that the current Labour government has yet to offer a vision that could bear the weight of a new approach to higher education.

This was coupled with a sense that while the sector itself can offer ideas, universities operating within a broken system will inevitably be thinking about their own immediate survival.

As Ebrahim Adia, vice-chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, explained: “When you come from a context of the last 30 to 40 years of hypercompetition…to think that you can pivot very quickly to collaboration is challenging. It’s easy to say, very difficult to do.”

So does the government, with five years and a large majority to play with, have a political idea for the sector?

Most of those at the THE event were still waiting to find out, and Kapur warned that there was a danger that the decision to unfreeze tuition fees could be seen as “job done”.

“I think we have used up a lot of political capital on the increase in fees, which is only for one year, and which has no net benefit to our financial position, because the national insurance contribution increased by the same amount,” he said.

“So I am worried that from [the government’s] point of view, the feeling may be that they have already gone to bat for us.”

In a world of competing priorities, he said, “support for higher education is a political choice. I wish that this could be resolved with a smart technical solution, but it cannot.

“The decision about what industries you want to flourish is political, and we need ministers to step up to the plate – though we can, of course, help them.”

And while Adia observed that universities should be wary about “genuflecting to political fads”, Bartholomew drew on the example of Northern Ireland to argue that, if judged correctly, a more joined-up approach between universities and politicians could bear fruit.

“It’s important that we talk about investment, not spending. And investment has a return,” he said.

“Perhaps it’s easier in Northern Ireland, but being closer to government has been good for us.

“Politicians, whatever you might think about them, are about people, about making things better. That is the purpose of politics, but it is also the purpose of universities.”

john.gill@timeshighereducation.com