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Sunday 27 May 2012

Scalpel, machete, razor, bread knife

Monday, 25th January 2010

Whatever the weapon, there are going to be cuts. Everyone knows that. But with cuts as with planning permission, there is the inevitable NIMBY factor. Easy to sit in an armchair and identify places where deep and painful cuts could and should be made to someone else’s budget, but no one wants any to their own. There has been a spirited correspondence going on in the letter columns of the Times Literary Supplement about cuts in university funding, and my goodness academics but are clever at defending their own corners and presenting plausible reasons why their establishments/departments/disciplines should not be cut. That is as you would expect – they’re clever people. But they know as well as we know that they cannot escape the cuts and some of them are beginning to realise that it would be better for they them to decide for themselves what they can do without and present the next government with their proposals because if they don`t, said government is going to come along with a machete and do the job for them.

Needless to say, judging by what I have read in the TLS, many have not yet accepted the inevitable, cannot agree among themselves let alone with anyone else, do not want to proffer their own agenda for cuts and are still going to be arguing when the knifemen come knocking.
So let us see if we can help them.

It was Kingsley Amis who famously said that more would mean less and so it has proved. Many thousands more young people are going up to university and more has meant many things, including the dilution of standards, the dilution in the quality of teaching, a scandalously high drop-out rate, introduction of too many unrigorous non-academic subjects and at the end of the line, unfulfilled expectations and graduate unemployment. It is as clear as the nose on one’s face that too many people are going to university, swathes of whom should not be there, not because they are worthless, stupid and the dregs of society, but because they have skills and talents which should be directed elsewhere. Bring back the Training College and the vocational, practical courses – in other words, the polytechnics. But that is a long term argument for another day because in the short term, any incoming government will be committed to retaining student numbers at the present high level, if only because, with the jobless statistics as they are, it will keep them off the streets.

Salaries and pensions need to be looked at and especially the latter, which for university teachers are pretty cushy but that is a hot potato, it will be resisted with all the force you would expect if your pension was threatened, and again, is not a short-term measure.

So what is? My Professor Emeritus husband disagrees with my proposed solution. He has an old-fashioned, albeit admirable, view of the university as a place where all the academic disciplines come together to their mutual enrichment, in terms of the great advancement of civilised values and the cause of human endeavour. In Utopia I have no doubt that he is right but we do not live in Utopia and that lofty ambition can no longer be afforded in the country now, in universities across the board.

Can it be afforded anywhere? Yes. There can be a handful of centres of excellence which still aspire to be what universities always were. Elitist? Of course. Selective? Naturally? Unfair. Inevitably. But keep, say, Oxford, Cambridge and a handful of other universities sacrosanct. Make cuts in light bulbs or press offices or gardener maintainance, make undergraduate entrance fiercely competitive, keep numbers low and give research an equal place with the best teaching.

The rest do not need to be or to feel that they are also-ran universities, second class places where research is low-grade and teaching is skimpy. There is a way out of that too. As cuts are inevitable, why not address the matter on a departmental basis? I have long wondered why most universities feel it necessary to offer most subjects. Other than the few who specialise – Imperial College, London and UMIST in science and technology, for example –universities surely offer too many degree courses. So, do not thin and downgrade all departments, get rid of some altogether. No one institution needs to offer chemistry and English and French and Art History and Media Studies and Mandarin and Theology and Law and so on. In fact, in some quarters this is already being done, partly because applications to read, say, physics, have been declining for some years and many universities no longer offer the subject. It’s a start but more is needed. Why not only offer, say, Italian, at two universities in the country but make those departments top notch? At the same time it would surely make sense of get rid of all sciences at those universities but keep, expand and upgrade modern languages in general An awful lot of students apply to read English at university, including the sort who regard being required to read a whole book a major imposition. They should not be there. Cut the number of universities offering English studies to six or eight and raise the standard and the entrance requirements.

And so on. It is not a quick fix but it could be quicker than most and although not cost-free (redundancy payments etc) savings would be made in a relatively short time.

How are those decisions to be made and by whom? Ideally, of course, by the universities themselves but I can’t see that happening everywhere. ‘Close my department in 1st Century Clay Tablet Studies? Over my dead body!’ Someone is going to have to wield the knives but it might make the Humanities and Biology and Medieval History and Archaeology and Organic Chemistry staff feel better if they knew that, at the same time as they were being pruned and concentrated in one or two centres, entire subjects were being made to disappear altogether. No more Sports Sciences or Business Management Studies, no more Film Departments or degrees in Wind Farms.

