Ancient and Modern – 30 November 2002

What a fuss everyone is getting into about the funding of universities! If ministers would only sit back with their Aristotle and Plato and think about results, all would become clear.

Aristotle is very keen on the telos – the goal or end of things – and when he discusses the state, he decides its telos is ‘the sharing by households and families in the good life, for the purpose of a complete and self-sufficient life’. This result being of supreme importance, state control over education is required. As he says in his Politics, ‘Since the whole city has one goal, it is evident that there must also be one and the same education for everyone, and that the superintendence of this should be public and not private…. Public matters should be publicly managed.’

So far, so Blairite. What, then, should be the telos of a university education? Here Aristotle becomes very cagy, pointing out that ‘there are no generally accepted assumptions about what the young should learn, either for virtue or the best life, nor is it clear whether education ought to be conducted with more concern for the intellect than for the character of the soul …for things useful in life, or those conducive to virtue or directed at exceptional accomplishments’.

Here Plato comes in. In his Seventh Letter, he distinguishes between two sorts of education: ‘sun-tan’ education – where the student just rolls over occasionally if he can find the time and work up the energy – and real education, where the student is admitted only if he is alerted to what the education entails: ‘the nature of the subject as a whole, and all the stages that must be gone through, and how much labour is required’, and sees it as ‘so wonderful that he must follow it through with all his might’. How does one tell? By results, ‘truth flashing on the soul like a flame kindled by a leaping spark’.

From Aristotle, then, any subject can be studied, but the education must be ‘the same’ for all. So there must be a common standard – all exams set and marked to that standard in all subjects. Only the best being good enough in Blair’s Britain, Oxbridge standards apply. From Plato, only those absolutely committed to study should be allowed in. But Blair wants everyone to have the chance. Impasse? No. Let all pay the full price, wherever they go to study; after all, they will all be following an Oxbridge standard course. Then let the results decide. Those who graduate get their money back; those who don’t, don’t. Good market economics, that. Degrees might be worth something, too.