William Davies’ article on the plight of universities struck a chord (How the Tories pushed universities to the brink of disaster, 2 July). But he underplays how culpable the last decade of university managers have been, and how damaging and dated their response is now.
Universities and their staff face the same problems, derived from the same causes, but – as Davies points out – university management embraced tuition fees and the marketisation of higher education while staff protested against them. Now universities have at last recognised that the funding system is beyond repair. Faced with a sector meltdown that should see unions, staff and management collectively embracing a new hymn sheet, universities are falling back on the same old, same old: redundancy schemes accompanied by restructurings and efficiency drives that have a whiff of rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
It’s not just the British state that’s been in thrall to “abstract ideological fantasies”. Change and efficiency are the mantras of today’s universities. Not a moment’s thought is given to how predictable the repeated demands for market-led restructuring now look, or to the fact that each efficiency drive ends in mounting workloads, miserable staff and frustrated students.
Faced with a crisis, universities are falling back on conservative leadership appointments, dusting off efficiency programmes they have already run unsuccessfully ad nauseam, and shutting down opportunities for the talented students and staff for whom they ought to be opening doors.
The sector needs leaders who believe in universities, as the British public still does. It needs management to recognise that staff saw this coming, to back away from avoidable conflicts with staff and unions, and have the humility to remake the sector together.
Prof Helen Smith
York
William Davies’ article ignores the fact that Tony Blair opened the university floodgates by declaring that 50% of UK 18-year‑olds should go to university. He also glosses over the learned bodies’ own hubris in not being appropriately cautious (despite the large number of allegedly expert economics academics employed) in building and expanding both the infrastructure and their student count. Labour was equally cavalier in avoiding adding student costs to the budget deficit. Both presided over the pointless exponential growth of master’s courses that now seem to have supplanted a first degree as the minimum for a job.
It’s not just the Tories weighing in against substandard courses, the job market does too. How many places were needed for criminology students? Photography? These were just cash generators that left their output unemployable and in debt.
David Rennie
Cardiff
Williams Davies repeats the mistaken claim that there was no difference in principle between the Conservative higher education fees policy and the earlier Labour introduction of top-up fees. In fact, the income raised by Labour was additional to existing public spending, enabling the protection and expansion of higher education. By contrast, the Tory policy aimed to reduce public funding pound for every pound raised in fees, transferring the burden on to private shoulders. That’s why the policy was opposed by Ed Miliband and the Labour opposition.
Prof John Denham
Shadow business secretary, 2010-13