Ah, but you know what I`m going to say next about that. ‘Don`t hold your breath.’

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Fergus Pickering

January 25th, 2010 12:38pm Report this comment

My wife who was a university lecturer, tells me her pension is fully funded and not a charge on the State like the pensions of local government etc etc. In other words it's like a pension in the private sector. Well, she ought to know. Come to that, I have a tiny pension from the same source so I ought to know but I don't.

biharpist

January 25th, 2010 2:11pm Report this comment

UMIST ceased to be a specialist science-and-technology university in 2004 when it was subsumed in the University of Manchester. I fear things are going in the wrong direction.

SUSAN HILL

January 25th, 2010 5:41pm Report this comment

Fergus. My husband has a university pension too so I ought to know.
Biharpist. Apologies. I should have known about UMIST,

jonnyjackhammer

January 25th, 2010 5:56pm Report this comment

I thought Lisa Jardine was dead right yesterday (Radio 4) - with her defence of the need for spending on science and engineering in Universities. Similarly Brian Cox (of CERN fame) with his observation that less than 0.4% of GDP is spent on R&D in the science and Engineering in the private and public sector combined. Unless we put an emphasis on science and engineering and couple it to the acquisition of self employment and business skills – I can’t see much future possibility of maintaining the size of the national cake never mind meeting all the bleeding heart calls for more equality in its distribution. Quite how we can distribute to the deserving, and not so deserving poor eludes me if we have no people to drive our supposed knowledge based economy and even fewer people with anything that can conceivably be called serious knowledge!
The problem, of course, is not only are these difficult subjects, but scientists and engineers are typically less than glamorous on the personality front and not very good at marketing themselves. (Yes I know it's a cultural stereotype – BUT IT’S TRUE!) More importantly - employee opportunities with reasonable salaries are few and far between. Perhaps this is an example of a rare case for Government positive discrimination and the serious subsidy of University places coupled with guaranteed Post Grad research support (salary) for any scientist or engineer with a 1st or good 2:1. It would be a change from throwing money at Basic Education to little effect and often resulting in even more expensive glossy publicity brochures, but inevitably failing to drag the reluctant horse to the trough for a drink. As a simple one time apprentice engineer and later journeyman historian – it seems obvious to me that Lisa Jardine is spot on.

Fergus Pickering

January 25th, 2010 6:05pm Report this comment

Kingsley Amis did not say that more would mean less. He said more would mean worse. He was referring specifically to the quality of the students. He meant that if the universities expanded then they would take students who were more stupid. Of course because the students were (and ineed are, he wasright) more stupd, the courses have to be dumbed down because they can't do the harder stuff.They are too stupid, don't you see. None of this is the fault of the university teachers. It follows as night follows day.

I've looked at my USS pension scheme. It looks much the same as any pension scheme. You pay in X and your employer pays in 2X. It doesn't look especially generous to me. Of course, as an author, you do not have an employer who pays in for a pension, but most people do, I think. University pay is not particularly high, is it? I mean no professor pulls down the sort of money that administrators in the Social Services do, or not very high up Beeb persons.

JohnAnt

January 25th, 2010 6:19pm Report this comment

The problem is that the subjects that should be scrapped are popular - Studies in Social Anything and Celebridee Media, for instance.
Medieval History demands a knowledge of languages and the continuous stream of world history that schoolchildren are unwilling to learn, and too few teachers competent to teach.
(I've no axe-to-grind connection with Med. Hist, btw :-)

JohnAnt

January 25th, 2010 6:51pm Report this comment

Fergus: USS university pensions are subsidised by the taxpayer via the employer contribution, which comes out of the Higher Education grant.
Philip Inman in The Observer, December 19th 2009:
"Some [public service pensions] are funded by investments. The local government scheme and the universities superannuation scheme are the main ones in this category, though they run large deficits and are topped up by extra employer (state) contributions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/dec/13/pensions-public-cost-funding

See also this from the University of Bath website, http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2010/01/18/uss-qanda/ - a useful feature on the whole problem of pension sustainability. If you look down that web-page to points 4 and 5...

