Our universities are world-class. Four UK universities are
in the global top six. And it is not just our old, established institutions. Of
the world’s top 100 universities under 50 years old, 20 are British
institutions – more than any other country.
We have much to celebrate. Despite this record, I welcome
the launch of the new Council for the Defence of British Universities. The
group, assembled by Sir Keith Thomas, encompasses different political views,
different institutional affiliations and different academic disciplines.
Already it has drawn attention to the importance of academic autonomy and
reminded us that universities are about more than economics. The simple act of
bringing together so many luminaries emphasises the wonderful breadth and depth
of our world-leading research community.
The new group will challenge the Coalition’s policies and I
am sure we will have some robust debates. But to see the new Council as simply
an attack on the government of the day misses the point. After all, the group
includes people with a diverse range of views, from those who believe
universities should be independent of government to those who believe they
should be more reliant on the state.
Moreover, the group is speaking eternal truths on issues
like academic freedom and learning for its own sake that are as relevant to
today as they were under the previous government and will be under future
governments. I still remember the excitement of reading Hume and Kant for the
first time as a student, as well as Hayek and Friedman. Future generations need
those opportunities too. That’s why we’re maintaining the balance between
funding for curiosity-driven research and research tackling particular
challenges.
The Council will create welcome space for well-informed
debate about the future of higher education. It would be churlish of me, in my
role as Universities Minister, to oppose any group designed to stimulate such
debate about our universities.
In recent months, there have been too many attempts by
protesters to stifle debate on campus about the future of higher education.
When visiting universities, as I do every week, I am keen to meet students,
including any protesters. It is the free and frank exchange of views that
characterises the best of university life.
One of Britain’s great strengths is the breadth of our
research base. Some academics have told me they value the opportunity provided
by the new Council to show support for the whole of higher education, rather
than just their own discipline. I am more aware than ever, for example, about
how strong our arts and humanities are, for I have just finished chairing the
panel for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, which had many great
entries from the English-speaking world. The Coalition is maintaining the balance
between funding humanities, social sciences and natural sciences in order to
reflect these strengths.
It is important that people understand what our reforms are
doing. They save public money while simultaneously protecting university
income. We inherited one of the biggest budget deficits in the world, but
world-class universities need to be well-funded. Our student finance reforms
rebalance the system so that taxpayers will contribute less and graduates in
well-paid jobs will contribute more. The system is both fairer and more
sustainable than its predecessor.
Our reforms also fulfil David Cameron’s belief in genuine
reform. We have shifted the funding for teaching undergraduates away from
centralised funding councils and put it in the hands of students. We also want
to see the best match between universities and students. For the first time,
universities can recruit as many students with top grades as they want to
accept.
We have additionally sought to protect and improve the
quality of university research, as George Osborne said in his important speech
on science to the Royal Society last week. We have protected the ringfenced
£4.6 billion science and research budget. And last month we announced more than
£1 billion of new university and business research partnerships, which will
lead to cutting-edge research facilities.
The history of our university sector shows new providers
offering new models of learning that bring higher education within reach of
more people. That was the original mission of the University of London, which
appealed to non-conformists, just as it was for the Open University, which
attracted people who needed to study part-time. Today, the internet can bring
higher education to more people than ever before.
Higher education is at the early stages of globalisation.
Educating citizens to a higher level is the challenge for all nations wishing
to modernise. And demographic change is bringing new opportunities too:
middle-income nations such as Indonesia, Turkey or Brazil are witnessing a surge
in the number of young people. British higher education providers can work with
them to achieve a rapid expansion of higher education, including through
Massive Open Online Courses – known as MOOCs.
This is an opportunity we must take. Education is already a
great British export industry. We have excellent universities. We have a
regulatory system which gives confidence in our academic standards. We
shouldn’t just be defending it. We should be celebrating its vigour and
diversity and exporting it across the world.
Source: 13 November 2012, The Telegraph by David Willetts –
Minister for Universities and Science
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