Convention for HE Statement, A New Future for HE

This is an edited version of a statement developed, discussed and agreed at a 200-strong online meeting of academic staff and supporters of Higher Education on Saturday 23 May 2020. You can add your support to this statement below.

No return to ‘Business as Usual’:
Time for a New Future for Higher Education

1. The Crisis in Higher Education

Covid-19 has brought universities to the brink of collapse. An estimated 30-60,000 jobs are at risk, and many universities are confronting bankruptcy. The Government’s fee/loan market reforms of Higher Education were originally justified as a way to provide a sustainable future for HE and facilitate student choice. Instead, they have created a financial bubble, the over-expansion of some institutions while others shrank, and debt-fuelled building projects leveraged on ever-growing home and overseas student numbers.

2. The Public Value of Higher Education

The expected economic depression in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis will disproportionately affect young people, and those in the poorest areas of the UK. We need a strong, sustainable HE system if the UK is to recover. Universities are uniquely equipped to enable the development of new knowledge and skills, and thus a social and economic renewal.

The ideology of the tuition fee market has prioritised the private benefit of Higher Education over the public good. But universities do not merely train students for the workplace: they are the centres of research and scholarship essential to the understanding of society and its ills; they develop our culture; and they facilitate much-needed public debate.

• Support for universities must be based on a model of public funding, in conjunction with planned support for a reinvigorated Further Education sector.

Emergency Lobby of Parliament over HE Bill – 12 noon 26.4.17 – Parliament Sq

URGENT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND CIRCULATION

Lobby of Parliament

Government ‘concessions’ not nearly enough, say academics and UCU

London Region UCU has called a lobby of Parliament today (26 April) at 12 noon. The lobby is supported by UCU and the Campaign for the Public University.

What is at stake

The Government has made some concessions to attempt to get the Higher Education and Research Bill onto the statute books before the General Election. The Bill faced nearly 250 amendments proposed by the House of Lords. They need votes in both Houses of Parliament to get approval.

The House of Commons will take a decision on the future of the Bill later today. London Region UCU has called a protest and lobby in Parliament Square from 12 noon. Union members are being urged to write to MPs.

Analysis by UCU, the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU) and the HE Convention is that these “concessions” do not go far enough.

Yesterday UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt wrote to all members. She writes that

Amendments which are NOW AT RISK include:

1. blocking plans for a crude rating of teaching quality
2. removing the link between teaching excellence and tuition fees
3. ensuring any organisation awarding degrees meet improved quality standards
4. removing international students from net migration targets
5. protecting overseas staff

Prof David Midgley, a leading member of the CDBU, notes that the Government has provided little detail in its response to many of the Lords Amendments, and some amendments are not addressed at all.

His analysis, published today by the HE Convention, observes that the Government has potentially made minor concessions on points 1 and 3 above, but has refused to remove the link between the TEF and fees, and has made no improvements to protect international students and staff.

Republished from UCU London Region.

Press release 9/1/2017

Students and staff speak out as the Lords prepare to challenge Jo Johnson over his Higher Education and Research Bill

Universities return to teaching this week, but lecturers, students and researchers face an uncertain future. The Government is pushing ahead with its Higher Education and Research Bill, currently in the House of Lords. A cross-bench alliance of Lords are organising a major revolt over the bill.

What is going on? Why does this matter?

Professor John Holmwood, a sociologist at the University of Nottingham who set up the Campaign for the Public University and is a founding member of the Convention for Higher Education, explained:

“The HE Bill is a deliberate attempt to remove all the checks and balances that protect university teaching standards – and thus the quality of student degrees – in the Higher Education sector.

“A student at a UK university knows that their degree programme is being carried out at a university that is strictly quality-controlled by subject experts among staff and by the Government, through their Quality Assurance Agency, the Higher Education Funding councils, and other bodies. When they graduate, their degree will be worth something.

“But if the Bill goes through unamended, this strict regulation will be scrapped, and we are likely to see quality of degrees in the UK go down. We know of the risks from the US and Australia, countries which have gone down this path before us. We don’t need a Trump University or a Corinthian Colleges [New Yorker report] scandal in the UK. With every such scandal, students suffer and proper universities are immensely damaged.”

In the autumn, across the UK, academics and students piled in to large meetings on university campuses, from Bristol to Liverpool and Oxford. Campaigners from the HE Convention and the University Colleges Union (UCU) and the National Union of Students (NUS) have organised meetings in Parliament as well as Stormont and the Scottish Parliament. Although this is an ‘English’ Bill, the joined-up nature of higher education in the UK means that it will inevitably affect the devolved nations.

Students and staff point out that the Bill has other negative consequences, many of which are also being challenged in the House of Lords.