4...."Every 1% increase in employers’ contribution costs USS institutions in excess of £60m each year. Employers have already been obliged to fund a 2% increase (from 14% to 16%) in contributions from October 2009, a figure calculated as a necessary increase following the last valuation in March 2008. The current employer contribution rate is close to the limit of what is affordable...."

5. "Why can’t employers continue to pay the increases to make up the USS funding shortfalls?
[Answer] The pressures on HEIs’ funding are such that the current employer contribution rate is up to the limit of what is affordable. The employers, represented by the Employers Pensions Forum, are seeking to retain a high quality and attractive pension scheme, while containing cost pressures and ensuring that it remains affordable.
There are wider political considerations that need to be taken into account. The sector will find it difficult to justify using public funds to meet further increases in pension costs particularly when the Government has recently announced that, from 2012, employer contributions to the public sector schemes will be capped."
The pressures on HEIs’ funding are such that the current employer contribution rate is up to the limit of what is affordable. The employers, represented by the Employers Pensions Forum, are seeking to retain a high quality and attractive pension scheme, while containing cost pressures and ensuring that it remains affordable.

There are wider political considerations that need to be taken into account. The sector will find it difficult to justify using public funds to meet further increases in pension costs particularly when the Government has recently announced that, from 2012, employer contributions to the public sector schemes will be capped."

JohnAnt

January 25th, 2010 7:29pm Report this comment

Apols for the duplication of the final two quoted paragraphs.

Karla

January 25th, 2010 8:47pm Report this comment

To accommodate the hoards unsuited to university education many universities metamorphosed into Training Colleges. The label 'University' had stayed the same but what people are buying is a different kettle of fish. If courses are rigorous, many students vote with their feet; indeed, I hear from unimpeachable sources, attendance at some courses and tutorials is about 10% !

Beer Moth

January 25th, 2010 9:51pm Report this comment

jonnyjackhammer.

Every word we concur, especially on the superb Lisa Jardine item on R4.

SUSAN HILL

January 25th, 2010 11:13pm Report this comment

Thanks for clearing up the university pensions matter.
No, I have a pension which was all paid for me over many years by me alone. On the other hand, when I was doing said paying in the tax breaks were considerable. They've taken a machete to those now of course.Something to be said for being old after all.

Fergus Pickering

January 26th, 2010 11:33am Report this comment

OK I seem to be wrong about the pensions. I too have some private pensions and half of them were stolen by Gordon Brown. My USS stuff is peanuts. In fact everything is peanuts except the Old Age Pension which, curiously, is 30% bigger than I thought. I still don't think my wife was overpaid and overpensioned.

I am, however, right about what KA said. And universityb teachers arenot to be blamed for the stupidity and bone-idleness of the students. Notv ALL of them, I hasten to add - my daughters are shiningn lights - but a lot of them should not be there and are wastingn their time, their money and our money too. Also there are far too manyforeign students here. They arev here either because they pay (andntherefore theyb can ALL come) or they are fromm thebEU and therefore they consistently fail to pay the fees and should not be allwoed to graduate.

SUSAN HILL

January 26th, 2010 7:46pm Report this comment

Fergus. Sorry about Kingsley A. I should not rely on my obviously failing memory but check.
I totally agree about idle students who shouldn`t be there, can`t be bothered, just want to drink and party. It must be a nightmare trying to teach them.
But my point was that student numbers seem to be sacred so no use looking for cuts there. So where else ?

Dr Fergus Pickering

January 27th, 2010 5:36am Report this comment

OKSusan. One for you. One for me. Why are student numbers sacred? And why not cut down many courses to wto years? For instance nurses really don't need three years to learn what they learn. They never go to the lectures anyway. Who told me this? My daughter did. She was training to be an Occupational Therapist, one up the pecking order. She did go to her lectures and therefore knows about anatomy which the nurses... The whole idea of calleing every bloody thing a DEGREE is anyway absurd. My other daughter is doing painting at Brighton. Excellent course. But such a thing used to be called a Diploma. Calling it a degree doesn't change what it is.As for some of the newest universities. NOTHING they do, pretty well, is what you and I would call a degree. But hell, what's in a name? Cut half the things down to two years and save a bundle. save the students a bundle too. Of COURSE the general standard of university lecturer has gone down. More meant worse in their case too. And as for Ph. d.s, don't get me started. My wife did her best to deny a Ph. d. to a student who a). did not know in what metre Dryden wrote one of his greatest poems (ergo he hadn't read it but felt free to comment crassly on it) and b. did not know the structure of a sonnet. He got his Ph.d. though and is now Doctor Bloodyignorant. I have awarded myself a Ph.d. - from the University of Middle England - on the grounds that I know a damn sight more than he does, at any rate.

