Oxford dons are to vote on a motion of no confidence in David Willetts, but I believe behind this discontent is an increasing loss of confidence – in the purest sense of the word – in the coalition government and, just perhaps, in the direction of our society. It remains unclear whether the government has a joined-up strategy for higher education, economic wellbeing and quality of life. These are big, national issues that the government is expected to address, debate and lead on. Instead, there is disappointment and some disbelief that over this first year in office, ministers have been distracted by single issues that they engage on with rapidly considered solutions and little apparent thought as to the knock-on effects on other parts of the economy or society. Are ministers capable of developing strategy, specifically in higher education, to address long-term economic and social doldrums? Or are we collectively condemned to four more years of frenetic trench warfare between government, universities, schools and students, against a background of continuing gradual national decline?
The result of the last few months in higher education funding policy has been to convince students that university is a financial transaction: £27,000 cost set against a future profit of a graduate salary premium. Reducing education to the implicit but increasingly flawed "learn to earn" contract is having its effect: this year's national student survey reported that gaining employability skills has become one of the highest priorities for students.
Senior university administrators are becoming concerned about students' rising preoccupation with jobs, to the seeming exclusion of all the long-term benefit a university education offers. Furthermore, we see evidence that should be alleviating students' concern: HighFliers' recent report and our latest vacancy data show both a historic and forecast growth in graduate jobs.
So, if there are more opportunities and increasing engagement with employability issues, what purpose is served by making students more focused on short-term job prospects?
Like student careers, economies are long games. Others have written extensively on the relative merits of the UK focusing on financial services while Germany, China and others have built economies on manufacturing. The Bank of England foresees several years of low growth. While not advocating a central command economy, perhaps the collective loss of confidence lies in the absence of any sense of overall direction, neither signing up to today's situation nor rejecting it, but relying on the invisible hand of the market.
Maybe Oxford dons' confidence could be restored if there were a clear sense of strategic direction from which an internally consistent plan for all parts of our nation, including higher education, would clearly flow. Doing nothing will leave UK plc with business as usual: high pay attracting the brightest students to the City. For the students, it is definitely not business as usual. Tripling fees will be counter-productive, increasing anxiety, leaving social mobility unchanged and driving short-term behaviour: £50K jobs in the City will usually trump science, engineering, teaching and healthcare graduate jobs.
Confidence is dropping in ministers' ability to set strategies for how higher education can support the long-term health, wealth and happiness of us all. As we have seen, this government is evidently capable of pausing, reviewing and even reversing its initial plans: it may not be too late to take time now to initiate a strategic review, with a full and open discussion on how higher education can help to build a cohesive, functional, content and economically buoyant society.
Source: Jonathan Black, Guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24th May 2011
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