Tough economic times require a combination of measured frugality and laying down a solid foundation of investment for the future. The balance among these objectives is key to emerging from recession in a healthy state and striking at a sustained prosperity. The
budget 2010 was busy in its announcement of a disparate array of benefits to small businesses, the unemployed and children. And one of the key areas in which streamlining and efficiency were emphasized was in the domain of higher education.
If there is any critical investment that is necessary to ensure that the economy and society continue to flourish, it is a higher education system that can rigorously train students at the highest levels of quality in their respective disciplines. Yet the concern of Chancellor Alistair Darling seemed to be more upon whether there were cost savings to be made within the sector, than how education could be strengthened to serve the nation and global economy.
The steps that he announced to gear up towards the streamlining of education will prove controversial, and reflect an approach that has been coming up against strong opposition in places such as the
University of Sussex, King's College of London and
Leeds University. Here student protests and staff strikes are at various degrees of being planned and carried out in response. Mr Darling will not have eased their minds: although he pledged a one-off £270 million
modernization fund to universities, this is intended to finance the budgetary streamlining process in order to allow them to subsequently cope with a general reduction in spending over the medium-term.
There are two issues here that the Chancellor has not addressed. First, he has stated that the modernization fund will go towards increasing provision of university places to students, continuing the government's pattern of giving young people access to education, whilst also funding budgetary streamlining and efficiency measures. However, there were no signals of how this would work and at a glance seems frankly contradictory: will money be spent on universities so that cuts can be made? Where specifically will the modernisation fund be directed?
Now, this leads us into the second unanswered issue: how can the quality of education be maintained through a reduction in budgets, a streamlining of services and an increase in student numbers all at the same time? At the universities mentioned above it seems that cuts will be made to lecturers on the frontline. With less lecturers, how will an expanding student body possibly receive the high quality education that British universities currently offer? It seems that the Chancellor perceives ‘quality of education' to be synonymous with ‘places in education', whereas in reality they are different issues that require individual approaches.
Indeed, such a vantage point is hardly surprising, as since the introduction of fees under the current government, the ethos among educational institutions has been as much about efficiency and marketing as it has been about the quality of education itself. In this regard, British universities seem to have been steadily following the path of their American counterparts in commodifying the university system, while losing sight of the value that education holds in itself.