Mark Noble

January 29th, 2010 9:55am Report this comment

I recently gained a MSc degree in IT at the University of Liverpool as a mature student. It was an expensive process but one I believe that is beneficial to both the economy and to my career.
At the graduation ceremony there really was a smirking oaf who walked onto the stage to be awarded a BA in “Popular Music Studies”.
I paid for my own degree while listening to pop music is funded by the state. As the great Taki might say, “Go figure”.
Mark Noble

Dirty Euro

January 29th, 2010 5:40pm Report this comment

No way. We need more funding in health and education. If the government needs more money tax the rich.
By your logic we should close down all universities and just leave the 3 best colleges at Oxford and Cambridge open after all less is more.
Infact lets close down all the schools too, after all less is more.
Oh less is more really means dumb people down so we find it easier.

Fergus Pickering

January 29th, 2010 11:21pm Report this comment

I have finally realised what it is about you, Dirty Euro. You are about thirteen years old. If taxing the rich would do it, don't you suppose it would have been done already? After all, the rich are heavily outnumbered.

daniel maris

January 30th, 2010 12:56pm Report this comment

Fregus and others -

Please do some research. Local government pension funds are fully funded through share investments as well. When the funds make a profit above what is required to fund the pensions, the money is taken by the Council tax payer. The employers pay a contribution but it is pretty standard.

Some state pensions e.g. civil service have employee contributions but no specific investmnet fund (although of course the government does own huge amounts of shares). I think only the army actually get a pension without making contributions.

The Tories will lose the election if they carry on any more about reducing people's pension rights - which is exactly what they are talking about.

We are a very rich country and can easily afford decent pensions for everyone who works. Of course, as people live longer, that means contributions must rise - it's a simple choice between decent pensions and more foreign holidays in reality.

In terms of how we get out of the financial hole we are in, I would attack on three fronts: (a) raise revenue through increases in VAT and other sales taxes that the EU might allow us to levy (b) reform the welfare system, so that fewer people become dependent on the state and (c) reduce the number of people in public sector employment through natural wastage (involving recruitment freezes and job reviews).

Anything like a "quango cull" by the way could be horrendously expensive - any reorganisation will be. You get better value through natural wastage reductions.

Sir Graphus

January 31st, 2010 10:21pm Report this comment

Universities policy is being made entirely by people to whom it was free; the older ones would have even received grants.

These people are now up in rarified atmosphere's where they don't really deal with young graduates; they certainly don't sit in open plan offices with them and find out how their student debt dogs their lives.

I'd almost advise a youngster not to bother with university, give up, and become dependent on the state. You get a better standard of living.

I'm determined to pay at least the tuition fees for my children; I'd prefer it if we all did so for all our children, via general taxation and govt funding. All the other toss the govt wastes our taxes on. The Scots have it right.

Sir Graphus

February 1st, 2010 1:56pm Report this comment

with grovelling apologies for stray apostrophe.

Dirty Euro

February 2nd, 2010 12:50pm Report this comment

Fergus "Do not you suppose it would have done allready" well I can see that has to be one of the greatest debating points in history. I have no answer to that. As for making claims about my age, well the debate just got even more high level.

dearieme

February 8th, 2010 9:42am Report this comment

"USS university pensions are subsidised by the taxpayer via the employer contribution" seems to me to be a daft thing to say. You might as well say that Tesco's pensions are subsidised by the customers via the employer contribution. It would make more sense to say that Tesco employees receive part of their pay in the form of pension contributions provided by their employer. The state does not own the Universities; it just bullies them endlessly by exploiting its role as their major customer and its ability to pass any legislation about them that it fancies. This means that University staff suffer many of the disadvantages of being government employees, but not such advantages as, for example, being immune from being sacked. Thousands, or tens of thousands, may be about to illustrate that latter point.

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